Dear Editor,
Being as Richmond is a significant player in TransLink, with SkyTrain and a new bus garage being built in Hamilton, it would be good to know, via an FOI, to what it cost, in the early to mid-1990s, to retrofit a large number of buses with a belt securement system for wheelchairs, to remove and discard the perfectly working hooks (which, unlike the belts, could tighten to provide safer securement for various mobility devices).
I’m most curious as to the motivation for a refitting to a more difficult, less secure system. Is it, as I jocularly surmise, a case of the belt-equipped buses being a nickel cheaper?
Or was there some grease provided to someone?
The belts are pretty much obsolete, as most transit vehicles use the Q-Straint securement system.
George Pope
Richmond
