Trade your car for Lifetime Bus Pass

Not sure if anyone caught this tidbit on CKY news last night. Councillors Smith (who doesn't drive) and Eadie (who can't drive) came up with a solution to increase bus rider-ship in our fair city.

Give the City your car and in exchange.... get a lifetime pass to ride the bus. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at such a seemingly preposterous idea.

A comparison was made with a city in Spain which is slightly smaller than Winnipeg but enjoys the benefit of having one of the most temperate climates on earth. The temperature there rarely dips below 10 C and rarely exceeds 27 C. In that city, you give them your vehicle and in exchange you'll receive a lifetime pass to use the local trolley system.

Neither councillor was able to come up with any details how the program would work but I've long maintained that winnipeg transit could be made free for everyone and rider-ship would be lucky to increase by 10%.

So... who wants to trade in their cars for lifetime bus pass???

For those that missed it... here is the link to the story.

http://winnipeg.ctv.ca/

Oh, the abuse that could invite. Buy an old beater for a couple of hundred, do enough so it would just pass the safety inspection, and trade it in for a lifetime's worth of transit fares potentially worth thousands. Where do I sign up?

A more realistic approach would be to offer a certain amount of transit credits based on the MPI value of the car.

I have a 1982 F-150 that I would happily give Ross in exchange for a lifetime bus pass.

oh hell I would go out and buy and old junker and give to them for a lifetime pass

sh1t, I'd give them my '86 Daytona for a monthly bus pass.

Hey, North End residents. This is the guy you elected. How's that working out for you so far???



At least everyone in Daniel Mac knew what they were getting when they voted.

I didn't vote for him

...nor would you admit to it if you did.

Nah, I always take responsibility for my own stupidity.

....A comparison was made with a city in Spain ....

Too much of this is going on....the 'museum' and now this...

We have to keep our elected and self-appointed officials from going to Spain methinks.

I'd rather let them go and keep them from coming back

Well, I'm sure there would be some rule...like...
You cannot own or have a vehicle registered in your name to qualify for the bus pass program.

ie. buying the old junker to turn in doesn't work.

however...

why doesn't mpi jump in on this? they seem to have money to burn...so they should setup a program where:
if you own a vehicle which is registered, insured, etc., and you show your registration to a bus driver (or setup some kind of barcode system), then you get to ride the bus for free.
mpi can pickup the bill.

Thus, you are actually CHOOSING to ride the bus, despite having a licensed, working vehicle available to you.

Will it boost ridership? maybe a little...but it could also be promoted as a campaign against drunk driving...that you take your registration out of your vehicle and ride the bus or transit instead.

How about, if I want to own a car, I own a car and if I want to ride the bus, I pay the fare, or any combination of the 2. I own a car (2 of them technically), but use the bus to get back and forth from work on most days. I haven't used my car since Sunday. Why do Smith and Eadie think the 2 things are mutually exclusive?



Any program of this type, will require a small platoon of highly paid bureaucrats to administer it, and of course, at least half of them will have to have some type of disability or impairment which require a substantial budget to accomodate them in the workplace; all of which would cost several times more than the actual program.



But this will somehow make all these folks saying "Look our program resulted in 10 less cars on the streets, so we are moving closer to meeting the Kyoto protocols, in spite of China not doing a single thing to reduce their emissions."



And, of course, it will make the North end a safer place to live and keep our property taxes down so we are competitive enough to create private sector jobs.



I am so tired of this hairbrain kind of thinking. It is nothing but a distraction from what these elected idiots should really be focusing on.