Editor's note: This is a letter to Hon. Blair Lekstrom, B.C. Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, Hon. Christy Clark, Premier, and Joan McIntyre, MLA, West Vancouver-Sea to Sky. It was copied to The Chief for publication.
Thank you for your reply to my earlier email about the loss of the public transit service between Squamish and Whistler.
We have had public transit between Squamish and Whistler for the past six winters. RMOW and B.C. Transit figures from September 2010 indicate that up to 120 people per day were using public transit, the Squamish Commuter.
The Greyhound is not a viable option. The Greyhound does not run 16 trips daily from Squamish to Whistler. At best they run eight in each direction. Greyhound has made no provisions to handle an additional 120 people per day. People are regularly being turned away from Greyhound. They do not have room.
You were told that a review of the service was done. No such review was done. I attended presentations made by B.C. Transit to District of Squamish Council. The first presentation was an attempt to encourage Squamish to assume the funding formerly shared by Squamish and Whistler. There was no attempt to improve the service or reduce the cost. The second presentation, made by the CEO of B.C. Transit, was a simple admission of defeat.
There was no attempt made to improve service, fares, schedules or cost reductions. We had a service designed for the Olympics and once the Olympics were over, B.C. Transit lost interest.
Aside from the Greyhound being full, they don't serve the locations that public transit did.
About 500 trips per month were made by Whistler residents to Squamish. Many came to Squamish to shop but some came to attend high school and university classes. The Greyhound doesn't go to the high school or Capilano University. Some came to Squamish for medical reasons. The Greyhound doesn't go to the hospital.
Comparison of the cheapest option for Greyhound with the most expensive option for the Squamish Commuter is fallacious. Why not compare the full weekend fare of the Greyhound to the cost of public transit with a monthly bus pass?
Not everyone travels between Whistler and Squamish often enough to warrant purchase of 20 tickets in advance. If a group of people purchase 20 tickets and split them up, it is called fraud. Greyhound frowns on it.
You might want to ask why a heavily used, subsidized public transit service, charging more than Greyhound, should cease to exist.
Like most municipalities in B.C., Squamish and Whistler have relied on B.C. Transit to provide the expertise and guidance needed to implement a practical public transit program. B.C. Transit has let them down.
Thanks to the guidance of B.C. Transit, Whistler has a headline-grabbing fleet of hydrogen fuel-cell buses. They have also raised fares by 67 per cent in the past three years and are reducing service hours by 19 per cent this winter.
Last year the prohibitively expensive transit facility in Whistler was at 45 per cent of its capacity. They have been reducing the number of buses since then but the mortgage payments are still too high.
That is the kind of leadership that B.C. Transit has provided in the Sea to Sky Corridor.
Murray GambleSquamish
