We're planning a three-part survey of this topic on Monday
Recently, a cab driver told me that he has been in many situations during the transit strike where people were not able to afford their cab fare. Mostly from people traveling long distances in Halifax to get to work, groceries, banking and school. What does this tell us about the services provided to (poor) people in general and in their own communities? What does the transit strike reveal about how the city serves its underclass or public housing communities?
Unfortunately, it seems that people that are most stigmatized and impacted by the lack of services offered to them are again alienated from the conversation and increasingly stigmatized for the lack of choices they have to get around the municipality. What are the choices of people that don't have the means to carpool, walk or bike to work? Who don't have an expendable budget to accommodate the increase in transit costs? Who is defending transit? Are they the educated, middle and upper class that are able to be critical of the system because they don't use it daily or rely on transit to get around?
(This has nothing to do with whether I support the strike, but I am dismayed that there hasn't been more of a media discussion regarding access to transit from a social-economic and social-geographic perspective).
