From two suburban cities, differing stories in relation to public transit.
From Coquitlam, despite talk about achieving a total of 30% of trips taken on modalities other than the personal vehicle, a necessity for transit cuts emerges.
But then from rapidly expanding Abbotsford, without any such grandiose plans (if 30% really is “grandiose”) comes a plan to increase public transit service by an overall 10% as of July, with 11 700 additional service hours at an annual cost of nearly half a million dollars:
Which of these, if any, is the intelligent move? Coquitlam and Abbotsford are actually almost identical in population size according to Wikipedia, though according to the same source, Abbotsford has a density less than half that of Coquitlam. That number is misleading however, as Abbotsford has a significant percentage of its area locked inside the Agricultural Land Reserve – three quarters, in fact, meaning it has a higher effective density than the city of Coquitlam.
As is generally well understood, density is the forerunner of cost-effective public transit, so compared to Coquitlam, Abbotsford well-positioned from a density perspective to have effective public transit. Many more factors affect the argument for providing public transit or not, however. For one, the people have to be willing to use public transit, and on this count, Abbotsford’s people may lag a little bit. There is definitely a perception of public transit as the “poor man’s” transportation. That has to change.
For another, the public transit has to connect different types of land uses. It has to get people from their homes to their workplaces to their shopping and back – and considering that again according to Wikipedia, 62% of Abbotsford’s workforce stays within City limits to travel to work, Abbotsford seems well-suited for high levels of ridership if the service develops. Other important factors include the aesthetic attractiveness of the service, its reliability, and its affordability. I can’t say how Coquitlam fares on these fronts, but I know that in Abbotsford, the fleet has been transitioned to a modern, efficient, smart-looking one, and is definitely much more affordable than driving a personal vehicle – with the large caveat that it can only get you to a select number of locations at a select number of times. That last is major deterrent to anybody wanting to rely solely on public transit. You often just can’t do it, and so you’re forced to have car insurance and car payments as well as using public transit, and now that you have a car insured, almost all the incentive to ever use public transit is simply gone.
So I don’t have intimate knowledge of Coquitlam’s transit system in relation to its structure and land-use, but my guess is that cutting the transit service is unlikely to be a financially irresponsible move. Abbotsford, with its higher density, high rate of local employment, and tight confines imposed by the ALR, is better positioned to have a vigorous public transit system, and yet even here, there is not going to be a widespread shift to greater public transit usage of even 10%, let alone 20% or 30% until all of the city’s amenities and destinations are accessible on public transit without an inordinately higher travel time. This won’t happen without a massive investment above and beyond the upcoming $454 000, and even this amount will likely try taxpayer’s patience, especially considering that some of Abbotsford’s “milk-routes” especially the #7 Sumas Mountain and the #4 Clayburn still often run partially if not entirely empty.
Obviously, the City needs a minimum level of public transit service to give its carless residents some form of transportation, and that is exactly what we have. We are now in the uncomfortable spot of trying to balance the state of being on the verge of becoming a large city while still having strong agricultural roots and the agricultural mindset that comes with that, and that agricultural mindset revolves around independence, large trucks, hard work, and minimal government, not around strong entertainment culture, higher-learning institutions (UFV is just coming into it’s own as a high-end university) and an urban lifestyle of condominium living, frequent eating out, and more people than cars.
In light of this set of circumstances, I’d point out that Abbotsford is absolutely on the verge of being a city, together with what that status brings. (Still not having any nightclubs or casinos, we are certainly being dragged into city-hood kicking and screaming). I’d suggest no more than the current rate of transit funding increase for the foreseeable future, until such a thing as a “Liveability Referendum” is brought to the people of Abbotsford for a vote. Of course, Abbotsford does have an Official Community Plan that it developed in 2005 – but this isn’t good enough. First, nobody knows about it except the staff who wrote it. Second, like any OCP, it is always being amended to accomodate development proposals. Like any OCP, it is verbose, ambiguous, and only marginally binding owing to the ease with which it is amended. These attributes hardly make it a visionary document.
A better process would be for staff to draft an ambitious set of three visions for the future of the city, offering up different scenarios for what Abbotsford could look like 20 and 50 years from now, and then put very heavy emphasis on a process involving the citizens to enlist their feedback, and eventually, have the citizens vote on which vision they preferred. Then, with a strong mandate to point to, staff could act accordingly to shape the city. My vote for such a vision of course, would be one that emphasizes frequent and abundant public transit service availability, streetcars on South Fraser Way 3-5 years from now instead of 50, strong waterway and salmon habitat protection, better pedestrian and bicycle facilities, better availability of central, higher density housing options, less space given over to parking and more alternative transportation modes, and a re-direction of funds saved from road expansion and improvement towards better social services in in the interest of eliminating homelessness and poverty.
The point being, that in the solicitation of voter approval for a vision for the City, greater certainty is achieved for everybody, from the citizens such as myself who want a cleaner, healthier City but aren’t sure if the City will ever move in that direction to the business community knowing where and how to direct investments so they are in accordance with a comprehensive, citizen-directed and backed land-use plan.
Without such a plan being in place, the argument for significant investment in any strategic direction is extremely weak, and council and staff are reduced to needing to approve responsive expenditures instead of guiding ones. Putting out fires instead of preventing them – and we all know that preventing them is far cheaper in the long run. In this context, am I in favour of the transit expansion now planned? As a transit user, it is difficult to recommend against this expansion. I don’t think I would, either, as the increase to the public transit service and budget should certainly be keeping up with inflation and population growth to some degree, and that is how I see this expansion – Abbotsford is adding thousands of people to its population each year, and I suspect inflation is becoming a more significant force, and we should be responding with corresponding budget increases. However, I’d have to recommend against any large-scale transit increases pending the adoption by citizens of a more visionary, ambitious, plan for City of Abbotsford’s liveability.
