The Editor,
Re. "Improved transit would keep drunks off roads" (Face to Face, The Tri-City News, Dec. 2).
There's no reasonable argument that drinking and driving is connected to the level of transit services. It's one of those "dog ate my homework" excuses that doesn't stand up.
Those who need to make their way home to Coquitlam from downtown Vancouver have the N9 NightBus that runs as late as the 3:09 a.m. departure. That knowledge should help people do the responsible thing and plan ahead for a safe ride home, be it by transit, taxi or a designated driver.
Like every business or household trying to manage within its budget, TransLink needs to make choices - in our case, about how to meet the public's demands based on the resources available to us. We understand the calls for more police on buses, washrooms at SkyTrain stations, or the desire for more transit service for late-night revellers.
To date, we have focused our resources on boosting services to serve daytime commuters and people needing transit to take them to medical appointments, shopping or other services, and to make transit a better option in under-served parts of Metro Vancouver. This is all based on what we heard from the thousands of people who gave us their input in 2009 and 2010, when we consulted across the region on what our priorities should be.
We don't disagree about the value of more NightBus service and will consider options as resources become available for future expansion. In the meantime, our obligation is to do as much as possible to move people who have to get to work, school and services while encouraging people making more discretionary trips to plan around the transit available to them now.
Drew Snider, TransLink
