Re: Cuts to hours and runs to Handy DART.
I need to add my voice to the objections I have read recently in your paper about the proposed cuts to HandyDART services.
Recently my mother has become increasingly disabled and is now needing the services of HandyDART to ensure she can continue some form of independent living. The proposed cuts would put her (and many others in her situation) at risk of isolation and rob her of the right to age with dignity.
On the United Way website, one can read the statistics that one in four seniors in B.C. are women and almost half have a disability impacting mobility and thus it increases their risk of isolation and death.
I urge the Minister of State for Seniors, the Minister of Health and the newly created Office of the Seniors’ Advocate to address this important matter with our newly elected premier, Christy Clark. Stopping the cuts to HandyDART is in line with the Liberals’ election promise in the BC Families First Agenda.
S. Boutin
Surrey
Allow TransLink competition
Re: “Do not cut the HandyDART”, Leader letters, July 16.
Instead of hopelessly begging the morally and financially bankrupt TransLink for more HandyDART coverage, it’s time to put parts of the Transportation Act on provincial referendum and finally remove all subsidies from TransLink and allow the private companies to easily enter the transportation market, providing much needed competition to the TransLink monopoly.
If this happens, a flood of inexpensive private vans are going to beg the many people who need such services to use their service.
Let’s stop begging and complaining and start pushing the politicians to lower the barriers and costs associated with starting and operating a private transportation company in B.C.
David Simonov
North Delta