| As anyone who has ever played SimCity can tell you, you can’t build a successful city without rapid transit. Perhaps the computer game, which allows the player to build a virtual city from scratch, could teach a few lessons to our leaders.
Dr. Anthony Perl, a professor of political science at the University of Calgary, says the city’s transit system has failed to keep up with its growing population, and the blame falls on politicians who find it safer at the polls to promise new roads than to consider long-term solutions.
"It’s a failure of leadership. It’s the people we’ve elected – and are about to re-elect, for the most part – not putting transit ahead of the automobile," Perl says.
"What they’re basically doing is mortgaging our future environmentally and economically – and down the road someone’s going to pay for it."
VICTIM OF SUCCESS
Ald. Diane Colley-Urquhart, who is chair of the standing policy committee on land use, planning and transportation, and is running for re-election in Ward 13, says public transit is becoming less and less of an option as ridership surpasses the system’s capacity.
In a recent media release, she stated that there has been a 40 per cent increase in annual revenue from transit ridership over the past nine years – more than 1.5 times the rate of population growth. CTrain boardings have increased by 108 per cent, while the number of peak period trains has increased by 33 per cent. Regular bus use has increased at a rate of 50 per cent, while the number of peak period buses has increased by 15 per cent.
"We are a victim of our own success with public transit. We are maxed out," she says, adding that people are reaching a critical point where they’re fed up with trying to catch a bus or find a parking spot at the LRT station, so they drive their cars instead.
Of course, that just adds to traffic congestion, which is already a major problem in Colley-Urquhart’s ward in the southwest corner of the city. She says a southwest connector is a top priority – plans are underway for a new north-south route west of 14 Street S.W. and south of Glenmore Trail, which has the potential to form part of the city's ring road between Glenmore Trail and Highway 22X – but that won’t solve the problem by itself.
"We can never build enough roads and bridges to solve this mobility problem – we can’t pave our way out of this," she says. "We also have to heavily, heavily invest in transit."
Colley-Urquhart says the city’s new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) initiative has been a huge success – it provides direct, limited-stop downtown bus service for north and west communities, running every 10 minutes during peak periods – but it’s not enough to keep up with demand. She explains that the planned increase in Calgary Transit’s hours of service for 2004 and 2005 are only about half the growth hours required to meet customer needs and achieve the Calgary Transportation Plan goal of providing 2.5 hours of service per capita by the time Calgary reaches 1.25 million people.
LRT STOPS SHORT
Obviously, there is a willingness on the part of the public to use transit if it is available.
Perl says the key word is "available." And that’s where the city is failing.
He argues that when Calgary invested in a state-of-the-art LRT system, the CTrain, it was one of the best decisions city council ever made. In fact, he says, Calgary is a leader in North America when it comes to rapid transit, with a fast, modern system that carries hundreds of passengers and runs on zero emissions due to the Ride the Wind program.
Unfortunately, since its debut in 1981, the CTrain has stalled in terms of expansion. The city has added three new stations to existing lines in the last two years – two in the southwest and one in the northwest – but the system is still short. Perl believes the CTrain should be at least triple the size, with additional lines serving every quadrant of the city. "There’s just all sorts of places that it should have kept expanding to keep up with the city," he says.
Future expansion plans are in place, but they are limited and will take time – a new station on the northeast line will not be added until 2009 or 2010, and a new line serving southeast communities and industrial areas plus future communities south of Marquis of Lorne Trail-Highway 22X is about 20 years away. Recently, due to news that the city would be receiving an additional $1 billion in funding from the province, talk has surfaced of fast-tracking plans to build a westbound line along Bow Trail to Westbrook Mall. However, Colley-Urquhart says even that would still take at least five years, if the city started planning today.
Meanwhile, the city continues to grow.
Perl says the city needs to reverse its priorities – instead of building roads at the same time as development, then putting the LRT in much, much later, it should be putting the LRT in first. He explains that building new communities without having high-speed transit in place forces people to use cars – and once they’ve spent the money on a car and developed routines around driving, they’re less likely to take the train when it finally arrives.
"They’ve already moved there. They’re not going to go without for five or 10 years or whatever it takes (the LRT) to get there," he says. "You have to get the transit in at the same time as development. We’ve failed to do that in Calgary, so we shouldn’t be surprised that there’s gridlock."
He acknowledges that the city does serve new communities with buses, but says they can’t move as many people as quickly as LRT. "I think buses are great as feeders to LRT…. Buses are lower cost, lower quality and lower performance."
James Kohut is running for alderman in Ward 6, which includes the fast-growing developments at the west end of Bow Trail. He says, based on the feedback he’s received from residents, transit does not seem to be working very efficiently in the ward – the city recently added Bus Rapid Transit service on Bow Trail, but the buses are too busy.
"They start way up yonder in the hills there and by the time they get to their final stops, they’re pretty overcrowded," he explains.
He says the system is over-utilized, underfunded and improperly planned. He suggests asking residents what they want – and if they choose LRT, where it should go and whether it should be underground or on rails above the road, as in Vancouver. "The people are the best ones to come up with the solutions, I think."
Of course, expanding the CTrain would be a major expense. Perl says the best way to fund the project would be to take the $2 billion in funding for road construction and spend it on transit instead. He adds that it would be a better use of tax dollars, especially as the cost of driving goes up. "There should be a complete moratorium on new road development until the LRT has doubled in size," he says.
Perl warns that if Calgary doesn’t change gears and expand the LRT, it will eventually find itself in the same situation as Toronto, where people are literally dying from smog.
FRESH PERSPECTIVE
Almost every candidate in the election will list transportation as a major issue in the civic election, but among all the voices clamouring to be heard, Brian Pincott’s is one that stands out.
"We need to look at our traffic congestion as a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself," says Pincott, co-founder of the Calgary chapter of the Sierra Club who is running against Ald. Linda Fox-Mellway in Ward 14, located south of Anderson Road between Macleod Trail South and the Bow River.
He explains that spending millions on roads isn’t solving anything. Instead, the city needs to look at the pattern of growth, and provide alternatives to taking cars.
"We’re throwing good money after bad – we need a long-term solution, we need to start planning our communities better and we’re not seeing that at city hall."
Pincott notes that a recent transit poll indicated that more than 60 per cent would prefer to leave their car at home if there was a viable option. However, the system is designed around moving cars instead of moving people. "Let’s give people a transit system that works," he says. "Let’s help people be able to use their bikes for commuting."
To achieve this goal, Pincott proposes following SmartGrowth principles, a system that has been successful in other communities. In fact, Calgary has its own examples – Garrison Woods, which has proven very popular, and the Bridges, which is being developed on the former Calgary General Hospital site.
He adds that people are ready for it and planners are ready for it, but it’s the political leaders who aren’t taking the step. If elected, Pincott plans to work with other likeminded people on council to change that mindset.
That would give Perl reason to hope. He says all it takes is a few forward-thinking people on city council to start making a difference, which is what happened in Toronto. He adds that if they don’t start thinking about the future now, they’ll find themselves in trouble in five, 10 or 20 years when energy prices are so high that people are looking for alternatives to the car, but are living in areas where they can only get a bus every half hour.
"That’s where political leadership can make or break a city’s or region’s future."
ONLINE RESOURCES
· 2004 election information: www.calgary.ca
· Calgary Transit website: www.calgarytransit.com
· Smart Growth: www.smartgrowth.org/
LRT timeline
· 1978 – construction of the first leg of the CTrain began.
· 1981 – 10.9 km south line from Anderson Road to Seventh Avenue S.W. officially opened May 25.
· 1985 – service commenced on 9.8 km northeast line from the east end of Seventh Avenue to Whitehorn Station.
· 1987 – completion of northwest line from the west end of Seventh Avenue to the University of Calgary.
· 1990 – northwest leg extended to Brentwood Station, increasing the line to 6.6 km.
· 2001 – south line extended to Canyon Meadows (2 km) and to Fish Creek-Lacombe (1.4 km).
· 2003 – northwest line extended to Dalhousie (3 km).
· 2004 – southwest line extended to Shawnessy and Somerset-Bridlewood (3 km).
Source: Calgary Transit website |
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