The mayor may not have had as many councillors on board as he previously said, but nevertheless, Cochrane is one step closer to the implementation of an alternative transit plan.
Following a two-hour presentation and subsequent discussion, council gave administration the go-ahead to submit ‘option 2’ to the provincial government as the town’s blueprint for a transit system. The town must provide these plans to ensure that GreenTrip funding is still available, which pays for the majority of the capital costs, such as busses and bus shelters, of launching a transit.
Council was presented with three transit options during their March 25 meeting, two local options and one regional to Calgary’s Crowfoot LRT station. Option 2 provides a dial-a-bus service to a larger local area, with 60-minute intervals.
Much like when council initially approved transit just over a year ago, councillors Ivan Brooker and Jeff Toews were vocal about their opposition, not to transit itself they said, but because both believed the plan before them was ‘doomed to fail.’
Reasons behind the two councillor’s belief were aplenty, and included what Toews saw as the lack of financial plan, service times not reflecting their target market and routes not reaching everyone in the community.
At one point, Brooker advised two members of the mayor’s youth council – Lawson Parker and Morgan Nagel – who spoke in favour of a transit system, to demand more.
“If you’re representing the youth, why would they not have concerns around a weekday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. service…why didn’t the group push for a weekend service?” Brooker asked.
Nagel and Parker said the youth council did in fact want an evening and weekend service, but felt it wise to start small at first and simply get transit on the ground.
“If we want to have success and the youth are going to be part of that success,” said Brooker, “I think you should push harder to have a service on the weekend right from the get-go. If the service goes and the youth aren’t part of the service, there’s no success.”
Many councillors agreed with Brooker with regards to examining what times a potential bus would run, including Mayor Truper McBride, who echoed Brooker’s suggestion that a Wednesday to Sunday service may work better.
“It sounds as though what I’m hearing from council is that we’re more interested right now in filling a social need in the community,” said McBride, concurring that a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. service would not appease those looking to attend social activities, which primarily occur on evenings and weekends.
Councillor Ivan Davies also said the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule ‘doesn’t make sense,’ and that it was setting transit up for failure when it came to ridership.
Another issue raised during the discussion was which areas of Cochrane would have access to transit, something Brooker said was a big issue for him, as the projected $35 per year, per household price tag could potentially increase if the service was provided to all of Cochrane.
Fireside and Riversong are two communities with no bus routes included in the second option.
Brooker asked why administration could not devise a plan by 2016 that would service the entire community, then suggested council postpone a vote on transit until the next council session, scheduled for April 8, a motion that was swiftly voted down.
“Nothing would make me happier than to find a consensus on this,” said McBride. “We’ve been largely agreeing with the points that you’ve raised…if we want to wait until spring of 2016, then let’s wait until spring of 2016.”
McBride said he did not agree with comments by Toews that the public engagement process on transit was not an inclusive process. Toews, reading an email from Barry Metcalfe, owner of Cochrane IGA, said the engagement did not speak to those who felt transit was not yet needed, but was rather pushing for one option or another.
Toews questioned why during the engagement there was not the option ‘no transit’ posed to residents.
Kathy Dietrich, senior manager of planning and engineering for Cochrane, said the reason was that administration was not tasked with determining whether people wanted transit or not, but instead, if the town were to move forward with a plan, what that plan would look like.
The mayor also did not swallow the argument that only one per cent of residents will use a transit system, a point vocalized by John Steiner of Urban Systems, a transit expert who made the presentation to council.
“We have 600 total enrolled in recreation programs,” McBride compared. “By the same argument, should we be cancelling our recreation programs?”
Both McBride and Dietrich stressed that the decision before council was not that of approving a transit plan, but rather that they have received the report for information, and that it was a step in the process.
“I don’t know how we could take a more populace approach to transit,” said McBride, adding that the discussion moving forward must include the ‘very good points’ voiced by Brooker and Toews.
“I haven’t heard anything raised tonight that precludes you from accepting this as information and asking administration to look at where our application would be,” said McBride. “I understand the hesitancy…it’s a big step forward.”
Along with the mayor, councillors Tara McFadden, Ross Watson, Joann Churchill and Davies voted in favour of moving forward with transit.
McFadden said it filled a social gap, that it was ‘a no-risk step’ and that the public would get a chance to see what was being proposed.
Churchill pointed out that the Ipsos Reid survey revealed that 70 per cent of those polled said that there was a need for some form of public transit in Cochrane. That same survey also indicated that 52 per cent feel a regular, local transit service is not important and that 78 per cent are concerned about the overall cost of transit.
Churchill also said she supported the local option because the Calgary Regional Partnership is currently working on a regional transit service, and with Cochrane being a member, it could benefit from that system in the future.
