The students at VCC and Emily Carr are arguing for “fairness” – but I am not convinced we can afford it!

Everyone wants a deal – why do students go to the front of the line? Why not the low paid, or seniors, or people with disabilities? Custom transit has been underfunded ever since it started and demographics alone show much greater need.

Manipulating data seems to be common out here.

Don’t even get me started on the UPass! My only consolation is that because I didn’t have it, I saved money for the 7 months following graduation, riding on my FastTrax sticker.

The problem that I always had with the inflation argument was that the data was easy to manipulate. Inflation proceeds – if not steadily at least all the time at varying rates. But fares go up by 25c steps (supposedly because customers hate nickels and dimes) every two years or so. So one can pick the dates to show that either fares track inflation – or they are ahead or behind.

But for a real deal get a UPass!

I always take transit when I can, especially if I’m only travelling by myself. Although I do admit I do use the car more than I probably should.

As far as the fare hike goes, I’m not complaining too much because I use a transit pass (3-zone). However, I read that the increases in the last decade have been well more than inflation, while the justification behind the increases has insisted it’s commesurate with it. Top that off with broken promises and you get some pretty angry people. But the author’s revelations on how cheap the trips actually are for regular users are surprising! And he doesn’t even include the Sunday bonus.