Rapid transit coalition misses the bus
Where did this Winnipeg Rapid Transit Coalition come from anyway? According to the Sun and Freep, over 1,500 people have signed the group’s petition demanding the City make a public commitment to building a rapid transit system by March 31, 2008 in order to access new federal funding.
I appreciate the group’s enthusiasm for rapid transit, but I do have to question whether this is just a way for its Chair, Paul Hesse. to attract a little attention and keep his base of supporters active. Hesse, if you recall, was the Liberal candidate for Fort Rouge in last spring’s provinical election, and is considered a rising star in local Liberal circles.
I’m questioning the true intent of the Coalition because it’s a fairly apparent this thing was slapped together in a hurry without much research or forethought.
Most significantly, they seem to have missed the point that the $500 million in recently announced federal transit funding is intended for construction-ready projects. Last I checked, the City and Province haven’t even agreed on a rapid transit strategy yet, so I don’t think we’re anywhere close to putting shovels in the ground.
Even if planning was further along, Winnipeg’s portion of the funding would be $7 or $8 million at most. That’s hardly enough to make significant improvements to our existing transit service, much less build a new rapid system.
The Coalition also has some problems with its supporting data. For example, their website includes a comparison of transit ridership between Calgary and Winnipeg. It appears ridership is up by 70% since Calgary launched the C-Train, while Winnipeg ridership has dropped.
Of course, this comparison ignores the fact that the population of Calgary has nearly doubled in the same time period. In other words, transit ridership — as a % of all trips taken in Calgary — has actually dropped since the C-Train was launched according to this data.
The same page also makes a reference to the popularity of Winnipeg suburbs like Whyte Ridge and Royal Oaks. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Royal Oaks exists. Royalwood maybe?
I’m all for engaging in more rapid transit debate; I find it endlessly amusing when the subway and BRT nuts start butting heads. I also think it’s an important policy issue for the City. However, if the Rapid Transit Coalition wants to be taken seriously, then it’s going to have to do its homework first.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: City of Winnipeg, winnipeg rapid transit coalition
Last I checked, the “subway and BRT nuts” AREN’T butting heads.
The WRTC started meeting several months ago, and kicked into high gear with the recent Federal announcement. At its very core is the belief that division between rapid transit proponents disables all of us from achieving what is at the core of what we want: a more sustainable, walkable, and progressive city that invests into existing neighbourhoods — not just allowing the sprawl machine to continue to drive this city into the poor house.
Winnipeg does not need to fund the entire system at once. As in all cities, rapid transit systems are built one leg at a time as funding becomes available. Thats why it is key to capitalize on the new Federal monies available.
The question really boils down to this: Is something (BRT, LRT, improving the frequency of current service) better than nothing? As someone who rides the bus every day (when it’s not biking season), I think the answer is a resounding YES.
Michael, to you the city includes the ‘burbs and you’re proposal is for BRT (just look at all the links on your Resources page).
No, what Winnipeg needs is something to “save” the downtown from further decline. Only underground rail rapid transit will work here because of our climate. Remember all those days we had -44 Celcius windchills this past Winter? We’ve waited 50 years, isn’t that enough?
I want rapid transit done right, and BRT just isn’t what’s going to make Winnipeg a Great city again.
Just my $0.02.
Confession time: “Why Rapid Transjt?” has nothing to do with either the Liberal Party or BRT nuts. I wrote it, and I’m neither a Liberal nor a BRT nut. You’re right about Royal Oaks. I meant Royalwood. The web manager has promised to correct that.
As for the comparison with Calgary, it’s true, Calgary is growing faster than Winnipeg, but Winnipeg is growing too. However you slice the statistics, in Calgary, growth and rapid transit produced a substantial increase in ridership while in Winnipeg growth and a bus-only system produced a substantial decrease.
Christopher Leo, Ph.D,
Professor, Department of Politics,
University of Winnipeg,
Winnipeg R3B 2E9.
Adjunct Professor,
Department of City Planning,
University of Manitoba.
Research-based blog: http://blog.uwinnipeg.ca/ChristopherLeo/
I ask Dr. Leo and any of the proponents of rapid transit that stumble upon this post…..
How do you combat the argument that Winnipeg simply lacks the population density required to achieve a successful rapid transit system without grossly overspending to achieve it?
Some people get it backwards.
A greater population growth *rate* and density happens with rapid transit, not the other way around.
Without it Winnipeg’s population will continue to stagnate or have very lttle growth.
But as I mention in my other blog post on TRUWinnipeg.org, the business leaders need to step up to the plate and support it here, because we need more business HQs downtown that we have historically had. The big banks closed their western regional HQs here and moved them to Calgary.
With a rapid transit line under Main St. , Point Douglas would become a very desirable and much more valuable neighbourhood than it currently is. The industrial component of that particular area would give way to more dense housing.
JimJ,
Unless you are familiar with some study of Winnipeg’s growth rate that I’m unfamiliar with, I don’t believe commutes or public transit have ever been a main hindrance of growth in Winnipeg. You suggest otherwise, so I have to ask what you are basing that on? What business has left or failed to locate in Winnipeg because they were concerned about employees showing up to work on time? Winnipeg is a very spread out city that has maintained relatively low commute times and fairly easy access to any area of town.
Further, of my many friends and acquaintances who have left the city for other places, not one of them mentioned public transit systems as the motivation behind the choice of new locale or as a reason for departing ours.
People simply do not move because of transit issues. Transit is almost always a local issue only.
So the whole transit debate boils down to, “Do we believe that people would choose the option of transit if they have a comparable choice?”
And truth be told, not one rapid transit proponent has made a reasonable argument to me that Winnipeggers will simply choose transit if given the choice. Weather concerns in the winter, general comfort in riding in your car vs. riding a bus, and convenience still trump the notion of, “Yeah, I’d regularly ride the transit system,” when I discuss the issue with friends and coworkers.
The only force I could see getting people out of their vehicles and onto the bus would be a drastic increase in fuel or parking costs. While that may occur, I remain unconvinced that we should be spending the money we’re talking about on rapid transit rather than simply upgrading our current system.
I’m not talking about getting people “onto the buses”. I’m talking about building completely *new* Transit infrastructure for the purposes of speeding people’s commutes.
I agree that buses are stigmatized and people don’t like riding them.
That is why ridership is so low here (around 40 million / year) and hasn’t moved upwards in years.
JimJ - I agree with the Hack - your assertion of rapid transit leading to higher population growth is the tail wagging the dog. That said, I think a BRT transit system is workable because it could be an “add-on” to existing infrastructure initiatives. If Winnipeg builds an internal ring road, an additional lane to accommodate BRT is a marginal extra cost (the asphalt trucks, etc. are already there), unlike trenching for a subway line. I’ve articulated on Dan Lett’s blog other reasons why I feel BRT is the preferable option.
The banks are leaving because there is a more supportive business environment elsewhere. Remember how Montreal handed the reigns of being the financial nerve centre of Canada over to Toronto? Well, Winnipeg is doing that to Calgary, only on a smaller scale. If you want to increase ridership, you need to have jobs for people to go to downtown or anywhere accessible to transit, such as the business parks. Things like Crocus, capital taxes (with such a relatively low returns and such a huge asset base subject to capital taxes, banks would be crazy to maintain anything other than a token presence in Manitoba), and overly pro-union legislation have a way of making people prefer cities like Calgary over Winnipeg.
I too agree that there is a social stigma attached to riding a bus in Winnipeg that rarely exists elsewhere. This is coupled with the unfortunate fact you can get anywhere in Winnipeg 25-100% faster than you can by taking the bus. Increasing ridership is predicated on dealing with these two problems faced by Winnipeg Transit.
Jim J’s response to The Hack’s question - Do we have the necessary density in Winnipeg to support rapid transit? - is right: The existence of dedicated rapid transit lines provide an incentive for compact development. It should be added that a certain amount of density is needed if you want a line to be a viable proposition from the get-go, and a line between downtown and the University of Manitoba meets that requirement. It generates plenty of traffic to give a rapid transit line a good start, and, once it’s in place, it provides the rationale for additional development that will make the line even more viable. That’s why that’s a good place to start a rapid transit system. Subsequently, other lines can be developed, one at a time.
I gathered up some info from a couple of other websites on just how important good mass transit is to a big city:
http://www.truwinnipeg.org/2008/03/10/business-needs-to-back-a-winnipeg-subway/
Actually, JimJ, I was the Steve A. mentioned in your post. My comment wasn’t made to suggest that CEO’s would only take subways. It was made to suggest that ANY mode of public transportation would be more acceptable to prospective riders if it were more efficient than alternatives such as automotive transport. While Toronto can make that case, Winnipeg thus far cannot.
Here in Halifax (where I now reside), Park and Ride programs seem to be pretty popular (if the amount of cars in the parking lot is any indication) in satellite areas such as Lower Sackville. While this may not be the ideal you are seeking, it is far better having people make a short auto commute and then bus into downtown Halifax compared to driving the entire leg of the commute.
Christopher - I have wrestled with this question ever since I recently got back from New York - to what degree should we seek compact urban living for cities such as Winnipeg or Halifax? Right now there is a sense of community that simply does not exist in a city such as New York. I get the feeling that there is a “tipping point” where if too many humans live together, we artificially create distance by being emotionally removed from our fellow humans (some social scientists use the analogy that porcupines should be close but not too close) . Do we want Winnipeggers and Haligonians to become New Yorkers? Having lived in a “very compact” part of midtown Toronto, I have experienced this firsthand - small courtesies such as holding the elevator for someone with armfuls of groceries are not as important as saving a precious 30 seconds. I called it the “elevator game” and was taken aback by how many people played it.
Density doesn’t bother me one bit. I’ve been to Toronto four times this decade, to Vancouver twice, to Calgary, Montreal once and Chicago once last year.
I just love big cities. And if I had more $$ I’d probably visit London, England and Tokyo too.
What bothers me more is an overabundance of “rif raff” types that dominate Winnipeg’s newer downtown area. Just take a walk anytime past 6 p.m. around Donald @ Graham, or walk down Portage Ave. around the arena, and you’ll see what I mean. Yet when I stay in downtown Toronto, it was safe even going to the Front St. Market at 11 p.m. No panhandlers or drunks.
These rif raff scare away the middle-class people away and cause people and former Winnipeggers to question what has happened to this once relatively safe city.
Imagine a mono- rail, along Henderson Highway.through downtown then along Pembina
Hwy. to the U.of M.
Monorails are for Disneyland and for people over the age of 70! If monorail is oh so superior to LRT and subway, then why hasn’t Seattle’s monorail been extended in 44 years?
Let’s build something that most big cities have, and then in a few years we’ll become a bigger, better city.
Are you afraid of big cities? Do you like your “space”?