INSIGHTS

‘Damn motherhocd’ until
transit service is better!

THE COMMUTER’S relationship with public transit is like
miatriage. If it doesn’t work out, divorce will follow, leading
to an equally problem-plagued second marriage — the
commuter back wedded to his car.

As 166,000 vehicles a day clog
the two inadequate Inlet crossings
and their approaches — a 42 per
cent increase since 1970 — that’s
the gloomy North Shore picture
emerging from the recent traffic
study for North Van councils by
N.D. Lea Consultants Ltd. And,
as in many broken marriages,
money is the end problem.

Between 1977 and 1985 one in
five former transit users abandon-

ed the buses for their automobiles.

Despite a boost from Expo and a
modest increase since 1988, bus

ridership is still lower than 02 years
ago. It parallels the overall Lower
Mainland situation, where today's
combined bus, SeaBus and ALRT
system carries only two-thirds of
the volume carried by the old B.C.
Electric trams and buses back in
1948.

The main reason, says the study,
is that transit travel takes TOO
LONG. Car users apparently still
find traffic and parking headaches
the lesser evil.

Oddly enough, the SeaBus is a
prime villain. Buses were rerouted

to serve it by B.C. Transit, whose
priorities are not always those of
North Van. This left many resi-

dents, especially above the Upper
Levels, with a reduced transit ser-
vice which can make a bus ride

take three times as long as by car.

There's an east-west problem,
too, due partly to the North
Shore's ‘trasher-of-bacon"’ geog-
raphy — a narrow 20-mile strip
from Horseshoe Bay to Deep
Cove. Hence, for example, the
three-bus trip from Ambleside to
Lions Gate Hospital.

Given not only traffic arteries
ever more overloaded but also the
pressing environmental need today
to cut air pollution, more bus
riders and fewer cars on the road

have clearly become a motherhood
issue. Equally clear is that North
Vancouverites don’t give a damn
for motherhood without big im-
provements in transit speed and
convenience.

Useful minor aids :night include
smail HandyDart-type buses for
low-population areas, more ex-
press buses and rush-hour parking
bans to provide queue-jumping
bus-only lanes. But the ultimate

‘OP JAZZ MEN...Handsworth’s (left to right) Tony Snead, Mark Follett, Dave Bridger and Leigh Grisewood
with the winning trophy from the recent Surrey Jazz Festival. Tony also won a $2,000 music scholarship plus

$100 cash for best solo trumpet.

Shovei it!

OURTESY was slip-sliding away in the snow-
laden Lonsdale city core earlier this month.

The unusually heavy February snowfalls and
cold weather left the area a winter war zone of slush,
frozen ice patches and insurmountable snow banks,
broken by the occasional cleared store-front sidewalk.

North Vancouver City, which is responsible for
clearing sidewalks in front of public properties, advis-
ed store owners and homeowners through advertise-
ments of their obligation to clear sidewalks in accor-
dance with the city bylaws.

Enforcement officers even delivered notices to
Lonsdale stores from 8th to 24st streets, reminding
merchants to get out their shovels,

But those notices went largely unheeded.

Sidewalk clearance was patchy at best and non-exis-
tent at worst, according to complaints to the News
from city residents.

The situation was especially hard on the city’s el-
derly.

Because heavy snowfalls on the North Shore are
rare, area store owners might be unaware that the onus
is on them to clear their sidewalks of snow and ice.

But, with a quarter of the city’s inhabitants over 55
years of age, sidewalk clearance should be done as
much out of simple courtesy as it should be out of civic
duty.

Courtesy cannot be enforced. But civic duty can,
and should be, through fines and reprimands.

answer is for North Van to divorce
itself entirely from B.C. Transit,
so as to set its own transit
priorities and routes.

North Van councils, in fact, are
now seriously looking at the option
of an independent ‘‘blue bus”’ ser-
vice like West Van’s, which has
kept Tiddlycove riders pretty hap-
py for half a century. The
Municipal Act allows it and fund-
ing would be available from B.C.
Transit.

But whether ENOUGH funding
— without higher fares, higher
taxes or both — for the extra buses
and drivers almost sure to be
needed to lure car users back
aboard is another question again.

Money, as we noted, is an eter-
nal problem — in marriages and
divorce alike!

ween

TAILPIECES: Know someone
who's ‘‘served with the greatest
distinction ... in any field of
endeavor benefiting the people?"’
Don’t wait for him/her to get the
Order of Canada —- we now have
our own brand new Order of B.C.
and nominations are being received
for the first list this spring. Forms
from the Deputy Provincial Secre-

: photo Cindy Goodman

LZ, acetone

‘kd rreserstdtéd tir,

sm song ot wouroanpucn wancouvi

MUMDAY © WLOMESDAY « FRIDAY

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TO WEAR witd pride ...the Order
of B.C.

tary, Victoria, B.C. V8V 1X4...
I’ve lost count of the many tens of
grands the lady has given West
Van over recent years, but Kay
Meek is at it again. She’s now do-
nated $60,000 to the Memorial
Library Fund — still around $1.5
million short of its $4.75 million
target — to be used for its refer-
ence department ... And
celebrating a memorable ‘‘second
birthday”’ today are the Amblecide
Inn’s popular owner-hosts, Willy
Brueckel and wife Martha. Willy’s
65th came three weeks ago on Feb.
8 -— but Feb. 28 is the no less im-
portant ‘‘rebirth’’ anniversary of
his successful 1988 heart transplant
at Edmonton University Hospital.
wee

WRIGHT OR WRONG: Sow wild
oats and you'll never have a crop
failure.

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