Dear Source:
Well, it's only recently come to my attention, when my car went into the shop for a couple of weeks, that the great VITRAN, with its new buses, goes all over the island, East to Red Hook, and West, even out to Bordeaux, except for one stretch — the North Side, from the Bordeaux/Fortuna cutoff, to at least Four Corners (or, to the old timers, Cross Roads). So, all of us living up there, Caret Bay (East and West), Dorothea, Bonne Resolution, Hull Bay, Sorgenfri, Santa Maria, well, we've got to hitchhike, make arrangements with friends, walk, etc.
No matter that we're willing to pay the price, wait the line, and help support it with our taxes…it doesn't matter…it's not going our way. I suppose if I started picking up passengers and charged them two dollars each to bring them into town, or take them back up along the North Shore, all my taxi friends wouldn't mind, would they? Yeah, right, I'd have four flat tires and a broken windshield in no time. So, my choice is $15 each way by taxi from Downtown to the North Side, or hitchhiking — no public transport, no buses, no way. Well, that stinks. People on the North Side work all over downtown, and elsewhere, and I would daresay, that we would contribute more to VITRAN than all of Bordeaux. There's seems to be a disparity here — that means "unfairness" — and it might not be attributed strictly to geography, or certainly, economics. Gee, if there's Federal funding involved, somebody might want to check into this. Or… why not just allow us the [public] service?
Dan Bronsky
North Sider
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