Dear Editor:
Re: TransLink to eliminate Taxi Saver
I would like to give your readers, and TransLink's Mr. Snider, a profile of a taxi fare saver user. My mother is 87 years old and in pretty fair shape for a person her age. She tries her best to be independent.
She is not wealthy, but she is lucky enough to be able to take care of her own housing and personal needs.
Her doctor wants her to walk to stay mobile. She tries. She has driven a car for many years, but as she ages, and with family encouragement, she is weaning herself off driving.
She hasn't been a transit user. Catching buses, understanding schedules and using SkyTrain frightens and overwhelms her. Sometimes she gets lost. She gamely tries and uses transit if I am with her.
Sometimes I can't be there. She walks the six or so blocks to the mall and uses a taxi saver to get home. It costs $5 instead of $10. Over the course of a month it takes $50 of her limited funds instead of $100. She can't afford $100. When the taxi saver programs ends she will walk 50 per cent less.
Often these outings are spontaneous, based on how well or unwell she is feeling on a particular day. Pre-planning what time HandyDart will pick her up would decrease the number of trips she makes to the mall, and have a detrimental effect on her health and self esteem. Surely TransLink does not expect that HandyDart will be able to pick her up promptly on short notice.
She uses buses when she can, when she is feeling refreshed and capable, but on those days that she tires more quickly than expected or just can't cope with the bus, she makes use of the taxi saver program.
It is such a little bit of money in TransLink's budget to help out seniors, to let them keep their dignity and, more importantly, their health.
Please reconsider this decision and continue the TaxiSaver program.
Sharon Kurtz, New Westminster
