I was stimulated to expand on the public transport theme after reading in your paper about the lack of shelter for passengers travelling by bus from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal.
I have always found it unfathomable that throughout the CRD most bus stops have no shelter of any sort. This is quite striking in my area of Wilkinson Road. Municipal councils and environmental activists forever harp on that us Citizen Joes and Janes forsake our vehicles for public transport. I have no idea where their heads are. It rains and blows for several months every year and we are asked to stand in the rain and get splashed by passing vehicles. Some of us Joes and Janes are elderly and infirm, or in a hurry to pick up kids from daycare, or shop for essentials for the evening meal, or get kids to after-school activities. And we’re supposed to stand in the rain and wait for a bus that comes perhaps twice an hour. Forget it!
I am fortunate. I can easily afford private transport and I also bike but I will use public transport when it works for me, which isn’t very often. Every time I drive by bus stops where people are suffering lousy weather I feel that our virtue-signalling leaders cannot see the obvious. It’s not rocket science. Unfortunately, I’m not holding my breath. Victoria is not famous for a can-do-get-done ethic.
Paul Stubbing
Saanich
