Free and improved transit is vital

Re: Public transit in post-pandemic trouble, Oct. 21.

Columnist Randall Denley may want OC Transpo to be a business, but what we need is for it to be a public service designed to meet society's needs. Already some 25 to 30 per cent of Ottawa's residents depend on public transit to meet all their transit needs, from getting to work or school, to various appointments, to visiting family and friends. They struggle with the costs, gaps and unreliability of the service.

It is also vitally important that this number grow. The transportation sector accounts for roughly 40 per cent of the province's greenhouse gas emissions. Close to 90 per cent of these emissions are generated by private automobiles and the reduction needed to address climate change is impossible without getting people out of cars and into public transit. The single most effective measure for accomplishing this shift is to make transit fare free, although the quality of the service is extremely important as well.

Such a transit system would require increased taxes, but these would be offset by savings elsewhere. A transit system that made owning a car, or a second car, unnecessary would save people $8,000 a year on average. With fewer cars, there would also be savings resulting from fewer victims of car accidents, and from reducing the ever-growing costs of efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Donald Swartz,

Free Transit Ottawa