January 28, 2002

Dear Sir,

If Bermuda wants to get serious about reducing the use of private vehicles and increasing usage of buses and ferries why don't we start by making public transport totally free?

We would lose the income that it currently generates, but this would be set off by a number of benefits:

1) Saving the costs of collecting the fares (printing tickets, selling tickets, processing bus passes for students, emptying the fare bins on the buses, theft from those bins and damage caused to buses during the theft, accounting and banking expenses);

2) Reduction in time spent at bus stops while people pay their fares and wait for transfer tickets;

3) Ability for people to decide to travel by public transport on the spur of the moment, rather than having to make sure they first have a token or the exact change.

There would also be the great publicity of being able to market this aspect of Bermuda to our tourists.

A glass of rum swizzle at the airport is nice, but free transport is something you'd tell your friends back home about.

So let's not mess around offering reduced fares for certain categories, or waste money installing new ticket machines for the ferries.

Just do away with the whole lot and give everyone a free ride.

ANDREW R. DOBLE

Flatts