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Mr. Hayward,

I saw your article and thought it touched on some very important points.

As a result I wanted to share with you some information regarding the recent civil service day of action and the way forward.

We believe that the day was an overwhelming success. I had hoped for a 10 per cent take-up, which would have equated to approximately 400 persons who would have made alternative transportation arrangements on that day.

We have statistics that indicate that bus and ferry commuting was up 20 per cent. Additionally, Erica has received over 200 responses from civil servants who were involved.

Car-pooling had the greatest take-up and if we consider that each car would have had a minimum of two riders and a maximum of four, that along with those involved but who did not respond would bring us close to our 10 per cent.

The overwhelming response has been positive with persons indicating that they would do it again or utilize another form of transportation once a month and in some cases once a week.

Amongst the concerns expressed, we believe there are many that can be immediately addressed, some in the short term others over time.

The ferries were quite popular but as you stated, there were those (approximately 15) cars that were ticketed due to lack of parking. One of the ferries arrived late in the west end but beyond that, the ferries were not full.

The Minister of Transport is working with the Police Service to ensure that, where possible, those utilizing public transport are not penalized for doing so whilst a long term solution to parking is worked out.

The buses were also popular and in most cases were used without incident. We did have reports on some routes that buses were full of school children or that they don't run regularly enough for civil servants to feel that this would meet their needs.

We also had some innovative individuals who drove towards town and found legal parking outside of the city in the near west and near east and walked the remaining distance to work.

Of course there were also the walkers, pedal cycle riders and joggers.

There are those who have made short-term life changing decisions that we hope will turn into long-term commitment. I for one ran in to work again yesterday and have committed to running in at least one-day a week.

I have also heard of similar commitments from others. This is the first step.

We believe that this has been a good kick-start to really making the Transportation Management Plan a reality for Bermuda.

The Civil Service Executive has commited to a monthly civil service day of action as it relates to transportation. In that regard, we intend to analyse the issues that arose during the first one and to attempt to address them as we move forward.

If we can remove the impediments, we believe that more people will make positive changes to their transportation patterns.

The implementation of the St. George's Ferry will also give us relief from the east end. We received comment that once it is online, people at that end of the Island will take advantage of it.

Thanks again for your article, we are all working to achieve a sustainable future for Bermuda.

Warren Jones

City of Hamilton[[In-content Ad]]

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