Bus service gap could mean opportunity

Re How deregulation killed bus service west of Sudbury, July 11 If deregulation was the culprit that eliminated bus service to many western communities, perhaps it could also be the solution to that dire problem. If there’s really a lack of government red tape, would some wise entrepreneurs not be able to step into the service gap?

How much government interference stands in the way of someone renting or buying a bus and beginning to serve the affected communities?

If such a solution is without months or years of hearings and licensing rigmarole, then someone else will profit from Greyhound’s cancellation. George Dunbar, Toronto This is an interesting article that confirms what many of us believed would happen.

Gray Coach managed to serve many small towns in southern Ontario as well as Sudbury and North Bay. Once the Ontario Highway Transport Board gave operating authority to Greyhound to operate express service between Toronto and the north, it was the beginning of the end for Gray Coach.

It didn’t help that Go Transit took over operation of Gray Coach’s lucrative Hamilton-to- Oshawa routes.

Then as a final blow, the TTC commisioner at the time said that there was no longer a need for a public entity to own an interurban bus line, as the private sector could do it. The TTC sold it to a Scottish company, which in turn sold part of it to Greyhound.

We had better interurban service in the 1970s than we do now outside of areas served by Go Transit. Doug Fisher, Toronto

SLAV question got it wrong

Re Slave play to continue across Quebec, July 11 David Laferrière, artistic director for a Quebec theatre planning to stage the controversial musical play Slav, got the question all wrong when he asked: “Should white people in 2018 sing and celebrate slave songs, created by suffering and humiliation?”

The question really needs to focus on whether or not Black people should be given the opportunity to sing and celebrate slave songs created by their forebears’ suffering and humiliation! Robin Breon, Weston, Ont.