Just when I was starting to feel a wee (that’s a very, very, very little wee) comfortable with Rodney MacDonald, he opens his mouth and glibly tells the beleaguered taxpayers of Nova Scotia facing yet another gasoline price hike to “take the bus.”
We’re getting kicked where it hurts the most, and he, who last fall flew home to Mabou in a government helicopter, pissing away $2,200 of our hard earned tax dollars for his convenience, wants us to buy fuel-efficient cars and ride public transit. Has he, or one of the brain-cramped idiots who advise him, checked the prices of the hybrid cars? Most of us can’t afford the fuel for the cars we drive, and he wants us drop $50,000 for a new car. Actually, for that amount, you would get the bare minimum.
Unlike Rodney, I do ride Metro Transit’s Link system and it provides commuters with the best bang for their buck, provided you leave home extra early to get a parking spot at the Park and Ride lot at the Sackville Terminal. The Sackville-Halifax Link provides great service, but parking is definitely at a premium.
Let me qualify “best bang for your buck.” For $75 a month, you get your drive to work in the morning and back home at night. In addition, you (hopefully) get your parking.
When the service was launched, there was adequate parking for the riders. However, as the awareness of the convenience of the Link grew and ridership increased, the parking lot filled to overflowing. It overflowed right into a huge vacant field abutting the parking lot. So, what did those pillars of knowledge, who are masked during the day as city planners, do? They approved a building permit for a self-storage building that took away the parking and provided yet another ugly addition to the area.
Now, once the parking lot fills up and the limited spaces along the road are taken, people who want to take the bus have nowhere to park. There, my friend, you have an excellent example of what is wrong with HRM. Nobody looks at the big picture. Or, in today’s lingo, thinks outside the box.
Our Rodney, who says “take the bus,” in one breath, and then blurts out that transit is a “municipal responsibility” in the next, gives new meaning to trying to suck and blow at the same time.
Maybe he’ll get it when, after the next election he is unemployed and has to buy his own gas. “Take the bus.” I already do, Rodney. So why don’t you take a hike!
(Al Hollingsworth is a retired journalist and broadcaster)
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