Dear Editor,
Peter Fasbender recently told Lower Mainland mayors to ‘suck it up’ when discussing provincial transit funding.
He subsequently apologized.
There is still no promise to increase transit funding except for yet another multi-billion dollar bridge.
An apology will be small consolation to the thousands of HandyDART riders homebound by lack of funding to this crucial service.
Seniors and people with disabilities should not have to fight for public transportation.
The provincial government cinches its purse strings when people with mobility issues ask for funding.
But it allows tax dollars to be funneled to profit organizations.
HandyDART is operated by one such for profit company.
At the last TransLink meeting, HandyDART riders rallied and moved TransLink to do a cost comparison between this service being run by for profit and in-house operators.
TransLink hired an American corporation to do this comparison.
Taxpayers can only hope that their taxes will be
put directly into service.
Flippant comments by Peter Fasbender are painful to those people who see HandyDART being farmed out to foreign companies and poorly trained taxi firms.
People who need HandyDART deserve equality.
They should not have to ‘suck it up’.
Mark Beeching, Langley City