Editor:
Like many other people in the Fraser Valley, I am fed up with being charged for public transportation and not having any useable service. I have started buying my gas over the border in Abbotsford, where the transit levy is not applied.
I wondered if this was saving me, or the queue of other motorists at Fraser Highway and LeFeuvre Road, any money. So I made a spreadsheet to calculate how far you can drive to fill up with the cheaper gas.
I got figures on gas tank sizes, difference in gas price, fuel consumption and other factors, and I calculated that, for both a compact car and a full-size SUV, you can drive approx 40 to 45 kilometres to get gas and break even on a fill-up with the 13- to 14-cent difference in price that usually exists.
This means that if you live anywhere in Langley except Walnut Grove, you are within about 20 kilometres of the gas stations across the Abbotsford border. It breaks even or saves you money to go there to fill your tank.
For me, I do some other shopping out Otter and Aldergrove way and I get gas at the same time.
Sorry about this, Langley merchants. I suggest that you write to your MLA and your local councillors to tell them what I am doing. It is costing you money, because there are lots of people doing the same. This is in addition to those who are going to the U.S. to get gas and do their family shopping.
For me, this is both a money-saving and a protest measure. Paying a toll on the only toll bridge in B.C. every time I drive to visit my daughter was the final straw for me.
If the revenues fall short on this gas tax, it may finally force the provincial government and TransLink to develop an equitable and long-term funding formula for public transportation that truly benefits the region, not just the favoured bits.
By the way, when the extra two cents goes on the levy next spring, I calculate that it will become worth your while to drive out to Abbotsford and fill up if you live in Cloverdale and Walnut Grove as well. Silly, isn’t it?
Jeremy Smith, Fort Langley
