Re: “No Vote punishes the young,” March 11.
With regards to the opinion piece “No Vote punishes the young,” I wish to point out that transportation and housing should be planned together.
It is well documented that the core users of any transit system are the poor, as they mainly can not afford to purchase an automobile and that they can not afford to purchase a home. When an expensive transit system like a subway is built, it is common practice to build a high-density tower around each station. This is what is being done on the Expo Line, the Millennium Line and the Canada Line. The people who purchase these condominiums are two-car families who do not use public transit. This process then forces the poor, like students and the young, to live at the extreme edges of the urbanized geography as they can not afford to live near to a subway station.
Voting No in this plebiscite will give our society time to discuss whether or not we wish to punish the poor and the young in the short term as we properly debate our housing and transportation at the same time. While a vote Yes would punish them in the long term by moving them out to the suburbs.
Chris Shelton, Vancouver
