The Editor,

As a Coquitlam resident, I am accustomed to poor bus service compared to that in downtown Vancouver.

But I have been experiencing a recurring problem that I have spoken with Translink about on at least four occasions. Every morning, I (try to) catch the C29 on Johnson Street down to Coquitlam Central Station. This morning, the shuttle was full and did not stop for me.

This is ridiculous when you are paying good money for a transit pass. How is anyone supposed to plan their trips when there is a chance that their shuttle will just leave them standing at the side of the road?

“Fine,” I think, “I’ll just take the 179,” a full-sized bus that runs down Johnson minutes after the C29. Luckily, it was on time (it is often late).

As we pulled into Coquitlam station, the bus I take to work (the 177) was already leaving. The 179 is supposed to arrive at 8:02 a.m. and the 177 is scheduled to leave at 8:04. But, in my experience, it seems impossible to make this connection.

To make matters worse, every other 177 goes to Planet Ice instead of going to Braid Station in New Westminster. What a joke.

As a result of this, I had to take the 169 to Braid, then the 177 from Braid back to United Boulevard. Not only did I have to explain to my boss why I was 30 minutes late (lucky for me, he is very understanding), but I also had to pay to travel two zones instead of one.

As a regular transit user, I am very dissatisfied with the routine lack of adequate service on my morning commute.

And every time I phone TransLink, I hear the same thing: They say they will send the information over to the scheduling department to see if it can do anything.

But why should this bus need to be rescheduled when, according to TransLink’s own itinerary, the connection should work.

Why should my taxes pay for a service I cannot reliably use? While waiting on the phone with TransLink, it has some stupid message playing about how it knows we are complaining about greenhouse gases and air pollution. Yes, maybe I am concerned about these issues, but how about just getting to work on time every day?

With service like this, we will only end up with more cars on the road because people cannot trust the public infrastructure to get them to their destination.

Brendan Mongeon, Coquitlam