City transit department isn’t providing the service riders need

By Lethbridge Herald on May 6, 2022.

Editor:

 I was looking up the definition of the word ‘service.’ Amenity, resource, utility, solution, system were some of the words used to define it. The use of the word was further explained by using it in a sentence: “a system supplying a public need such as transport, communications, or utilities such as electricity and water.”

To drive the point home the final definition was “a regular bus service.” The transportation department and city council can say all kinds of things that give lip service to this word but until they look at the real concerns of many bus riders their new system will continue to fail. 

This system basically runs north, south and west but cuts out many places that used to be serviced. 

We have an elderly friend who can no longer drive; both the buses she used to catch are gone. She’s a brave woman and a great walker but five large blocks in the middle of winter would be beyond a younger person. 

She’s tried – when she does walk all the way from 9th Ave. N (from the Scenic Drive north end) to Stafford Drive to catch the bus, it does not arrive.  She’s talked to the bus drivers and even they can’t be sure when the bus should be there. 

This is a lady who takes care of herself, gets herself to appointments, does her shopping, all by walking or using the bus. The only thing is she has not been able to use the bus since this new system came in. 

She is not the only one: those who need it can’t get it. She has been told that she does not live far enough out of the city centre to warrant having a bus on demand. This is how we care for seniors, workers and school children in this city. This is the level of service you are offering. 

The only way to see an increase in ridership is to service those for whom the bus is meant for. Those of you who write in and say no one rides the bus are right, but it is not because they would not but because they cannot.

Ruth Kereliuk

Lethbridge