Canada PoliERA |OT| Two Years of Sunny Days? That’s Scheer Madness!

[bremon]

Subsidizing bike purchases sounds ridiculous. Like... beyond ridiculous. More money for proper cycling infrastructure is important but bikes are not outside the means of the majority of people.

As for the dumb hicks who are worried about a lane of parking...can we worry about the dumb hicks who hit cyclists? A coworker was smashed off the road into the ditch 2 years ago by a Jeep. Needless to say he needed some time off.

 

[Caz]

haha

no seriously tho...

Even if you gave people 10x less free money you'd still be giving people basically enough for people to get free bicycles. That'd be a pretty huge expansion of emissions free transportation options.

Of course you'd need to completely redesign our unsustainable car oriented urban infrastructure, and despite all the rah rah about infrastructure spending in 2015, that hasn't happened.

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Putting aside how environmentally consequential emissions from gas are for a moment, what electric bike costs $5,000? One made out of gold with encrusted diamonds?
Based on what little I know about purchasing electrical bikes (a relative of mine owns a bike store), the range i've seen most electric bikes go for is around $500-$1,000 with the high end being the Voltbike at around 2K.

 

[Tiktaalik]

I mean it's tongue in cheek statement to point out the absurdity of giving away money to people who can afford to buy a brand new car. Creating separated bike lane infrastructure would be a much more equitable and better use of money

Bikes are actually already somewhat subsidized in BC since they're exempt from provincial sales tax.

Some final details about the Nanaimo byelection results:

 

[bremon]

Typical by election turnout.

Anyways, re; subsidized electric cars, the idea is to try to incentivize people not to replace their vehicles with ICE powered vehicles...which cost significantly less than electric. Selling more electric starts to bring costs down to mass market prices. It isn't wholly stupid, especially considering Edmonton and Calgary aren't likely going to be cycling hot spots before I'm dead. I don't have a problem subsidizing electric vehicles, just like I don't have a problem subsidizing the shutdown of coal fired plants, and don't have a problem paying to educate other people's children when I likely won't ever have any of my own.

 

[Mr.Mike]

I don't think we really have time to re-engineer our cities and culture to get everyone biking in order to reduce emissions. Electric cars are a much easier "drop-in" replacement.

 

[lupinko]

Well the other thing with electric vehicles is that all the car manufacturers are going that way. The luxury brands like Audi are already going to it and you have GM changing their entire output to focus more on electric (and automated self driving) cars. The oil industry is still trying to fight tooth and claw but the automotive industry already see the writing on the wall.

 

[Terrell]

The GSA protest news from Alberta is great, in a sense. Kenney, like Ford before him, is poison to the Conservative brand's hopes for electoral success.
As I have suggested before, my mother tends to vote Conservative because she falls for the pandering that Tories aren't as socially-regressive as they truly are. When I explained to her what Kenney was doing in Alberta, she thought it was the dumbest thing she'd ever heard of. I told her outright:

"That's what a Conservative majority government looks like when they have no fear of losing the vote. That's what they actually stand for. This is what drives young people to vote Liberal and NDP, despite any of their political flaws. This is why I cannot and never will respect the notion of you voting Conservative because you dislike the Liberal government of the day."

All she could say back was "I can't fault you there", grimaced at what she was seeing on the news and then went to bed.

So I think that the more hay that's made over stories like those, the better off we will be when election season kicks off. While I certainly don't like the idea of voter participation sinking even further, if it means that the voters who aren't participating are those who would have voted for the Tories because of their distaste for the current Liberals, at least the voter disenfranchisement might hurt the right in equal measure to the left for a change.

"The left is CRAZY"

It made me think, what are the chances JBP will be a candidate in the next elections? It seems to be the next logical step in our collective nightmare.

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I guess Bernier got exhausted trying to pretend his party had no alt-right affiliations and is now just diving right into the rhetoric. At least this charade wasn't belaboured for the next several months.

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Moe has to be hoping that he can get this appealed to the SCoC before the provincial election, because no matter how he spins this, many people who he wanted to vote for him see the writing on the wall that his court challenge was a waste of taxpayer dollars and the blame for the state of the carbon tax falls on him and his party for not making a proper deal oriented to his province's needs, opting instead to follow Brad Wall's lead by having a tantrum in front of any available microphone about how the Liberals were such big meanies for suggesting that they do something about the state of the planet.

Unrelated, but another blemish on this country is listening to Scott Moe talk to anyone with a mic about how SK's legal challenge to the carbon tax isn't over yet.

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The man thinks if he drags this out, he'll have a better chance at re-election in 2020, but I think that ship might have sailed for a lot of people here. He was already at a disadvantage compared to his recently-elected counterparts by being forced to put his money where his mouth is, so to speak, and won't be able to win an election purely on bluster.

Greens win!

(it's a by-election right before a general election so turnout is sub 30% so take any narrative spinning that comes out of this with a grain of salt?)

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This is bigger news than some of you realize, because it means Elizabeth May is going to start gearing up for retirement now.

 

[Kernel]

Newest CPC candidate:

 

[Tiktaalik]

Electric car subsidies are a basically 1) an election vote buying exercise and 2) a kludge to paste over the failure of the government's carbon tax plan.

Ideally in a system where there's rising fuel costs related to a revenue neutral carbon tax, people will recognize that if they change their behaviour and use transportation alternatives, they'll save money, thus lowering their carbon use along with their expenses. Of course when the carbon tax is too low people aren't incentivized enough to shift behaviour and instead simply whine about rising prices, and of course despite our apparent increased infrastructure spending, the transportation alternatives have failed to materialize in a significant enough way for people to feel they genuinely have the opportunities to change their transportation patterns.

The kludge solution then is to do the same failed thing we've always done, but a tad better, and the result is a big tax credit for upper middle class new car buyers who would have been considering buying an electric anyway with rising gas prices. This is a huge gift to new car dealers to new car spur sales and does nothing to help people that can't afford to buy brand new cars or cars at all.

In other news, the fucked up result of the fact that we know that the government attempted to meddle with the prosecution of SNC Lavalin is that, whereas before I'd ignore this sort of tweet as tin foil hat nonsense, now I'm like, hm yeah probably a political connection here. How can you have any faith in the independence of the justice system at this point?

 

[Kernel]

Electric car subsidies are a basically 1) an election vote buying exercise and 2) a kludge to paste over the failure of the government's carbon tax plan.

Ideally in a system where there's rising fuel costs related to a revenue neutral carbon tax, people will recognize that if they change their behaviour and use transportation alternatives, they'll save money, thus lowering their carbon use along with their expenses

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My office is 40 km away. I can't bike there it would take hours. There's only 2 buses which leaves me little flexibility as to when to leave the office, never mind the "stop on my way from work and pick up something" routine.

Commuting to work in my EV costs me $30/month in electricity costs vs. $200-300 in bus fare or gasoline(when I drove my ICE car). And I get a bigger net refund from driving an EV and not paying gas costs.

Public transit would have to be massively overhauled.

Public transit worked for me when I could just take a GO Train from my house to Union and then 10-15 minute walk to work.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Not literally everyone is going to be able to ditch their car, but that's why the carbon tax is revenue neutral. You aren't harshly penalized by the rising prices due to the neutrality, but you will be benefit from a switch to an electric car when the time comes to change vehicles.

Meanwhile however there are plenty of people that would benefit from public transportation improvements and land use changes that I have yet to see the Fed government fully commit to. When these people get off the road your commute would improve too!

The biggest missed opportunity I've seen is the lack of movement on land use reform. The most significant way to reduce peoples' need to drive (and to reduce emissions) is to create more opportunities for people to simply walk or cycle to where they work or need to perform errands. The way to do this is to intensify housing near job centres, and add job centres near housing. It's great to see that the Federal government is now saying they're getting back into funding housing, but that hasn't appeared yet. It's a big missed opportunity in these last four years to link their climate change strategy with a housing strategy but it didn't happen.

 

[Dekuman]

I'm treated like I'm weird or developmentally delayed even by my own family because I refuse to buy a car and use transit instead

Coworkers have also politely asked why. Social pressure is big for car ownership

I live in the lower mainland BC where transit is great so even here it's tough if you don't own a car. It's true I does limit my freedom but I accept it. For some it's a.big ask

 

[Terrell]

I could never fault someone for wanting a car, our major cities were/are designed in a way that practically mandates either having a car or spending hundreds of millions in taxes building a transit infrastructure around the urban design choices that are preferential to automobiles and thus far less convenient or efficient. Not to mention the pressure that these design choices put on people who need inter-municipal travel, a car is basically the only option now that STC and Greyhound are shutting down operations.

The cause of it is so many people wanting the dream of having a house with a backyard and the white picket fence and no tall buildings for miles. Basically, they want the luxury of a short commute to the jobs major industrial centres provide combined with the home aesthetics of small town America in the 1960s, complete with the illusion of "community". And that fantasy mandates urban sprawl by way of suburban development to give a growing population access to that dream.

This is why getting to the "level 5" self-driving electric car is seen as such a big deal, because it acknowledges this fact and creates a middle-ground where cities/provinces can create a transportation network around the existing municipal and highway design with essentially a larger fleet of self-driving taxis. While I personally think that we need to redesign our cities rather than trying to accommodate their current design, I understand the appeal of just being able to paper over the mistakes of past urban design with a blanket of robot cars.

 

[Mr.Mike]

GM announces $170M investment in Oshawa plant that will save 300 jobs

General Motors Canada says it will invest $170 million in its Oshawa, Ont., plant to transition the facility from manufacturing vehicles to stamping, sub-assembly and autonomous vehicle testing.

GM Canada president Travis Hester says the move will save 300 of 2,600 union jobs at the plant.

Hester made the announcement this morning in Toronto alongside Unifor national president Jerry Dias at a news conference. He said the transformed plant will have the potential to grow and attract more jobs as the facility attracts new customers.

...

A joint statement from GM Canada and Unifor said the company will offer relocations to other facilities in Ontario for those affected, as well as "enhanced retirement packages" to eligible employees.

he statement said GM will also establish a jobs action centre in June in Oshawa to help employees plan for their future. The centre will receive support from GM, Unifor and the Ontario government and it will match employee skills with requirements from new employers.

...

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[mintzilla]

Don't forget the fact that the ev subsidies perpetuates forever the car first mantra for city builders. God forbid you build public transit or mixed use developments.

Also it's jinda disturbing that subsidizing a 50 000$ car purchase is ok but subsidizing the cost of an ebike for a low income
Family that could save literally thousands per year by not having to own a car is taboo.

I can't wait for the day "fuck you got mine" types are no longer running the country.

 

[bremon]

Again, how much do you people think bicycles cost? Even the average homeless person seems to have a bike. If the NDP or Greens want to run on a platform of everyone in the country getting a free bike, best of luck to them. Remind me to look into whether or not Norco is publicly traded or not in the meantime.

We have 100 years of infrastructure designed around the use of cars. It shouldn't be a surprise people are a bit skeptical of how fast "bicycle oriented design" can take over and see electric cars as a more viable alternative when the cost of the existing infrastructure is taken into account.

 

[DarthWalden]

Don't forget the fact that the ev subsidies perpetuates forever the car first mantra for city builders. God forbid you build public transit or mixed use developments.

Also it's jinda disturbing that subsidizing a 50 000$ car purchase is ok but subsidizing the cost of an ebike for a low income
Family that could save literally thousands per year by not having to own a car is taboo.

I can't wait for the day "fuck you got mine" types are no longer running the country.

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A program that Subsidizes Electric Bikes seems ripe for abuse, the cost of entry is only 1500-2000$, its not a massive barrier to begin with. Then how much do you subsidize? Who gets subsidized? Y'know if you start giving these things away for free or for cheap people are just going to take advantage of the program and will scoop them up with little to no intention to replace there commuting happens.

Furthermore an electric bike is mostly useless for a family outside of the primary caregiver commuting, you can't get groceries or get a family around on an electric bike. Electric bikes simply won't be an option for a lot of people in the case of sub-optimal weather which in Canada is the case for a lot of places for a good chunk of the year.

I think more importantly what is the issue with regular bikes that we feel the need to subsidize electric bikes, they can be had for practically nothing in some cases and at least in my eyes you can get anywhere on a regular bike than you can on an electric bike unless you are totally out of shape.

 

[Dekuman]

Yeah I think transit is the solution. Bikes don't fit what a family needs. And weather will mean it's only useful for part of the year. But less stigma around transit and more accessibility is the key..

That said it's not viable outside cities but lots more work can be done within cities and regions like the GVRD to expand the transit network.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Enacting some incentives to nudge people toward electric cars and hoping that some miracle new self driving tech to solve the looming "boomers won't be able to drive soon" problem is the definition of a timid status quo non-solution. Maybe this would be an ok approach to our climate change and transportation problems if this was the 1990s, but at this point it's too slow, too late.

Meanwhile Vancouver city council has declared a Climate Emergency and passed a policy with six big steps to implement.

Vancouver city staff are recommending city council respond to the world's "climate emergency" by dramatically stepping up its green initiatives to ensure the city becomes carbon neutral before 2050.

The city's general managers of planning and engineering are recommending the city adopt six "big moves" by 2030 that would include:

• Aim to have 90 per cent of its citizens live within an easy walk of their "daily needs."

• Accelerate its goal of having two-third of trips in the city by walking, biking or transit by 2030 (instead of 2040).

• Have 50 per cent of all kilometres driven on city roads by zero emissions vehicles.

• Aim by 2025 to have all new and replacement heating and hot water systems in buildings produce zero emissions.

• By 2030 reduce the carbon content of new buildings and construction projects by 40 per cent (compared to 2018).

• By 2030 restore enough forest and coastal ecosystems in the city to remove one million tonnes of carbon pollution every year by 2060.

The goal is for the city to "do its part" to keep warming to the international climate community's goal of 1.5 degrees, said Matt Horne, the city's climate policy manager. The overall goal is to cut in half carbon pollution by 2030.

Horne said that would work out to 90,000 tonnes a year in a reduction of carbon, compared to the 19,000 tonnes a year the city has reduced between 2007 and 2017.

"That's a five-fold increase," he said.

...

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You can see that the bulk of the emphasis is on active transportation, not cars.

You can read the report here. It's a good read.

The next federal government needs to declare a climate emergency and needs to get all cities into this sort of alignment on this issue.

 

[gutter_trash]

Old people, disabled people, families need their car.

Fuck spandex bike nuts who exceed speed limits.

The solution is electrification.

Condo and appatment buildings need help to install plug stations

Oh, fuck bike nuts

 

[killerrin]

Condo and appatment buildings need help to install plug stations

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Governments need to just mandate that all apartment complexes and condos have handful of electric charging stations available for usage. I swear to God, how expensive is it really for them to just take all the spots literally right up against the building and either put high power outlets or dedicated stations.

Like I get if they don't want to tear up the entire parking lot to run power lines, but it does not cost all that much to do the ones right up in the edge close to the building.

 

[gutter_trash]

Electric cars would be best in the city.

Sadly apartment and condos are not setup for it.

 

[Terrell]

Enacting some incentives to nudge people toward electric cars and hoping that some miracle new self driving tech to solve the looming "boomers won't be able to drive soon" problem is the definition of a timid status quo non-solution. Maybe this would be an ok approach to our climate change and transportation problems if this was the 1990s, but at this point it's too slow, too late.

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I don't think I need to tell you or anyone else that ANY solution we come up with as an approach to climate change and transport needs is "too slow, too late" at this point. That's rather the whole point, we've painted ourselves so far into a corner that every solution proposed is too late. There's no silver bullet and that needs to be accepted.

Hoping that urban designers will change to meet an ecological & transportation need by curbing demand for suburban living to solve the problem of infrastructure projects for public transport costing billions of dollars to build and maintain that some municipalities can't afford is the definition of a DOA non-starter. Maybe it could have been achieved in the 1980s when urban sprawl really ramped up (hence why Vancouver has decent public transportation compared to most other Canadian cities yet still can't meet certain needs), but we're well beyond the pale now.

It's why Saskatoon is talking about rapid bus corridors that will be outmoded in 10 years instead of building the LRT system that was recommended to properly meet the city's population growth needs, the money to build it is more than what could be reasonably afforded. The fact that a fleet of diesel buses could actually be cheaper to implement and operate than LRT really encapsulates the problem.

 

[killerrin]

It's why Saskatoon is talking about rapid bus corridors that will be outmoded in 10 years instead of building the LRT system that was recommended to properly meet the city's population growth needs, the money to build it is more than what could be reasonably afforded. The fact that a fleet of diesel buses could actually be cheaper to implement and operate than LRT really encapsulates the problem.

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It really is funny how when you really look at it, everything really boils down to a fault in how a country was formed, how their constitution was written. This 100% is a Municipality Revenue issue. Municipalities being starved of revenue means they don't make these grand moves to properly build out infrastructure the right way, instead opting for what they can afford, and doing that over and over again. Basically being stuck in purpetial maintenance and never actually fixing the problems at hand. The reason for this being that in Canada, Municipalities don't have the same power as our Feds and Provinces, with them often being at the whims of their masters higher up the chain.

 

[gutter_trash]

The Constitution is garbage, the Provinces act like dictatorships while cities have their democracy legs chopped off by the evil garbage shitty Provinces.

Big cities need more power and it really sucks to see how the Canadian model is antiquated when it comes to let cities evolve.

LOL, you have disputes from Provincial Ridings and Federal Ridiings over-riding the good of the people to let public transit bloom and expand from the city to the burbs to the rural.

You have poor European countries who have exceptionally superior public transit systems meanwhile their wages are like 2x to 3x less than ours.


oh, can I repeat it? Fuck Provinces!!!

 

[Caz]

This year is one bizarre incident after another.



I hope they're safe.

 

[killerrin]

This year is one bizarre incident after another.



I hope they're safe.

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Damn, I hope he's safe. That is so odd for someone with that level of power just going missing.

 

[Deleted member 12950]

This year is one bizarre incident after another.



I hope they're safe.

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Found and he's in hospital. Hope things will be okay for him.

 

[Pedrito]

I wonder if he's suffering from alzheimer or something like that. He's only 59 and he's already retiring in the fall. It's also weird that the police would issue a bulletin for a missing adult after only 6 hours, supreme court justice or not.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah just saw that story. Glad he's okay, but what a strange thing to happen.

 

[Vamphuntr]

The Constitution is garbage, the Provinces act like dictatorships while cities have their democracy legs chopped off by the evil garbage shitty Provinces.

Big cities need more power and it really sucks to see how the Canadian model is antiquated when it comes to let cities evolve.

LOL, you have disputes from Provincial Ridings and Federal Ridiings over-riding the good of the people to let public transit bloom and expand from the city to the burbs to the rural.

You have poor European countries who have exceptionally superior public transit systems meanwhile their wages are like 2x to 3x less than ours.


oh, can I repeat it? Fuck Provinces!!!

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High speed trains were financed in huge part by the Europeans Union. The reason that poor countries and rural villages have access to such services is usually because of their geographical location (ie being between two major cities, countries or stations) . Europe overall is also much more densely populated than Canada too. 37 millions people vs 740 millions people. 740 millions people will definitely have more funds for expensive projects than 37 millions. Cities and provinces relations have nothing to do with this. Canada probably doesn't have the funding to build and maintain a nation wide train system as deeply connected as those found in EU. A huge chunk of the country is empty and thus without anyone to use the service.

In QC in particular cities are constantly shown as incompetent and needing supervision. Montréal was stuck in decades of municipal corruption where successive mayor's offices were involved. It was so bad we needed a public inquiry. The QC government had to bail out municipal employees retirements funds because they were in the red and poorly managed (not taking into accounts that people lived older, that living is getting more expensive) so we dumped millions into that. The recent flooding has shown that cities literally allowed people to build houses in areas with high risk of flooding. In one place they knew the levee wouldn't hold and they didn't even repair or upgrade it. Giving these people even more power is frankly terrifying.

And the reason people are whining and bickering between big cities and rural area is much more because of the current climate we live in than the power politics between the municipal and provincial level. People are increasingly unhappy and feel they aren't getting the services they deserve for what they pay for. I don't see how bizarre it is for people in suburbs or rural areas to not be delighted that the governments drop billions on a big city transit service they will never get to use while schools, hospitals and transportation infrastructure are failing apart in their region. The system is reaching it's limit and people need more services and not only in big cities but the money is starting to be increasingly limited.

The way that the QC government gives handout for PT to cities is also already heavily skewed in favor of Montréal like La Presse was reporting. The money you get is proportional to the amount of users you have which means only big cities with already well developed networks constantly get the funding required while those that are trying to develop their system gets next to nothing. So they still get the lion share of the money. The city is also getting a 5-6 billions dollar Light Rail Train system which they are studying to expand further to the North and South shore. The rest is pretty much a political show on TV.

I think you are more angry because the city's political power cratered more than anything else. Under the Liberal's reign pretty much all big ministers were from there but now there is only 1 as the Liberals were wiped out outside of Montréal. This is simply more the pendulum swinging back than anything else.

 

[gutter_trash]

LOL you forgot to mention the dictatorship merger the PQ imposed on cities unwillingly

 

[Kernel]

Electric cars would be best in the city.

Sadly apartment and condos are not setup for it.

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I think California has laws mandating it and they're doing fine. I thought condos in Toronto were changing laws to allow chargers.

I think Ford is killing some regulation that would have mandated a rough in/conduit for a charger in the garage.

I'm only charging on a 120V outlet and it's not much fun.

 

[killerrin]

I think California has laws mandating it and they're doing fine. I thought condos in Toronto were changing laws to allow chargers.

I think Ford is killing some regulation that would have mandated a rough in/conduit for a charger in the garage.

I'm only charging on a 12pV outlet and it's not much fun.

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Which to be quite frank is the most fucking stupid thing ever for Ford to do. At that point in a buildings construction the walls are still blown opened and the material cost to put it together is literally less than $500 between the wire, plug and 15-30 minutes of an electricians time. So quite frankly, anybody who suggests to skip it in a new build is borderline idiotic... which is exactly why they'll do it.

 

[Kernel]

So quite frankly, anybody who suggests to skip it in a new build is borderline idiotic... which is exactly why they'll do it

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Well I got into an argument with a Ford supporter that removing regulations like this will make housing cheaper and if you want a charger then pay to have one installed yourself. People should have choices, blah blah blah.

 

[killerrin]

Well I got into an argument with a Ford supporter that removing regulations like this will make housing cheaper and if you want a charger then pay to have one installed yourself. People should have choices, blah blah blah.

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Like I said. Borderline idiots.

In fact, I even highballed my estimate. I only priced out what it would cost me to go down to the hardware store and buy the materials myself. I completely forgot that builders are buying in bulk for multiple buildings at once, as a result they get the items at a severe markdown. Likely meaning that you're paying more for the 15-30 minutes of extra time for the Electrician than for the materials itself. Or basically $100-150

 

[Caz]

Well I got into an argument with a Ford supporter that removing regulations like this will make housing cheaper and if you want a charger then pay to have one installed yourself. People should have choices, blah blah blah.

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It's people like this for whom those developers that funded Ontario Proud weep tears of joy.

 

[Kernel]

Like I said. Their borderline idiots.

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I don't understand the these conservative/libertarian people. They must be joke characters.

"Regulations are bad. If we get rid of regulations everything will be better and cheaper due to the free market."

 

[Caz]

I don't understand the these conservative/libertarian people. They must be joke characters.

"Regulations are bad. If we get rid of regulations everything will be better and cheaper due to the free market."

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"If I wanna drink muh milk without it being pasteurized, the gubermn't can't stop me! It's ma right to do what I want, nobody tellin' me what to do"

And then they got sick on raw milk to own the libs.

This is the future libertarians want.

 

[Terrell]

I definitely hear what Vamphuntr is saying about how municipalities fumbled the ball WRT the public trust in their management of funds.
There's a very famous news story from Saskatoon about how the city requested federal funding to build a new perimeter road and reduce semi traffic in major highway thoroughfares through the city and the feds told them no. The reason? The city hadn't even finished its last "perimeter road", Circle Drive, which began construction in the 60s and was still missing its southwest section to "close the circle"; the last addition to Circle Drive was built back in 1983, with no further work put into it since, largely due to NIMBY bullshit that caused the city to push it off as a "luxury expense". The feds told the city they would refuse to provide any infrastructure funds for a new project until the city finished Circle Drive, period. So suddenly, like magic, Circle Drive was completed almost 50 years after the project started.
It should not take 50 years to build something of that scale, and yet...
When the news broke, I know my family laughed and basically said City Hall could get fucked. A string of piss-poor choices have stagnated growth in this city for decades, so people are mostly fine with the province managing municipal funds here. It just means when the cities are underfunded, we get a new provincial government pretty soon after.

All that said, I disagree that the rural/urban divide is something related to the current political climate; I can absolutely assure that it's existed for as long as I've been alive, at least.

 

[Dekuman]

NIMBY in cities need to be controlled.

 

[SRG01]

I definitely hear what Vamphuntr is saying about how municipalities fumbled the ball WRT the public trust in their management of funds.
There's a very famous news story from Saskatoon about how the city requested federal funding to build a new perimeter road and reduce semi traffic in major highway thoroughfares through the city and the feds told them no. The reason? The city hadn't even finished its last "perimeter road", Circle Drive, which began construction in the 60s and was still missing its southwest section to "close the circle"; the last addition to Circle Drive was built back in 1983, with no further work put into it since, largely due to NIMBY bullshit that caused the city to push it off as a "luxury expense". The feds told the city they would refuse to provide any infrastructure funds for a new project until the city finished Circle Drive, period. So suddenly, like magic, Circle Drive was completed almost 50 years after the project started.
It should not take 50 years to build something of that scale, and yet...
When the news broke, I know my family laughed and basically said City Hall could get fucked. A string of piss-poor choices have stagnated growth in this city for decades, so people are mostly fine with the province managing municipal funds here. It just means when the cities are underfunded, we get a new provincial government pretty soon after.

All that said, I disagree that the rural/urban divide is something related to the current political climate; I can absolutely assure that it's existed for as long as I've been alive, at least.

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Yup. As much as the current arrangement of federal, provincial, and municipal powers sucks, it's actually mind boggling how poorly some cities are run.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Hoping that urban designers will change to meet an ecological & transportation need by curbing demand for suburban living to solve the problem of infrastructure projects for public transport costing billions of dollars to build and maintain that some municipalities can't afford is the definition of a DOA non-starter. Maybe it could have been achieved in the 1980s when urban sprawl really ramped up (hence why Vancouver has decent public transportation compared to most other Canadian cities yet still can't meet certain needs), but we're well beyond the pale now.

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I think with real funding and political will cities are capable of huge changes. Bike lanes for example are a real low hanging fruit given that in terms of transportation budgets they are basically 'free' and yet so, so many suburban towns have basically no bike infrastructure at all. I mean seriously when Vancouver was putting these up on a trial basis they just threw movable concrete lane dividers on the road. Ta da! Instant protected bike lane. It costs almost nothing, but merely requires political will.

All across Metro Vancouver cities are having a good look at at the sprawling parking lots around malls and redeveloping by putting housing on them instead. The result is hundreds of people that can now step out of their door and access an array of retail amenities instead of getting in the car. There's tons of shitty sprawling malls across Canada where one could redevelop in this way.

All this is with no help from the Feds. If we got serious we could really accelerate this process.

It's why Saskatoon is talking about rapid bus corridors that will be outmoded in 10 years instead of building the LRT system that was recommended to properly meet the city's population growth needs, the money to build it is more than what could be reasonably afforded. The fact that a fleet of diesel buses could actually be cheaper to implement and operate than LRT really encapsulates the problem.

Click to shrink...

I think this is the way forward. I think I posted earlier in this thread that renowned transit planner Jarrett Walker, commenting on the climate crisis, said that it's basically too late for expensive infrastructure like Vancouver's Skytrain alone to have an impact. It takes too long to build. At this point there are bigger gains to be made by emphasizing more on a massive increase in bus and rapid bus across whole regions.

Vancouver just got its first shipment of electric buses. That sort of change will be significant too.

 

[SRG01]

Public transit moving to electric, along with increased funding, will be more effective than consumer-level EVs.

Bu-bu-but government services bad! Transit bad!

Like, holy shit, if I had the option to get to work in 45 minutes through transit, I would not drive to work. EVER. But my current bus route isn't timed with the rail system so it ends up being 1h10m.

 

[Terrell]

I will say that the provinces have too much say in the nitty-gritty of municipal budgets, but there has to be a middle ground so municipalities are permitted to spend government money on things of urgent need and be able to penalize them for reckless use of public funds to dissuade mismanagement.

I think with real funding and political will cities are capable of huge changes. Bike lanes for example are a real low hanging fruit given that in terms of transportation budgets they are basically 'free' and yet so, so many suburban towns have basically no bike infrastructure at all. I mean seriously when Vancouver was putting these up on a trial basis they just threw movable concrete lane dividers on the road. Ta da! Instant protected bike lane. It costs almost nothing, but merely requires political will.

All across Metro Vancouver cities are having a good look at at the sprawling parking lots around malls and redeveloping by putting housing on them instead. The result is hundreds of people that can now step out of their door and access an array of retail amenities instead of getting in the car. There's tons of shitty sprawling malls across Canada where one could redevelop in this way.

All this is with no help from the Feds. If we got serious we could really accelerate this process.

Click to shrink...

Metro Vancouver is in a unique position to do this. You'll notice that most of the developments you're talking about are happening around major transit areas or on expansions to the current system. In places without that existing infrastructure, you wouldn't get the result you're thinking without further development beyond putting residential down where asphalt used to be.

I think this is the way forward. I think I posted earlier in this thread that renowned transit planner Jarrett Walker, commenting on the climate crisis, said that it's basically too late for expensive infrastructure like Vancouver's Skytrain alone to have an impact. It takes too long to build. At this point there are bigger gains to be made by emphasizing more on a massive increase in bus and rapid bus across whole regions.

Vancouver just got its first shipment of electric buses. That sort of change will be significant too.

Click to shrink...

Being a Metro Vancouver resident, you assuredly understand that buses can only meet ridership demands for so long before you're forced to make the big infrastructure spend anyways. Anyone who's rode the B-Line in the past 10 years knows exactly why they should have built the Broadway SkyTrain extension already. Mr. Walker, to be quite blunt, is talking out of his ass if he thinks "more buses" are a cure-all solution to transportation deficits, since it ignores population changes and region-specific concerns that make it more expensive in the long term.

 

[lacinius]

One thing I don't think gets mentioned enough is that where appropriate companies and corporations need to finally endorse and full support telecommuting as well... there is no reason to have people make their way downtown just to sit in a cubicle all day as a general example.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Walker designs transit systems for major world cities for a living so I'm gonna take his word for it on the right path forward. Of course rapid bus systems eventually run out of capacity (Vancouver's broadway line is literally the highest capacity bus route in NA outside of Mexico City) and you need to upgrade, but until then cranking buses takes cars off the road. Bus Rapid Transit can do nearly as well as the LRT systems that so many cities across Canada are already putting in. It's something that cities can get up and running quickly, prove out that the transit line will work, then upgrade from there.

It is simple and cheap to turn a road into a bus rapid transit route. You give it a dedicated lane and a bendy bus. With extra money you can put in BRT stations and things work even smoother. Suddenly that sad suburban mall surrounded by a sea of parking without major transit infrastructure has it. Tada!

Vancouver has been doing insane transit growth recently. What is feeding that is not new skytrain lines, but rather increased bus service hours.

 

[Terrell]

Walker designs transit systems for major world cities for a living so I'm gonna take his word for it on the right path forward. Of course rapid bus systems eventually run out of capacity (Vancouver's broadway line is literally the highest capacity bus route in NA outside of Mexico City) and you need to upgrade, but until then cranking buses takes cars off the road. Bus Rapid Transit can do nearly as well as the LRT systems that so many cities across Canada are already putting in. It's something that cities can get up and running quickly, prove out that the transit line will work, then upgrade from there.

It is simple and cheap to turn a road into a bus rapid transit route. You give it a dedicated lane and a bendy bus. With extra money you can put in BRT stations and things work even smoother. Suddenly that sad suburban mall surrounded by a sea of parking without major transit infrastructure has it. Tada!

Vancouver has been doing insane transit growth recently. What is feeding that is not new skytrain lines, but rather increased bus service hours.

Click to shrink...

Every time someone gets sick of the congestion on the B-Line, that becomes one more person buying a car. It's nice to say "oh yeah, we can just run buses for now until it becomes untenable", but then you've got major congestion in your transit that openly turns passengers away from the service the moment they can afford to or are able to drive, since you'll reach congestion before you ever break ground on its replacement. People openly DREAD the B-Line at it is at over-capacity NOW, while the Broadway extension won't be finished until 2025. That's 6 more years of what can best be described as hell on wheels, or 6 more years of an experience that could only discourage transit utilization.

Prolonged exposure to negative experiences are what drives away ridership, it's that simple. Another hometown example, but transit ridership has been falling consistently in Saskatoon for the better part of 2 decades due to drivers not meeting their stop schedule by several minutes on a near-constant basis (I can't count how many times I saw a bus blow past my stop 10 minutes earlier than its scheduled stop time or how frequently it was 10 minutes late or more), leaving passengers stranded outside in the middle of prairie winter conditions for upwards of a half hour until the next bus. This was followed by a lockout of the Local ATU in 2014 and ridership practically cratered after they got back to work.

With all that in mind, you can't fault people for looking at the BRT project thinking "oh great, another bus that won't run on time like it's supposed to." It doesn't even have a dedicated bus lane all the way through its route, so it doesn't actually meet the standards to be considered a proper BRT. So one must also consider not just whether such systems can meet ridership needs but also whether or not it will actually encourage the use of the system. And in Saskatoon's case, the eroded public trust in drivers being able to reliably operate the BRT means that no, it probably won't. And I have significant doubts that my city is an isolated case in this regard. It's one thing to advocate for more public transit, but it's more productive to advocate for systems that people will actually USE.

 

[Tiktaalik]

This sounds like a classic case of 'defund, discredit' used to undermine and destroy public services.

The solution to the 'transit is bad' is to fund transit more.

Vancouver is now seeing a virtuous cycle thanks to funding increases. Transit use is up 7% YoY with bus use leading the pack up 8%. More funding = more service, so more people use the service, which yields more service etc.

 

[oneils]

haha

no seriously tho...

Even if you gave people 10x less free money you'd still be giving people basically enough for people to get free bicycles. That'd be a pretty huge expansion of emissions free transportation options.

Of course you'd need to completely redesign our unsustainable car oriented urban infrastructure, and despite all the rah rah about infrastructure spending in 2015, that hasn't happened.

Click to shrink...

lol, its a good question. I'm 41, and have never owned a car. I'm subsidizing vehicle owners. I want a tax rebate/refund. haha.