CoastRide is Sandy Hook and East Porpoise Bay's ride-sharing through hitch-hiking programme. On May 27, CoastRide will make a presentation before the Sechelt council.
CoastRide presently has 71 members. With no bus service on the east side of the Inlet and no prospect of getting one in the near future, CoastRide helps fill that obvious need as well as being a green transportation alternative.
A big problem in promoting CoastRide has been the lack of signs at the pickup points in town and in the two outlying communities. Signs in general help promote the program.
Drivers are reminded to display their visor cards and look for riders, and those who have not registered are reminded to do so. Many participants feel the whole program is legitimized with proper signs in place. This is critical to the feeling of comfort in picking up riders or soliciting rides from drivers.
Although members of council and staff have said uniformly that CoastRide is a really good idea, because of a single complainant, the District enforced a rarely used bylaw (which may actually not even apply to the CoastRide program) and required Sandy Hook to remove the two small and unobtrusive signs it had erected.
CoastRide's presentation is designed to win council's full support for returning the signs to Sandy Hook and permitting further signs in town and elsewhere, without cost to the District. This would support this worthwhile program.
Michael T. Hertz
Chair, Sandy Hook CoastRide Committee
