Dear Editor:
Remember when double-decker buses and heavy rail transit ideas were being promoted?
We are nowhere close to double-deckers or heavy rail since those ideas went over like a lead balloon. Since then council has changed its mind once again and now they are all over a local transit idea.
They don't seem to know what we want.
Remember when our councillors voted to buy six buses without a business plan or any idea of what they were getting us into?
Remember when many town folks rose up against this ridiculous idea by starting a plebiscite only to have council withdraw its vote to buy six buses?
They were listening then that we didn’t want transit so why are they still flirting with this issue?
Regional transit was once being promoted by our mayor as the most cost efficient/higher cost recovery and since the mayor told me that it’s a governments responsibility to pay for services that lose money, transit was a good one!
Fast forward to last fall and the towns “engage the public” initiative that $80,000 was spent to get feedback from its citizens and to hire a transit expert.
Because of my concern about money being spent on a useless transit system I have been very vocal and engaged and was consequently invited to be a part of the community stakeholders committee to sit with certain interest groups and individuals that were invited to take part and to offer opinion and participate in open discussions.
I expressed my interest in finding a need to move the elderly, less fortunate and single income families and suggested there were perhaps other possibilities to be explored other than transit like taxi vouchers and Handibus.
My remarks weren’t accepted as a valid topic as this was not part of the “agenda” to discuss possible transit options.
At a recent meeting we were presented what the transit expert John Steiner had options: 1) a regional service to Calgary; 2) a local service consisting of 30 minute service in three neighbourhoods for dial-a-bus service.
Five or six of the 15 stakeholders present suggested that perhaps the other folks from excluded areas of Cochrane would not endorse such a service because it only addressed a very small geographical core area of town while leaving the outlying areas without any service.
Steiner explained how in order to keep the cost below $40 per household, a 60 minute service could serve all of Cochrane, but warned that it would have a lower ridership than a 30 minute service thus straining it.
So at our final community stakeholder committee meeting on March 21, where only five people attended to preview what was going to be presented to council, a third option was offered: A 60 minute service that would include more neighborhoods but would still not cover Fireside and Riversong and Heritage Hills.
So at council on March 25, it was appalling to see how four of the councillors and mayor were not listening to the direction they were given by the town’s senior of infrastructure and engineering, Kathy Dietrich, that this was a step in the process of exploring transit and was a presentation of information only and not an opportunity to make any decisions about transit.
I couldn’t help but see the ferocious appetite the councillors had for transit regardless of the fact that not two of them could agree on the kind of service they thought was important or even consider the options that were presented by Steiner.
All this after hearing from the Ipsos Reid survey results that only 42 per cent of the Cochranites feel we needed a local service, 60 per cent want a regional service to Calgary and more than 78 per cent want more information before making a decision.
It was as if councillors McFadden, Davies, Churchill and Watson would take on any transit idea no matter what the Ipsos Reid results showed.
Only Ivan Brooker and Jeff Toews stood up against the pressure from the other councillors and were swiftly voted down on a motion to table the conversation until the next council meeting so the public had a chance to see what had been presented and offer their opinion.
Why aren’t taxpayers going to be given a formal opportunity to voice our opinion before the town spends even more money building a budget, working with GreenTRIP and paying for transit experts? The councillors can’t even agree amongst themselves on when and where it should run. Why would the recommendation of a 60 minute dial-a-bus by six stakeholders get this much traction with these councillors?
Remarks such as, “we better grab the GreenTRIP funds before they are gone or withdrawn”, “the CSP (Cochrane Sustainability Plan) says we need transit”, “the youth need transit,” etc.
We heard Steiner answer Toews’ question as to what percentage of folks will take transit “Less than one per cent of the trip takers in Cochrane can be expected to take transit.” Isn’t there a more cost efficient way to help folks that need help “getting around” as opposed to spending nearly $400,000 a year?
Did you know that we are going to pay one-third or $700,000 for the capital investment for buses and bus shelters to take advantage of GreenTRIP funds of $2 million? Why isn’t that being talked about or revealed?
What about our pool? What about our arts centre?
Are we going to be told that we can’t have these things because we have transit?
What about the property tax increase that the provincial government has handed us? What about the firefighters tax levy yet to be determined? I see some big financial hurdles/increases in the very near future and don’t believe for a minute that transit is more important than any of these.
I am not anti-transit generally speaking, but rather believe we should get it rolling when our population can support it both financially and with respectful ridership potential.
When is that you ask? Sorry we can’t get an answer on this as nobody on council is listening (except for Toews and Brooker). According to Ipsos Reid, 68 per cent said “I think Cochrane will need a transit service in the next 10 years, just not in the very near future”
One thing I do agree 100 per cent with Mayor McBride on is his opinion regarding the election this fall about how we can vote them out of office if we don’t agree with their stance on transit.
Darcy Shier
