Public transit – a green essential service

I came to the revelation last night that Public transit needs to be declared an essential service.

It was about 12:00 when a ruckus broke out in the GAB bunker (hidden below my unused garage floor). It was just the novices boasting about their Kung Fu being better than someone else’s Kung Fu and yet another fight had broken out. I walked in, yelled and threatened to push the sprayer on a vintage can of 1960s hair spray I keep handy to brake up such occurrences. One of the girls screamed, “Not the ozone” and fainted, the combatants stopped their fighting long enough for me to smack them in the back of the heads and send them to their bunks.

I explained that this was unacceptable behaviour, especially when I was sleeping. Pointing to one bloodied self proclaimed Shaolin Green , “When and where is your next assignment?”

“Three weeks tomorrow in B.C., I’m hitting a lab growing Transgenic Salmon, Sir”, he stammered.

“Ok then, lights out and shut up, you’ll need to be rested.”

On the way back to my bedroom I realized we could be in a world of trouble with our mission deadlines due to an impending strike buy CN workers that would cause leave many of the Green Assassin Brigade operatives unable to reach their targets in a environmentally low impact manner, this was serious. Public transit is not only important for GAB but for hundreds and thousands of average people who for cost reasons, environmental reasons, highway crowding etc are doing the right thing in using public transit. TTC, GO Transit and all other regional or municipal transit systems are the life blood of industry. These systems move people to their places of employment in an efficient manner without clogging the roads, taking up endless tracks of parking spaces all while burning a fraction of the fuel the cars needed to replace them would consume.

Public transit is an economically and ecologically essential service. While I feel for the unionized workers being stripped of their collective bargaining rights, they are neither poor nor oppressed; I think binding arbitration will treat them fine. What would be the point in building up public transit to curtail greenhouse emission if works stoppages discredit the systems and drive away rider ship? Public transit needs to be affordable, efficient and reliable, make it an essential service.Recommend this Post