Let’s toss out “core vs. edge” arguments and focus on building a great LRT system.

Hamilton’s LRT saga is a cautionary tale for Calgary

Last week was a busy one for Calgary’s new Green Line LRT project. On September 21 the Transportation and Transit Committee approved the fully-underground option through Crescent Heights and the downtown core. Also, after pressure from the Beltline Neighbourhood Association, area businesses, the Stampede, and (in the interest of full disclosure) myself the committee voted to put the high-scoring 12 Avenue underground alignment through the Beltline back on the table after it was removed solely due to its cost.

What was most interesting about the meeting, however, was not the final vote but the discourse around the consequence of putting the LRT underground downtown and through the Beltline. It became increasingly clear that the last remaining counter-argument to spending the money to do it right in the centre city is the apparent detriment of the suburbs that would perhaps have to wait a little longer for a station to appear in their area. Funding for these rapid transit systems in Canada comes in odd, unpredictable chunks, and for that reason these networks are often built in spurts.

“It should be considered an investment in our future, so let’s not be pennywise and pound foolish.”

Learning from the Hammer

This is pretty common in Canada, and it should be well known by councillors.When you demonstrate the success of the project and the need for expansion, more money will follow. This is especially true with a federal government that has promised to fund good public transit projects . The Green Line in its full glory is a huge project by any standard, and assuming it will be built and exist in its entirety from day one is short sighted, and certainly not a good reason to sacrifice good planning. Gillian Lawrence from Remington Development summed it up very nicely

Hamilton is currently in the process of planning their first rapid transit line in the form of an LRT. Interestingly, Hamilton has roughly the same population that Calgary had back in 1980 when we built our LRT system, only this project is happening in 2016, where public transit is seen as increasingly important and necessary.

Despite a huge funding promise from the province to pay for the capital costs of the project, there are some councillors who have vehemently opposed the idea of the project on all sorts of ridiculous grounds. Perhaps the worst example is Terry Whitehead who, after the project has gone through several stages of enthusiastic approval by the city council he is a member of, has tried stalling tactics, hijacking public information sessions, and misleading, cherry-picked information as a way to derail a well funded and much needed LRT project.

So what is really going on here? One can only speculate, of course, but it could be that Whitehead is latching on to the polarising “Upper vs. Lower” rhetoric that is a huge public perception problem in Hamilton generally. Instead of focusing on making the best line where it is needed, discussion has shifted to “why isn’t it coming to my area?”.

Just as in Calgary, there is a long term plan: a second line will provide access up the escarpment, and it is an important link, but the core line must be built first and be successful. Only when this happens will political will and funding follow.

Despite this, the discussion is being pushed away from good planning and towards petty politics, summed up in a quote from the CBC article about the public information session:

Sarah Warry-Poljanski was against the idea, saying that Hamilton should be putting more transit options in areas that are “underserved” like the Mountain and rural Hamilton. “I don’t want to fund something that I can’t use,” she said, citing how difficult it is to use public transit from the Mountain to get to the lower city.

Thankfully, we haven’t gotten quite to this point in our city. Most of the discussion on Wednesday’s meeting was about the extremely long-term decision that was being made and that it should be done right. In the end this resulted with the best, most expensive alignment being chosen.

However, given some of the debate that arose in Wednesday’s meeting, I worry we might be veering towards this type of core vs. edge argument when it comes to the Beltline alignment. Councillor Chabot expressed a similar sentiment to the one quoted above, and ultimately voted against the underground alignment. Councillor Keating and I had a good back-and-forth on twitter about “spending money in the core to the detriment of the edge”, but despite this he voted for the underground alignment in the core, ultimately understanding that doing it right is better than doing it cheap. I hope he realises this argument can apply just as well to the Beltline.

I want to address this “core vs edge” spending argument directly, but that is for another post. For now, I wanted to emphasise the general sentiment that polarising debate is rarely healthy, and pitting Calgarians against each other is an awful thing to do – we made it through the SWBRT debacle; there is no need to repeat the past. Let’s not make the Green Line into a conversation about which riders are more deserving or more important.

Yes, we are having a conversation about shaping all of Calgary for the next 100 years. Let’s plan the best.