Public transit not for everyone

Montreal, true to its history of finding unique and peculiar solutions to problems with which others already have great experience, seems to have chosen a strategy of “make drivers’ lives as miserable as possible, and maybe someone will step up and build a good transit system.”

Valérie Plante came to power on a promise to make movement within the city more efficient. Her first step in this direction is to cut off an important access route between east and west. This will, of course, put extra pressure on the other dilapidated and overloaded routes that circumnavigate the mountain. Drivers’ lives will become even more miserable.

Plante plays to the dream of making Montreal a hipster haven of bicycles and public transit. Of course, she sees the world through her 43-year-old eyes filled with vim and vigour. But even with a good public transit system (still many years away), public transit isn’t for everyone.

With some 25 per cent of the population over 60 years old and with the attendant limitations to mobility that come with age, for many, the car is the only viable way to get around and to spend money in Montreal. Not to mention all the people who make their living using a car — salespeople, taxi drivers, delivery personnel.

The through-traffic ban over Mount Royal is ill-conceived. Even hipsters have to make a living. And even hipsters get old.

Steve Courmanopoulos, Pointe-Claire