Re: “Transit users should pay,” Letters, The Leader, Aug. 2.
I completely agree with Mr. Sherrold Haddad that transit users should pay for services, but this includes all transit users.
The gas tax Mr. Haddad and others pay is not only used for the SkyTrain and our bus system, it pays for road maintenance and improvements.
For Mr. Haddad and others to suggest that the dedicated folks who walk and stand waiting for buses in all kinds of weather should be the only ones to pay for transit, while he and others who continue to choose to drive (usually alone), sipping lattés and listening to tunes in the warm comfort of their cars, is irresponsible and disgusting.
The more costly private transit becomes, while keeping public transit reasonably priced, the quicker the Mr. Haddads will be encouraged to abandon their environmentally destructive, climate-changing cozy car commute habit.
While buses are the most efficient and environmentally least harmful way to travel next to the bicycle and shank’s mare, 75 per cent of private vehicle drivers commute in single occupancy vehicles (SOVs).
If Mr. Haddad wishes to continue to drive, he might join Ride Share BC to help offset the costs of his premium choice in travel.
It’s interesting to note that we would not have had to twin the Port Mann if just half of those SOVs, many of them SUVs, had taken a few minutes time out of their day to carpool and help unclog our roads the way some of us who use public transit have been doing for years.
Lance Read, Surrey