C-Tran (Vancouver public transportation) did the Yellow Line (Portland metro public transport) a big favor when it raised its rates on the first. I’ve haven’t followed the story too closely but I think C-Tran is run by monkeys because they can’t do anything right.

Back in November they had a measure on the ballot to increase whatever tax it is that they get a piece of but they were asking for more than double of what they get now (or something like that — it was a huge increase). I did my homework before I voted and went back and forth on this one before I decided to support it. But shocker: it totally lost. They asked for too much. And supposedly they haven’t had an increase in forever, but too bad. Plan better.

So then they’re going to show us and cut half the routes and no more weekend service and tons of people get laid off and so forth like this. AND they raised the rates and no more transfers.

I don’t use C-Tran although I did take the express bus to Portland one day and I can report that it totally rocked, as in, was super speedy but that day Bob dropped me off. The problem is getting from the house to the express bus and if it takes me 20 minutes to take the neighborhood bus to the express bus that’s not buying me much. However, I had expected it to be my back up plan if I couldn’t make the park-n-ride.

No more. It would cost me $1.25 to take the neighborhood bus to downtown Vancouver. No transfer. Then $3 to take the express bus to Portland. If you’re slow at math, that’s $7.50 round trip.

Just kidding. That’s $8.50 round trip. You can find all day parking for less than that. I feel bad for the people who have no other choice.

Meanwhile, on Monday the people at the park-n-ride waiting for the train had doubled ($1.40 1-way, $1.35 if you buy 10 tickets at a time) and the overflow lot, which normally has fewer than 10 cars, was over half full. Today’s paper reports that C-Tran has 25% fewer riders. Double shocker.