Editor:
I am an embarrassed Canadian. I'm embarrassed by the way Parks Canada treats our visitors at the shuttle to Lake Louise.
Having people needlessly stand in line for one-and-a-half to two hours for a school bus ride to the lake doesn't make any sense to me.
The long wait is not due to a lack of buses or drivers (you can see them in the parking lot). It is simply due to the policy of one bus (44 people) every 15 minutes even if the bus is full and ready to go.
Parks Canada says they do this to reduce congestion on the road, but really the better way to do this is to restrict traffic on the road once the lots at Lake Louise are full.
In fact, they can’t even fill a bus every 15 minutes because they can’t process the credit card only payments fast enough due to poor cellphone service.
Certainly the lakeside is busy and congested, but for hikers who want to do a full-day hike beyond the Tea Houses, they just want to get up to the lake and trailheads to get going.
Waiting one-and-a-half hours or more in the overflow parking lot is a waste of time.
The shuttle service is a great idea, just being poorly executed by Parks Canada. Parks does not put enough priority on enhancing the visitor experience. The objective should be for no visitor to have to wait more than 15 minutes for a shuttle ride.
Chuck Saunders,
Canmore
