Community invited to provide feedback on car-pooling plan

With many Sackville residents starting to feel the pinch of skyrocketing gas prices, a pair of town councillors are seeking community input on how best to ease the burden on commuters' wallets and the environment.
Margaret Tusz-King, a newly-elected town councillor and a board member of EOS Eco-Energy, says area residents are invited to a community gathering along Bridge Street this Saturday morning (July 12) to primarily discuss the development of a car-pool plan, as well as other energy-saving ideas for the region.
"I think we really do need to encourage that," she says. "There are hundreds of people that commute from Sackville to Moncton and Amherst every day and I know that it's going to become a strain on them. So we have to look at how we can assist people to maintain their quality of life by living in Sackville and also relieve some of the burden."
Tusz-King said she and fellow councillor John Higham have been tossing around ideas on how the community could organize a car-pooling initiative, including the set-up of a communal car-pool parking lot. But both agreed that having a public discussion would offer an opportunity for residents to talk with each other about which direction would be best to take.
"We're hoping that this will be one of the topics where we can get some direction from people in the community, and they can let us know how they would like us to go about assisting them to do this," she says.
With no control over gas prices, local residents have to start considering other alternatives for driving back and forth to work solo every day, says Tusz-King, and even traveling to out-of-town appointments on their own.
For instance, she says the town is hoping to collaborate with medical professionals in the community to see if they will work together when booking specialist appointments for their patients only on certain days of the week.
"This would give people more of an opportunity to carpool together," she says.
Tusz-King says council is also well aware that many seniors and low-income residents have a difficult time getting to out-of-town appointments because they don't have access to a vehicle. She says she has recently heard of another New Brunswick community that has set up a community non-profit organization to offer rides to people free of charge - as long as the volunteer drivers are given 48 hours notice
"So it gives people another option."
Tusz-King says tossing these kind of ideas around is the intent of this Saturday's community forum, called Neighbours Saving Energy Together.
"Maybe there are other people who have other ideas; and that's what we'd love to hear. Also we hope that by bringing citizens together to figure out how to work together on this, we can also discover other ways to work as a community to save energy together."
She encourages people to bring out their lawn chairs to the 9:30 a.m. morning discussion, which will coincide with the newly-expanded outdoor farmers' market on Bridge Street.
"This can be a real opportunity for us to be good community neighbours together. We've got so many different advisory committees for the community yet not everybody feels like they're involved in what's happening and how decisions are being made . . . so I think there needs to be new ways for us to be talking together about what's happening in our community," she says.
"We hope to have an engaging discussion on the street corner that will draw in many who might otherwise not participate," she adds. "And we'll see if this becomes a new, effective way for people to meet and talk about issues together."
Tusz-King, liaison councillor for parks and recreation, also hopes to organize other activities to coincide with the market on Saturday mornings - free programs such as workshops, demonstrations, art events, etc.
"It sounds like there's a real energy around expanding the market. So I thought wouldn't it be great to have other reasons for people to come downtown, not just for the market."