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This article was published 15/9/2014 (2197 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

If you accept the premise Winnipeg's mayoral race is a referendum on rapid transit, it's easy to be envious of the Scots right now.

Across the Atlantic, Scottish voters are preparing to vote aye or nae to a clear and simple question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?"

Winnipeggers, meanwhile, are being asked to choose among leading mayoral candidates with very fuzzy ideas about the costs involved in the construction of bus corridors.

Brian Bowman, the privacy lawyer, wants to complete six corridors before 2030, with no clear idea how to cover the multibillion-dollar price tag or whether the capacity exists within the construction industry to take on such a massive infrastructure program.

We're impatient, we're annoyed and we don't trust anyone on the transit file. So do your homework and just give it to us straight

Gord Steeves, the lawyer and former St. Vital councillor, wants to put all bus-corridor construction on hold to save money in the short term -- with no apparent understanding of the massive long-term costs of promoting the low-density development that's already crippling the city financially.

Judy Wasylycia-Leis, the former NDP MP and MLA, occupies the middle ground between these two extremes with a promise to complete the Southwest Transitway as planned. But up until very recently, she too appeared to have no idea how the city would pay for its share of a $590-million megaproject that also includes the reconstruction of the Jubilee Avenue underpass.

So to recap: We have one candidate who wants to build busways to everywhere, with no source of revenue. We have another candidate who wants to do nothing, with no alternative ideas and no comprehension that six decades of inaction on transit have placed the city in a serious hole.

Then we have a third candidate -- the one leading in the polls -- who feigns moderation but actually remains as devoid of detail as the other two mayoral wannabes.

Voters can be forgiven for wanting to board a bus bound for Calgary, Ottawa or any other mid-sized Canadian city that started investing in corridors decades ago and slowly built upon their networks.

Despite what Steeves says, Winnipeg cannot afford to forgo construction of mass transit routes. Bus corridors don't simply move people more efficiently. They promote higher-density development -- basically, taller buildings -- and allow cities to spend less money per square kilometre fixing roads, water mains and sewer lines.

Only willing ignorance would allow Steeves to somehow miss the fact Winnipeg's low, low density and massive infrastructure-renewal burden are the direct result of failing to begin building transit corridors in the 1960s.

His competitors are no better.

Despite what Bowman and Wasylycia-Leis say, Winnipeg cannot place blind faith in the notion taxes from higher-density development will pay for the cost of building bus corridors.

The first phase of the Southwest Transitway, built for $138 million, involved $90 million in city-provincial borrowing, all of it supposed to be repaid by property taxes emanating from new developments along the line. The largest of those developments, the Fort Rouge Yards, remains empty and behind schedule. The revenue has yet to materialize and the borrowing remains on the city's books -- along with the annual interest payments.

This presents Winnipeg with a terrible conundrum and a classic pay-me-now or pay-me-later decision.

Build nothing in the way of transit now and we are doomed to future infrastructure bankruptcy. Build it now and watch the borrowing tally climb, along with the interest payments.

So what's the solution? Have the intellectual honesty to admit the endless construction of low-density, single-family-home neighbourhoods will doom Winnipeg to financial ruin. Have the guts to admit transitway construction will involve borrowing and short-term pain. Follow the City of Ottawa's lead and make transit a priority when it comes to federal infrastructure-funding requests.

If you're a politician, this may amount to political suicide. But there's no better time for candour.

Winnipeggers have been confused by a decade of bus versus rail debate, put off by five years of funding brinksmanship under Mayor Sam Katz and confounded by the poorly elucidated decision to choose the Parker dogleg over the Letellier alignment for the second phase of the Southwest Transitway.

We're impatient, we're annoyed and we don't trust anyone on the transit file. So do your homework and just give it to us straight. If the Scots can decide secession cleanly, surely we can build a bloody busway.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca