A meeting planned for tomorrow Saturday, Nov. 23 is expected to draw people upset by HandiDart service in the region.
The public forum organized by the ad-hoc HandyDART Riders Committee and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1724 will take place at Dogwood Pavilion in Coquitlam between 12:30 and 2:30 p.m.
HandyDART riders will discuss their personal experiences, and George Heyman MLA, NDP TransLink critic, and other municipal politicians will be on hand.
The meeting follows the issuing of a report by transportation planner Eric Doherty, which says the number of HandyDart trip denials doubled last year to 37,690 and that number has skyrocketed from less than 5,000 in 2008.
It warns allowing service to deteriorate will isolate vulnerable HandyDart passengers without access to transit.
Doherty's report argues trip denial statistics may not fully reflect unmet demand, as people give up booking trips they know will be denied.
One area that hasn't gone up significantly - despite the aging population -is the number of people actually registered to use HandyDart in Metro Vancouver.
Total registrations and the number of active riders have both been "fairly stagnant" for several years, according to Martin Lay, TransLink's director of transit services.
Lay also told Black Press that the number of trips denied this year so far is running at 30,534 as of the end of September, equivalent to about three per cent of all trips.
- with files from Jeff Nagel
