At an information-only type Cochrane town council meeting last week, there seemed to be a difference of opinion between Coun. Morgan Nagel and the director of community services over whether the COLT on-demand bus service is worth continuing.
“Seemed to be” are the operative words here, since the discussion revolved around cost figures that weren’t available, but are going to be presented at a future meeting.
Nagel took the opportunity to make his feelings known on the bus service, and made it clear he was going to have to be convinced the service is worth keeping. He also said he had trouble with COLT being introduced as a pilot project.
“I don’t feel there’s ever been a ‘pilot’ side to it, because we’ve never had the opportunity to reverse course on any of the decisions we’ve made, and we’ve always been shown these presentations and told everything’s going great,” Nagel said.
Administration corrected that interpretation, saying the ‘pilot’ aspect was always and only in reference to the on-demand aspect of COLT, not the bus service as a whole.
“I just wanted to speak my truth – I don’t think COLT’s been very successful,” Nagel said.
The director responded that statistics indicate otherwise, calling the public transit service “objectively exceptional.”
When pressed by Nagel for a figure to compare to an average Uber ride at $15, the director said he feels when all figures are accounted for, a COLT ride would come out cheaper than that.
We are left to wonder what Coun. Nagel’s acceptable cost-per-ride threshold would be for him to change his mind and throw his support behind improving and/or continuing the service.
It also begs the question – do we want our elected officials making judgements on taxpayer-funded services based on gut feelings and anecdotes, or on verifiable statistics? Nagel seemed to be using the former in judging the bus service’s viability.
Let’s see what the actual cost numbers tell us before making any decisions.
One thing we do know the cost of is talk – it seems relatively cheap.
