Bus Fares: City Closed, Uncaring, Myopic: WHOPPER WATCH

11/24/2024

whopper.watch .12.26

“The City of Ottawa is committed to fostering affordability, accessibility, and inclusivity for all residents, especially seniors who rely heavily on public transit,”

Motion to go to transit commission on Monday

No it isn’t.

A city committed to affordability, accessibility and inclusivity does not threaten to raise fares for the poor elderly by an outrageous 120 per cent then drop that wild increase to 60 per cent which is also outrageous.

A city committed to affordability, accessibility and inclusivity would not double the increase for student passes on OC Transpo flying in the face of a contract signed by the municipality with the city’s student associations and then send notice of it to the schools’ administrations with whom the city did not have a contract. The city could not be bothered to even bring the student associations into the discussion or, incredibly, into the notice of the fare increase. You can add arrogant to the list of nasty adjectives applied to the municipality.

Furthermore, a city committed to affordability, accessibility and inclusivity would not announce a massive senior and student fare increase on Friday afternoon with the motion to be tabled at transit commissioner on Monday. Participatory democracy at its worst.

As the old cheerleader refrain goes when the ref makes a bad call … elevator, elevator, we got the shaft.

The city is not committed to affordability, accessibility and inclusivity. It is committed to being uncaring, closed and exclusive. It is committed to giving money to rich guys but paying for city mistakes with money from the people least able to afford it. Sort of blast from the past … the past being the Middle Ages.

And the rush to the bad decision is especially unseemly. The city appears to feel that doubling student increases and pasting a 60 per cent pass increase on the poor elderly is affordable. This is straight out of the propaganda playbook. Call something terrible good enough times and people will believe it. You know, like call Donald Trump good enough times and the suckers vote for it.

And the rush means not enough study, not that the city would be likely to get it right with time. Just like bulldozing ebuses through council as fast as possible negated the opportunity to discover that they would be powered by gas generators, that Hydro Ottawa didn’t have enough capacity, that ebuses are unsuitable for this climate and that they have myriad technical problems.

However, the rush eliminates proper dissent and the political problems go away … which is the most important thing.

Yet again we see examples of city arrogance and incompetence which can be buried with propaganda far from the minds of the electorate.

Another cock-up of monstrous scale is on the horizon.

This city never learns.

But then the city is always right because it dismisses public input and can’t see beyond its own ‘expertise’.

So why change if you are always right. We were right about ebuses, right about light rail, right about Lansdowne, right about the new central library, right about sprung structures, right about student bus fares, right about senior fares.

That’s quite a winning streak.

Ken Gray