The #BCGreenParty made the first big splash of the 2024 provincial #election campaign with a major commitment to expand #PublicTransit, including a promise of “free public transit, province-wide” that has been widely criticized as being too costly.

While shifting to #FreeTransit for everyone, everywhere could be fiscally and logistically challenging in the short run, BC needs bold solutions to address the congestion clogging up our cities, shrink our societal dependence on cars and improve affordability of #transportation.

Free transit would need to be combined with major transportation investments to bolster local #transit systems and interconnect them across the province, as recommended in our recent #ConnectingBC report. In that report we call for doubling the number of buses in BC within five years and tripling within 10 (both of which are echoed in the #GreenParty platform), in addition to new #rail and #ferry infrastructure and expansion of free transit.

https://www.policynote.ca/free-transit

#BCpoli #CDNpoli #BCElection2024 #BCVotes2024 #Election2024 #ElectionsBC #PublicPolicy #TheFutureIsGreen #Environmental #Infrastructure #FreeTransitForAll #PublicTransportation #BusTransport #BritishColumbia #VancouverIsland #BCGreens

But:

Luxembourg: 998 square miles

Clackamas County: 1,883 square miles

TriMet 533 square miles + Clark County 656 square miles = 1,189 square miles

It is not as great as it seems

#publictransportation #trimet #ctran #freetransitforall #pdx #luxembourg

@BrentToderian Direct link to the article because twitter is a shitshow: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2023/dec/18/bollards-and-superblocks-how-europes-cities-are-turning-on-the-car

+1: What the article mention: among multiple reasons, people are turning to biking because city transit is awful.

-1: What the article doesn't mention: many people are turning to biking because they cannot afford cars, and in many cases, cannot afford public transit either.

Yes, bike paths are nice, place more of them, please! But many people aren't biking because cities are becoming more bike-friendly, but because cities are ironically becoming more people-hostile.

When you spend 70% of your salary to pay your rent, and the rest to pay for food, you're not biking 3h each day for funzies. You do it to survive.

#FreeTransitForAll #FundPublicTransit