Comment 101179

By jayrobb (registered) | Posted May 09, 2014 at 11:58:09

I relied on public transit while I was at university and during my first five years in the workforce.

So I believe transit's an essential service for connecting people to school and jobs. This is especially true in our lower city code red neighbourhoods. The single mom who has to drop her kid off at daycare and then get to work or classes (and often both in the same day)is absolutely dependent on fast, frequent and affordable transit. Citizens in our code red neighbourhoods deserve the best citywide transit system that we can deliver.

This seems to be missing so far from a conversation dominated by talk about economic uplift, downtown renewal and getting "normal middle-class adults" and "guys in thousand dollar suits" riding the rails (I'm hoping that earlier comment posted on this thread was tongue-in-cheek).

It may be worth talking with lower city residents who ride the B Line 13,000 times a day (it should be easy to do since we know where to find them and they're a captive audience). What do they value most in a transit system? Do they want a system that's fast? Frequent? Affordable? Do they care if they're riding in a bus, a BRT or an LRT?

If LRT meets their needs and is a poverty to prosperity solution for families living in our lower city priority neighbourhoods, then let's start adding that to the conversation.

I don't really care about the guy in the thousand dollar suit enjoying his commute to work. But I do care about making a hard life a little easier for the single mom determined to build a better life for her and her child.

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