Whitehorse has taken a wonderful upswing, expanding to meet the rest of the world in this luxurious society we get to enjoy. Sure there are problems, but the culture and the incredible renovations to our infrastructure have made the Yukon a really amazing place to live and explore.
So it remains a mystery to me why our city transit service is still lagging behind in the service they are providing. Our Monday to Friday services, in my opinion, are great. The routes may not encompass every single street, but there isn’t too much difficulty to get to and from any subdivision in the city. The drivers are friendly and helpful and I have noticed that the routes are closer to being consistently on schedule as time goes on. This is all wonderful, especially for someone such as myself who has opted to not own an automobile out of a desire to be more environmentally and financially conscious. I also really appreciate the partnership that the transit system has made with Yukon College to provide transit services to all full-time students. That is a wonderful improvement that benefits many people.
But there are a couple key issues though that I feel need to be addressed: first, there is no Sunday service. This to me is absolutely ridiculous. There is definitely a large enough number of people who rely on public transit that there should be buses operating on Sundays. We aren’t a tiny town that doesn’t provide services on Sundays — we are a city and should be providing week-long transportation for those residents who rely on our bus system. Second, I feel that extending the hours of Saturday service should be seriously considered. This city is bustling with activities, and the weekends are full of things to do during the day and well into the evening.
I was able to review the financial statements provided by Transit Services and they acknowledge that there has been huge growth in the number of people using the city transit services provided — that ridership has in fact doubled. Personally I would be open to seeing transit fares increased marginally to help promote new growth in our transit system. And I feel there are many who would agree that we need to expand the availability of public transit to meet the needs of our growing city.
Telek Rogan
Whitehorse