The proposed 2022 C-Tran cuts for express routes into Portland is too extreme a change coming too soon. What’s clear is this: COVID-19 return-to-work is still being sorted out by most employers, thousands of new apartments are going up downtown and the Interstate 5 Bridge plans are still TBD. Vancouver needs express routes opportunities more than ever.
At the Oct. 12 meeting, the board should vote “wait” and give the community a chance to get past mask mandates and the work-from-home period. How can C-Tran say there is no demand for a route when they don’t put buses on the road? C-Tran has cut pickup and drop-off times already, making the routes useless for many current and maybe soon-to-return riders. It’s become common for what should be a 10-minute wait for a bus to turn into 30 or 45 minutes. Cutting express routes doesn’t serve the community.
C-Tran is using the truncated service it has provided since 2020 to make decisions that will impact your family, friends and neighbors, folks who will be trying to sort out a post-COVID commute. Cutting express routes like this is too extreme and doing it now, when even C-Tran has told The Columbian it doesn’t know what post-COVID will look like, is too soon.
