Rapid transit plans stuck in traffic

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/04/2012 (4912 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We’re only 3.6 kilometres into Winnipeg’s age of rapid transit and it appears we’re already having a crisis of confidence.

Riders are, at best, ambivalent about the first phase of bus rapid transit, which runs from the Main Street and Norwood bridges to Jubilee Avenue. It requires some to make more transfers. For others, there is a walk between BRT and connecting buses at Confusion Corner.

It will take time to sell this city on the virtues of rapid transit. And fortunately — or unfortunately, depending on your perspective — we’ve got a lot of time to weigh the pros and cons. The next phase of BRT, which will connect Jubilee to the University of Manitoba, hasn’t started. In fact, no one is quite sure when it will start.

There has been a lot of consternation about the delays in getting the first phase of rapid transit completed. But that may pale to the anxiety created by delays in getting the second phase started.

Rapid transit is a volatile issue, even in cities where there is a long, robust history of moving commuting citizens en masse. No city in this country is more associated with rapid transit than Toronto. And yet, last month, Toronto city council rejected a plan championed by embattled Mayor Rob Ford to build a subway extension. Council wanted light rail options and had the vote to defeat Ford’s subterranean plan. Ever the diplomat, Ford called his opponents “monkeys” just before losing the vote.

Public transit is a volatile public-policy issue because it is expensive, takes years to realize and tends to divide citizens by preferred mode of transportation. In the conception stage, rapid transit is almost never considered a universally good idea. It requires political leaders with great vision and conviction to push past what former premier Gary Doer frequently referred to as the “nitpickers convention.” With Phase Two in limbo, the nitpickers are no doubt getting ready for quite a convention.

Phase Two is stuck in an interminable study of possible routes to connect Jubilee to the U of M. The original path would have followed a railway right-of-way south parallel to Pembina Highway. The city, however, is also interested in taking the route further west through vacant fields known as the Parker lands. It is hoped development of those lands, which would be aided by the proximity of a BRT line, would help generate the tax dollars needed to pay for BRT.

It all sounds reasonable. Unfortunately, it’s a strategy that’s moving us farther and farther away from the ultimate goal, which is to convert Winnipeg from a one-person-to-a-car rush-hour city into one that embraces mass transit so we can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and take less stress off our streets. It’s important to note ridership in the city is not robust; rapid-transit improvements were envisioned as a way of convincing non-transit users to change their ways and put their cars away when it came time to commute to work.

The hurry-up-and-wait approach of the city — practised in earnest since Sam Katz was first elected mayor in 2004 and immediately shelved rapid transit — is not building support for transit. In fact, it’s likely support for transit is eroding. If we are ever to make transit work in this city, we must show Winnipeggers some. Otherwise we’re going to see backpedalling.

You can already see it building. In a weekend analysis of Winnipeg’s long and winding road to rapid transit, Deputy Mayor Justin Swandel expressed concern that, even with Phase One complete, Winnipeg was headed in the wrong direction. One of the more eloquent rapid-transit skeptics, Swandel said we might be able to improve traffic more by easing bottlenecks than by moving commuters from their cars to buses.

“I think we can chip away at this bit by bit, instead of trying to hit home runs,” he said.

Building Phase One years later than originally planned and stalling on Phase Two is not chipping away at this problem. Chipping away at a problem suggests progress, albeit at a glacial pace. Transit proponents should be at this point concerned that leaving Phase Two all on its own, with nothing to connect to and little benefit to the taxpayer, is really just another way of killing rapid transit.

The bottom line is that it is hard to accurately assess rapid transit when you only have 3.6 kilometres on which to base your opinion. If, however, the second phase were well underway and we could better envision the route and the benefits, then there is a chance more people would not only support it as a policy, but consider using it to ease traffic.

Phase One of the BRT system is not only pretty and slick, but it is an important building block. But without a larger network of bus routes across the city, it could be galvanized in public opinion as the metaphorical road to nowhere.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca