To say that driving a vehicle is a bad thing is an understatement.
According to global statistics, including ones online at www.peterrussell.com, the number one cause of injury, world-wide, is traffic accidents, with just shy of 100,000 estimated to have taken place thus far in 2010, as of press time.
Now, look at the costs associated with owning a vehicle. Between insurance, the high costs of gas, the cost of oil changes and other forms of maintenance, and the cost of the vehicle itself, owning a vehicle is a costly endeavour. Canadian rock group Metric put it best when, in one of their songs, they sang, “Buy this car to drive to work/ Drive to work to pay for this car.”
And I haven’t even touched upon the environmental implications of owning and driving a vehicle, which are substantial. Why do most people drive? Because they’re lazy. This is, of course, excluding people with medical problems, and people, such as delivery drivers, newspaper reporters, and others who must zip between different communities at a moment’s notice, and transport large items. Most people shouldn’t require a vehicle to walk across the Town of Lake Cowichan.
This also excludes people must commute to work, and public transit isn’t sufficient.
Public transit is currently at a catch 22. Without increased usage, BC Transit can’t justify adding more hours. Without more hours, it’s not convenient enough for people to use it. See Page 2 for more on the future of public transportation.
With a few new sheltered bus stops in the Cowichan Lake area, and a few more hours added, and better linkages to Duncan coming up in the near future, things are beginning to look up for public transit users. Let’s hope things continue to improve, until it gets to a point where the necessary evil ball-and-chain that is vehicle ownership is no longer necessary in the Cowichan Lake area.