Editorial

By Maureen Parriott

Special to the Times-Chronicle

Granted, talking about bus schedules and routes isn’t the most exciting topic in the world. Unless you need a bus and it isn’t there.

Last week, BC Transit Planner Adriana McMullen and RDOS Planner Apollo Figueiredo held a series of open houses, or “public engagements,” as they call them, in Summerland, Penticton, Okanagan Falls, Oliver, and Osoyoos. 

They presented the “Transit Future Plan” that BC Transit developed in collaboration with the RDOS in 2015, but whose roll-out has been delayed for various reasons, including COVID.

They wanted to announce the improvements BC Transit has made in their routes and schedules, and to request input about what else would make them more responsive to their ridership. 

They had bulletin boards illustrating soon-to-be expanded routes within each community, more bulletin boards containing a survey about riders’ priorities, and a schedule of more frequent trips up and down the valley between communities. 

Only a couple of Osoyoos residents showed up.  

“But I don’t ride the bus; I drive my car,” was a typical response when several locals were asked why they didn’t attend the meeting.

Wait, what? Doesn’t that seem just a little short-sighted? 

Osoyoos is a retirement town. We’re full of seniors who will stop driving their cars one day, if they haven’t already. A town where many people don’t like to drive to Oliver or Penticton in the snow or the dark. And a town where people routinely complain about the lack of public transportation. 

I hate to say it, but we kind of muffed it, Osoyoos. We had an opportunity to give our opinions and suggestions to an organization that seems genuinely interested in serving us better. Who is about to increase trips to and from Penticton from two a day to four. Who wants to know if we would like two trips a day on Saturday. Who wonders if there should be a commuter bus in the morning and afternoon between Osoyoos and Oliver. Who wants to show us the new neighbourhoods they will cover in Osoyoos. Who wonders if they’ve left out anything that we think is important.

But all is not lost. 

We can still see this information online, and we can take the survey online as well. Just go to https://engage.bctransit.com/southokanagan2021. 

This is a quality of life issue for all of us, and what we think is important now and for the future.