Dear Brentwoodians,
Have you ever been to a place where good public transit is a given? I have Swiss heritage, and on my trips to that country I have found getting around by public transportation to be incredibly easy – even when in the company of elderly relatives or infants in strollers. Buses, trams, and trains there are clean, safe, and accessible; they are frequent and punctual; cover all the neighbourhoods in the larger towns and cities as well as extending into remote villages; and connections between city transit and intercity rail are seamless.
It should be obvious now that I am mentioning this in light of the recent cancellation of the C-Train Green Line. It is true that the project as proposed didn’t go far enough north or south, or connect to the airport, but these objections only serve to illustrate how far behind our city has fallen in this area. When discussing transit, Calgarians complain about infrequent bus service; having to walk long distances to stops; and notably of late, the security and safety situation. These are all valid concerns, which unfortunately lead to lower transit use and therefore less appetite to fund expansion.
But as our city grows, so will our need to get around. We can keep building new roads – except that we know that adding lanes to existing expressways, or building new ones, only adds to the problem. Traffic engineers use the term “induced demand” to explain how, according to a University of California at Berkeley study published in 1998, every ten percent of additional road capacity is met with a nine percent increase in traffic within four years. And of course, there is the environmental cost of automobile commuting – and yes, even electric cars have a much larger carbon footprint than mass transit.
So why can’t Calgarians enjoy the same level of transit as the citizens of Zurich or Geneva? Switzerland is an exceedingly wealthy place, but so is Alberta. What is lacking here is the will and the vision to give our city the safe, convenient, and reliable transit we deserve. It wasn’t always so – in 1945 the Calgary Municipal Railway had a dense network of tramlines covering places like Inglewood, South Calgary, Bowness, and Tuxedo Park.
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