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So many failures of government bureaucracy come to mind when riding Calgary Transit these days. Their linear negative thinking erodes public confidence. It’s a common failure of all public transit systems. A route has a problem and ridership falls, so you make the route worse and ridership falls again. Eventually, the route gets terminated.
A smart government would ask what needs to be done to increase ridership. More frequency, additional stops, expanded range, more community exposure, elimination of drug users from the areas, improved safety, connection timings — so many things to consider but ignored.
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Rampant drug use on the trains and platforms continues to plague users. Riding the train after dark can be very stressful as aggressive drunks or drug-addled people invade your safe space. It’s so common that some people are getting desensitized.
It’s sad as transit can be so much more and bring far-reaching benefits. In the real world, we just shake our heads and sigh. Vulnerable persons on transit are seniors, children, disabled people, and now everyone else due to the risks.
Kevin Egan, Calgary
Just bluster on bike bells
Re: Letter to the Editor, Oct. 11
Perhaps Phillip Bass should get a hearing check before encouraging bikers to ditch their bike bells and adopt the 1950s “squeeze-the-bulb” bike horn technology.
Banning bike bells — what’s next? Mandatory banana seats and monkey bars?
Rob Butler, Calgary
Better treatment will retain health workers
Re: Everything’s bigger in Texas — even its herd of Canadian health workers, Opinion, Oct. 5
Dom Lucyk’s op-ed recycles an old story about the number of Canadian health-care workers practising in the U.S. but offers little more than conjecture on the underlying causes. Doctors and nurses left Alberta in droves after the abysmal treatment by the UCP — from tearing up contracts with doctors, to suggesting cuts in pay to nurses after stressful and traumatizing experiences during the pandemic. These, more than anything, contribute to stressful workplaces, burnout and staffing shortages.
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To suggest that expanding the use of private clinics to offer more choice to workers is also a mythical old story. It ignores the fact that privatization exacerbates myriad problems with our health-care system. For-profit clinics cost more, worsen shortages and thus increase wait times.
Let’s invest in public health care and utilize more single-entry models and “smooth scheduling,” pioneered by Toronto’s University Network and the Institute for Hospital Optimization, which have proven results.
Mare Donly, Calgary
Call Hamas what they are: terrorists
I turned to CBC News this past weekend for the latest on the war in Israel. I watched in horror as the world learned of the atrocities committed by Hamas. As it became clear that hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians were murdered, raped, maimed and taken hostage, I was dumbfounded to hear CBC journalists stumble over their words as they struggled to call Hamas a militia group. Hamas is a terrorist organization, labelled as such by the Canadian government in 2002.
Turns out, CBC executives explicitly directed journalists not to refer to Hamas as terrorists. So Hamas is a militia now made up of militants?
Shame on CBC.
Nancy Forbes, Calgary
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