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Near­ly a year af­ter it was con­demned as a “free for all” and tar­get­ed for re­form, the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route pass sys­tem has been re­set, but of­fi­cial fig­ures show dis­tri­b­u­tion con­tin­ued un­changed through the tran­si­tion, rais­ing ques­tions about whether the sys­tem was ever fun­da­men­tal­ly over­hauled.

When Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar stood be­fore re­porters on May 22, 2025, she framed the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) pass sys­tem as one of po­lit­i­cal favours that had gone unchecked.

“A sim­ple thing as a bus route pass was be­ing used like a giv­en out Kiss cake or what you call it, cook­ies, you know, hops bread, bake, what­ev­er… this thing was like re­al­ly, lit­tle gifts with­out sub­stance,” she said.