Home, Arthur...and make your best time

Make drivers pay up: transit report

Road tolls, higher vehicle fees and even increases to insurance are among commissioner's recommendations

The key to this story lies in the fact revealed very near the end.

Vancouver has lower overall use of its system than Toronto and Montreal, so revenue from riders doesn't cover as much of the operating cost – one reason the Vancouver system has to be subsidized so heavily by taxes.

Let's keep this simple.

When Transclunk makes riding its toys a reasonable, safe and pleasant experience, I'll be there.

You make people pay to get on your little cabooses and stop letting addicts and drunks on for free on the laughable "honor system" and have enough security to allow for some civil behaviour on your buses, and I'll be there.

Until then, you can tax and toll and fee me till you're blue.

I'm going to stick with my barely polluting 1993 450 km-to-the-tank Mazda 3 and count the six bicycles going over the Burrard Bridge any day.

Alternatives

A commenter raises an interesting point.

Responding to yesterday's post, "Elected on Lie$," he tells us that whenever criticism of Campbell's Liberals breaks out at a social gathering, he always manages to close the discussion with the question, "Who would you vote for then? Carole James."

Game, set and match.

Well, my answer would be "Yes. For sure. Carole James."

Because even though I don't think she's the greatest political leader in recorded history and even though I know that she must be beholden to someone, I don't think of her as a creepy, lying crook with a stone cold heart who will rob milk from children's breasts at any opportunity to build something new made of cement.