Conservative Leader (and possible Premier) Dennis King was quoted in The Guardian this morning on the carbon tax:
“We understand the premise, that if you put a price on carbon, it is to encourage people to change their habits. The challenge we have here is we don’t have any other options other than to drive.”
Mr. King lives in Hunter River.
There are two buses a day that travel from Hunter River to Charlottetown, one at 7:15 a.m. and one at 8:14 a.m. They pick up at Central Queens Elementary School.
There are two buses back from town to Hunter River, one at 4:20 p.m. and one at 5:30 p.m., leaving from Confederation Centre of the Arts.
The trip takes about 30 minutes each way, which is about the same time it would take to drive a private car. There is WiFi on the buses.
So there are “other options other than to drive,” at least for him.
And if the limited schedule of two buses in and two buses out per day is not sufficiently convenient for Mr. King’s commute, he is in the lucky position, as a new legislator, of being able to do something about that.
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Comments
I generally share his view -
I generally share his view - I've never had to drive as much as I do now since returning to PEI. I used to walk, ride, or take the bus everywhere and refused to drive.
But I apparently was wrong in my belief that a carbon tax was an incentive and was told that it's purpose was to fund alternatives. A purpose not being fulfilled currently on PEI. So is it's purpose to incentivize peoples to use alternatives (regressive taxation) or fund alternatives?
I understand the point you’re
I understand the point you’re making but let’s consider that Dennis actually lives in Brookfield. He would need to drive 11 kms west to Central Queen’s School to catch the bus and then double back eastbound to Charlottetown.
This is roughly equivalent to you having to drive east from Prince St. to Hazelbrook to catch a westbound bus to Hunter River.
Even better: Brookfield is a
Even better: Brookfield is a 7 minute drive from Winsloe, where he can catch Route 11 on T3 Transit to the Charlottetown Mall and then transfer to Route 1 downtown, where the bus stops a block from the Shaw Building.
Winsloe is also only about 30 minutes by bicycle from the Shaw Building. And the buses will carry bicycles in case he wants to cycle in and take the bus back.
My larger points are that there are more options available to all of us than continuing to drive private cars everywhere, options that we all too often ignore, that those options need improving to be more practical, and that a legislator is uniquely positioned to both show leadership by example in this regard and to affect change.
“We have no choice but to drive” is not a sufficient answer in an environment where we need to be carbon neutral in this generation.
I had no idea that we had
I had no idea that we had city bus runs to Hunter River. If we had one to Mount Stewart I could use that to get to work and Roisin to school.
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