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Daniel Huber was such a dedicated transit rider, he let his driver’s licence lapse.

No more.

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He was standing on a curb on St. Albert Trail this September with a senior when a full-to-capacity bus blew past again. The senior looked ready to cry and Huber could feel his blood boil.

He realized it’s just not worth it.

“This is not going to get fixed and I can’t keep getting angry and worked up about it,” said Huber, a chef in Edmonton who had been riding what he sees as a steadily eroding transit system for 18 years.

City of Edmonton officials blame the economic downturn for falling ridership numbers but Huber’s story echoes my experience. It’s also exactly what experts have been predicting for years.

The city’s bus system is getting stretched thinner and thinner. It hasn’t had significant new investment in years — small wonder transit ridership is now lower than it was in 2010.

Huber got his driver’s licence again in October. He lives on a major bus route — Route 128 — but he says it’s not worth leaving an hour early because Edmonton’s transit is unreliable.