Indigenous riders try out free transit, EV use in Vancouver project

By Sonal Gupta, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Canada’s National Observer Lana Putnam was already doing something that made her feel small: climbing onto a Vancouver bus without fare money and hoping to get where she was going before anyone noticed. Then she tripped. Putnam, a 70-year-old Cree Elder, was carrying her belongings when she fell in front of the other passengers. She wasn’t helped up; she was scolded. “Some of the people were saying, ‘Everybody pays,’” she said. “Instead of being worried about my fall.” Putnam’s experience is what a new clean-mobility pilot program in Vancou…