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Regional Transit

A thought.
The Alberta government had to approve the EMTSC to form in the first place. What are the chances that the government can deny this from dissolving? Is that even a possibility?
 
I can’t understand why the city would be happy to incur $15M in a one-time termination cost when that sum would pay for the next three years commitments to regional transit. It’s much like the decision to spend $45M to demolish the Coliseum in order to create another piece of vacant land that won’t be worth a tenth of that (as if we don’t have enough vacant land in the city). Why not give that 400,000 sf of enclosed space to Lions Gate or some other studio looking for high ceiling sound/set space for free and let them turn it into something that generates money instead of swallowing it?

Back to transit – you have to wonder if that decision might involve something more than the cost of a few transit routes. It’s my understanding that both Edmonton and the County of Strathcona are looking at new bus barns/maintenance facilities and that Edmonton is looking at a location on the south side. While conceptual design is fairly well advanced, it’s also something that is not particularly site specific. The preferred location may be acceptable for Edmonton’s bus network but it’s far from the only acceptable south east location and it’s not particularly amenable to servicing a regional network.

Perhaps I’m a conspiracy theorist but this will be another quarter of a billion dollar project that the city will be on the hook for alone but it will remain a municipal union site. From a selfish viewpoint, I can understand why they would not want this “moved up” to being a regional facility even if that would potentially save all of the stakeholders a lot more in both capital and operating costs than two stand-alone facilities.

My guess is that Edmonton will “revisit” participation in regional transit after ground has been broken and the appropriate territories are protected and we and our neighbors can both spend a quarter century or so paying the price. Regional transit delivery is about more than just a few bus routes...
 
I think one possibility could be a map with the major routes, along with the LRT. For example the 200 routes for St. Albert, 400 routes for Sherwood Park and so forth For Edmonton, the LRT and High Frequency/Crosstown routes could work.
 
With Alberta's recent growth, Edmonton and area still need to find a way to keep regional transit alive.
 
The_Cat said:
The sad thing is that. Edmonton Transit would rather advocate for the drug addicts and creeps that ride the bus for free rather than support a regional effort that would have benefited everybody.
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Public Bus Services in Alberta should be either outsourced or privatized and the regional service will be addressed. I am surprised UCP is taking so long to implement that.
 
If the NDP are elected in the Spring, the first thing they need to do is revive regional transit. In fact I would go so far as to say they need to make it a wedge issue during the campaign in the districts in greater Edmonton to bring in a properly funded regional transit network.
 
BrettB said:
I think regional transit is good policy, but do you think it's a vote winner?
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If we have a true Metro Edmonton Regional Council - that dealt with police, transit, fire - like we do for ambulances and health care the answer is it would be done. UCP should push forward with that an achieve cost efficiencies and remove barriers.
 
BrettB said:
I think regional transit is good policy, but do you think it's a vote winner?
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Yeah it really only has appeal to Edmonton metro area, where they'd be hoping to win votes in bedroom community ridings, and I just don't think many who choose to live in those communities have transit as a big priority.
 
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