LRT on right tracks
Posted Oct 22, 2010 05:19:01 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A group advocating for improved transit in Waterloo Region is urging local politicians to move forward with plans for light rail. The Tri-Cities Transportation Action Group, or TriTAG, says rising labour costs, increased traffic demands and the opportunity to encourage development are among the reasons we need light rail now.
Spokesperson Tim Mollison tells 570 News that, in the long term, light rail is the smarter financial operating solution because it carries more people, more efficiently.
“What we’re going to see in the 21st century is a rising cost of civic labour,” Mollison explains. “One of the things that this light rail transit system is about is carrying more people with the same number of drivers that we have today.”
But Mollison’s financial analogies do not end there.
“The bottom line is that if we do this with buses the way that it’s supposed to be done, it will still cost us $600-million and in 15 years we’ll have to replace it with a system with higher capacity,” Mollison asserts.
Mollison says any talk of a new transit system must build out from a central transit corridor, a corridor that he already believes to be at or over capacity in Waterloo Region.
He also points to a familiar argument, using Hespeler Road as an example, to explain future transportation demands in our region. Mollison says we’d need 500 lane kilometres of new road — or 25 new Hespeler Roads — to meet that demand. He estimates each lane kilometre would cost $1-million.
“What this light rail system is really about is encouraging people who would otherwise drive because it’s convenient to use transit because it’s comfortable,” Mollison insists. “And you simply don’t get that with buses.”
As for the oft-used argument by critics — that the proposed LRT is more a “shopping train” than a commuter train, Mollison scoffs.
“I have never heard a bigger pile of horse manure in my entire life,” he laughs. “Calling it a mall-to-mall train is like calling the Conestoga Expressway a St. Jacobs-to-New Hamburg expressway.”
Mollison says a light rail system in this community is inevitable. Not only will it move more people more efficiently than buses, but it signals to developers that the region is serious about its future.
“Tracks, or any kind of fixed transit infrastructure, are a commitment by the local government to provide transit service for a long period of time,” says Mollison. “A bus pole you can dig up tomorrow and move it without much expense.”
