The Editor,
Get out of your car, they say. Get on transit, they say.
But did “they” try it? I think not.
On a recent Friday, my husband and I went into Vancouver by bus for one of our transit days. We made the wrong choice.
We have to catch the 38 from northside to Port Coquitlam Station; we decided to take the 160 for a change, had to wait 25 minutes for the bus, so sat reading the paper. Walked to the stop at 10:14 a.m. — no bus. A few minutes later, along comes the 160 but the driver walks up and says his is the 10:45 am bus and he will be back.
Several of us are standing there, one lady on her way to work.
A supervisor comes, so we flag him down and ask where is our bus? He checks and says at Braid Street station, broken down (this did not make sense to us as Braid Street is not on that run). He was apologetic, saying that cutbacks and poorly maintained buses are part of the problem.
We get on the 160 and of course every stop there are more people asking where is the other bus. Our bus filled up very fast. A lady got on with a stroller, parked along two of the senior handicapped seats (now not available). A little bit later, a wheelchair was loaded, sitting on the opposite side of stroller, people were asked to move (now no seats left standing only); the wheelchair blocked off four seats. The driver did a marvellous job settling in the wheelchair and was both friendly and humorous to all the passengers as they were all asking about the other bus.
The journey was painfully long and slow. We finally got off at Hastings and Abbott in downtown Vancouver at 11:30 a.m. — two and a half hours after we left our home in PoCo.
The journey home, we took SkyTrain to Lougheed Town Centre, and from there, the bus. We just missed a 97B but they are frequent, so no worries.
The next bus, scheduled for 3:34 p.m., did not show. The line was getting longer. The next bus, scheduled for 3:41 p.m., did not show. Finally, the 3:48 bus showed up.
The bus filled — and I mean filled to the doors. We crept most of the way until we hit St. Johns Street in Port Moody and there were a few less people, then we were flying.
We arrived at Coquitlam Central Station and proceeded to wait for our last bus.
We have to hope that once the Evergreen Line is running, the journey might not be so painful.
S. Mullen, Port Coquitlam
