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Give 'THUMBS UP!' the thumbs up

Now that the kiddies are back in school and the summer that wasn't is quickly becoming the autumn that is, it's time to turn our attention to more grown up matters we've been neglecting, like balancing our cheque books, finding our skis in that hapha
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Now that the kiddies are back in school and the summer that wasn't is quickly becoming the autumn that is, it's time to turn our attention to more grown up matters we've been neglecting, like balancing our cheque books, finding our skis in that haphazard landfill we laughingly call a storage shed and... oh yeah, kicking the Campagne de Fous into a higher gear.

Now that there are more fous than ever, maybe this would be a good time to get back to hammering together my platform, one creaky plank at a time.

So far, there seems to be some traction among some candidates for my plank about downsizing - they call it rightsizing, a word they may have picked up by hanging out with consultants too long - the resort. You remember, boosting our occupancy numbers by converting some of the benchland condos from tourist accommodation to what they really are, someone's second home. It's gratifying to hear serious people talking such nonsense.

But no one's picked up on my Save the Bears plank and that's a shame. It's been a tough year on bears. What the heck, it's been two tough years. Lousy early summer, bad berry crops, too many bear-car collisions, and way too many bad - read, hungry - bears executed for break and enter crimes.

By now we could have gotten a good start on Whistler's Bearly Tolerable tourist attraction with just the bears we lost in this summer's carnage. They'd be alive and happy, dressed in their colourful costumes, eating all the garbage they craved, letting tourist kiddies pet them and sit on their bearbacks for photos, wrestling drunks and, of course, taking part in the daily Run With the Bears through Whistler Village. Man, talk about a wasted opportunity. I'm betting we could have seeded the whole program for way less than the cost of the Barenaked Ladies... and gotten way more free publicity.

Now it's time to pull down the green eyeshades, roll up our sleeves and begin to tackle the really intractable issues. Transit, for instance.

Frankly, I'm not sure we can wrestle this one to the ground. Let's face it, we're ahead our time. Back in the old days, when Gordo was running B.C. and Arnie was running California, we were on the cutting edge of the Hydrogen Highway that was going to span time and space between here and there. Good ideas might never die but they shrink like crazy in the wash and now that we've been spit out the spin cycle, the Hydrogen Highway has shrunk. No longer California to B.C., it runs pollution-free from Function Junction to Emerald. Okay, everything has to start somewhere.

And following best practices, we, which is to say BC Transit, built it garage mahal-sized for the future, assuming Whistler of the future is about the size of Surrey.

But, like dead bears, that's water under the bridge. We have to play the cards we've been dealt. We're anted up and in the game and there's a bet on the table we're not certain we can call but we know we can't walk away from.

Our current strategy is to downsize - thankfully, no one's calling it rightsize yet - service. I believe that's a good idea but, as usual, doesn't go far enough. It doesn't, for example, go far enough in reducing costs and it doesn't do anything to increase revenue.

When transit talks about increasing revenue, they always mean increasing fares. I'm guessing most bus riders think fares are already high enough and I know most taxpayers think their per rider subsidy is already high enough. So how do we boost revenue?

Well, if we're cutting back on service we might have a bus or two we can sell on Craigslist. More importantly, if we're cutting service, and arguably needing fewer buses, we've got a lot more empty space than the already substantial empty space we have at the maximum-security bus jail.

Let's see, we've got secure, fenced off, well-lighted space not being used. We've got a town where nobody has enough space for their boats, campers, off-season toys... ohmigod, we could go into the parking and storage business. That ought to bring in some dough with little incremental costs. At least more than bus ads for Big White, eh?

While the WAVE Park 'n' Store would bring in new revenue, it wouldn't do anything to further cut costs and if we really want to save some coin, we have to make deeper cuts; this summer's consultant's report underscored that equation. But we still have to get the workerbees to work or the whole house of cards will collapse.

I think hitchhiking is the answer. Hitchhiking's already pretty popular in Whistler. It's pretty easy since there's really only one main road in town and we're all going to more or less the same places. An Emerald to Function hitch rarely requires more than two rides and is often faster than taking the bus. People who hitch and people who pick up hitchhikers get to meet new folks and play 20 questions and glimpse the other side of life.

Hitchhiking's mostly a win-win. Riders get to where they're going. Drivers get a warm, enviro-glow about halving their carbon footprint by doubling the occupants in their mostly single-occupant car. And the number of "incidents" arising from hitchhiking over the past decade are fewer than what happen any weekend night in the bars around town.

Problem is, there aren't enough hitchhikers or picker-uppers. That's because hitchhiking is an ad hoc activity that cries out for governmental intervention. So the Campagne de Fous is proud to announce Thumbs Up!, Whistler's potential new hitch-a-lift answer to our mass transit mess.

Thumbs Up! piggybacks on existing infrastructure, which is to say bus stops. Bus stops are good places to wait for a ride, that's why busses stop there. It's easy for drivers to pull over and pick up hitchers who, under Thumbs Up! will be organized - going to the village, stand in one spot; Creekside or Function, other spots, Rainbow or Emerald, get in line over there. You get the idea.

Drivers can register at muni hall and after a cursory check to weed out the pervs, get Thumbs Up! decals for their passenger-side windshield. Hitchers don't have to register but can get books of tickets for, oh, say the cost of production. Hitchers wait at Thumbs Up! spots, or really, anywhere they want as long as it's safe, drivers stop, hitchers see the Thumbs Up! decal and get in, they give drivers a ticket, drivers amass tickets and turn them in for - wait for it - FREE PARKING! Hah, everybody wins and Whistler saves more on transit than we lose on parking.

Such a simple idea it makes you wonder why it took the Campagne de Fous to bring it to you, eh?