Speech delivered by Joseph Kornelsen, Chair of Functional Transit Winnipeg on April 6, 2018.
I am here to speak about the criteria that has been selected for evaluating the Eastern Corridor routes. I’ll begin right here by saying we are happy to see that the criteria places a high value on connectivity, but we find the specifics lacking and thus it is difficult for us to come to a definitive response.
What is the purpose of public transit and what is the purpose of this corridor? Why are we building it? Is it simply to convey a few people to their downtown workplaces five times a week? Is it because we want to be cool like big cities? Do you want to be able to tell your colleagues in other cities that Winnipeg, too, has that cool transit stuff everyone’s talking about?
Or are we building it to make it possible for Winnipeggers to live practical, meaningful and professional lives using public transit? Are we building it to reduce the toll on infrastructure that cars cause? to reduce the sheer costs to the city of low density sprawl?
Are we doing it because the energy required to move 1.6 people from their homes to the myriad places they go in a ton of plastic and steel is destroying the future of our planet?
These aren’t meaningless questions. You should be doing it to make living transit-oriented lives desirable. It will save the city money, it will save individuals and families money and it will begin to address our carbon footprint.
You should be doing it this way because it is how you get the biggest bang for your transit infrastructure dollar. The more destinations you include along the route, the better integrated into the existing transit network, the longer the temporal span of the service, the more riders this investment will generate for the simple reason that the service will just be more accessible to more riders.
The criteria should flow naturally from this objective. And in turn, the success of the project will flow from the criteria.
So with all that being said, I would like to acknowledge that the city has done a much better job of identifying criteria for the Eastern Corridor than it did for the Southwest Corridor.
Quoting from the Eastern Corridor criteria
“Connectivity and Performance were weighted most heavily, as it was seen that such an investment needs to both connect useful locations within the City, and also provide a solid “boost” beyond regular service. The service provided must be reliable, must operate throughout the day (not just for peak-period commuters), must be frequent, and not be overcrowded. It must be safe and easy to use, and ideally, operate with reduced delay compared to existing transit offerings.”
Some of the language in that quote sounds pretty familiar to me…. I think I’ve heard some advocates saying things like that.
As an indication of how criteria can get you off on the wrong foot, I just want to read the section in the route evaluation criteria for the Southwest Corridor that comes closest to mentioning service. It’s under the “Engineering” criteria:
“The engineering evaluation considered a multitude of factors that were grouped into two main categories, namely Operational and Implementation. Specifically, factors evaluated under the Operational category included overall distance of corridor, total length of structures, number of at-grade intersections, drainage, accommodation of multiple modes, running speed, as well as existing and future ridership. The evaluation of items under the Implementation category included project phasing, disruption to traffic and landowners during construction, and complexity of land assembly.”
We’re not saying reducing at-grade intersections and running speeds isn’t important. But by that criteria, the best place to build would be in a field next to the Perimeter.
In the eastern corridor criteria we are happy to see that connectivity, performance and city-building all feature prominently.
However, we do not see clear specifics on how these will be measured. Platitudes have value, but this committee and council needs to see the objective value of corridor routes in order to make an informed decision. Will you be measuring total distance from stops to a basket of “useful destinations?” Will you consider surrounding residential density metrics? What about the number of convenient transfer points? You need specifics.
Additionally, I would like to point to the valuation of social equity in this criteria. We don’t really know what this means. Does it mean you will consider the median income of neighbourhoods the route travels through? Will you consider important social service destinations along the route? This is another instance for asking yourself what the service is supposed to do. Without identifying who is getting prioritized using a social equity lens and how those folks’ needs can be met, how can you judge a route for satisfying the social equity criteria?
Further, if existing riders are those that require a social equity lens, then your connectivity criteria should by default also be social equity-focused.
A cost-benefit analysis is included separately from these criteria. It’s difficult to say what impact this will have on your ability to approve an effective route. Cost must always be a factor, but what is key is to look at what you’re getting for that cost. If you are sacrificing key pieces, you risk undoing the value of the whole project. Saving a few bucks to choose a less effective route will undo the value of the millions spent on the corridor in the first place. You must build for the connectivity criteria above all else. If you can’t do that, then you’re wasting whatever money you’re putting in in the first place.
We know that this committee and the folks at Winnipeg Transit care about doing public transit right. Councillor Morantz’s motion from last summer to have transit look into creating a frequent service network and to have the transit advisory committee created were big steps forward in this city. We are very appreciative. Transit is big file for this committee and I urge everyone at this table to continue to consider transit a top priority.
I would like to wrap up here regarding the criteria to say that we are seeing positives in the criteria development, but so far those criteria are wrapped more in nice-sounding platitudes rather than giving us hard-and-fast metrics. If you don’t have clear goals, how will you know that you have achieved anything? The criteria is setting many priorities that we agree with, but until we see metrics like the number of grocery stores, daycares or apartment blocks within 400 meters of corridor stops it will be hard to say whether it will give this committee or council the tools to approve a route.
FTW would be happy to assist. We’re a bunch of pretty hardworking volunteers and we do it because we want transit to be better. We believe in our network and we know what it takes to improve it for existing riders and to attract new ones. So we would be happy to be in touch.
I’d like to use my remaining time to address agenda item number 7, the Active Transportation Network – Winter Maintenance Strategy report.
I understand the report is being delayed for the eighth time. The reason given by the public service is that additional consultation is required. It’s important to get things right and properly consult, but it is unacceptable that this report be delayed again.
Winnipeggers who choose not to drive a car are literally saving you money. Every 1.6 people who bike, walk or ride the bus is one less two-ton vehicle smashing the roads you are desperately trying to find money to deal with. You owe it to them and you need more of them. An effective snow clearing policy is absolutely necessary for anyone that gets around using active transportation.
I understand that snow clearing can be a challenge and that there are competing needs – but right now in my neighbourhood we are way off balance. Speaking from my own experience, in my neighbourhood in the West End, snow from the 13 meter wide, four-lane streets is dumped and left on the 1.5 meter sidewalks and left for days, if not weeks. We need four lanes of road days or weeks before we allow for one sidewalk? I understand that we all need to make some amount of compromise to deal with weather, but that isn’t compromise.
We need a snow clearing policy that respects those of us who are treading lightly on our infrastructure and we need it for equity. I hope that this is the last delay we will see for this report and I look forward to a comprehensive active transportation snow clearing policy in our future.
Thank you for your time.