Campaign promises for quick, on-budget transit fix are misleading
Tom Brodbeck
WINNIPEG’S transit system needs fixing. But voters should be skeptical of municipal election candidates who promise to fix it quickly, on budget and without stops back where they used to be and somehow make everything better without spending substantially more money.
That’s not a transit plan. It’s wishful thinking.
Winnipeg’s transit network underwent a massive overhaul last year, fundamentally changing how people get around the city.
There are some real advantages, depending on where you live and where you need to go. It also has more frequent service, including reduced transfer costs and more connections for many riders.
Transit has made adjustments since then, including adding service. But there’s still plenty of room for improvement. For many Winnipeggers, getting to work, school or appointments takes much longer than it used to be.
These frustrations are legitimate. Some changes are necessary to turn back the clock.
The new system was designed around a spine-and-feeder model. Instead of having numerous routes from every neighbourhood to every destination, it uses primary routes to move large numbers of passengers from suburban areas to main corridors connecting neighbourhoods to that network.
There are also frequent express lines, frequent lines and direct lines. They’re designed to run along relatively high-ridership routes and stops and more frequent service. The idea is straightforward: fewer stops and less waiting time allows buses to move faster and increase reliability.
Fewer routes, meanwhile, include more local routes that provide a well-rounded request service. They bring passengers onto the primary network, ideally without getting bogged down in traffic along the way, which makes buses late.
There’s a reasonable logic to this approach. A transit system that spends more resources on high-ridership corridors and stopping every few blocks can move more people more efficiently. It allows major corridors can make transit more useful for passengers who need to travel longer distances.
But the problem is the system is not working well for everyone.
Some passengers have converted to seek rideshares, face longer wait times and, in some cases, pay more or less frequent service in their neighbourhoods. A system can look great on paper, but if it doesn’t work conveniently for the people who depend on it, those are real problems that need to be addressed. Tweaking routes and listening to riders and making sensible changes where the network isn’t working is fair game.
But candidates promising to restore the old system need to explain what that would actually mean.
Former routes didn’t simply stop and routes wouldn’t simply involve putting a few lines back on a map. It would require buses, drivers, resources and a fundamental rethinking of how those routes would fit into the existing network.
Recreating the old system would also mean some of the benefits the new one was designed to deliver, including faster travel times and more efficient use of resources. Restoring the old network wholesale would leave the city paying for two competing approaches instead of getting the best advantages of both.
And there's another inconvenient reality that gets lost in the election rhetoric: the overhaul wasn't accompanied by new money. The city essentially took its existing budget and reorganized the service.
That helps explain why some of the promised improvements have been difficult to deliver. You can rearrange routes, consolidate stops and change the way buses connect, but you can't manufacture additional service hours out of thin air.
If Winnipeg wants more buses running more frequently, better neighbourhood connections, shorter waits and fewer inconvenient transfers, it will need to put more resources into the system.
That means investing in additional drivers and buses, expanding service hours and improving the connections between feeder routes and primary lines. It also means identifying where service reductions have created unacceptable hardships and providing the resources to correct them.
Some improvements might be possible through better scheduling, route adjustments and more effective use of existing resources. Transit should continually evaluate its performance and make changes where they can improve service without creating new problems elsewhere.
But there are limits to what can be accomplished by rearranging the deck chairs.
The provincial government also has a role to play. Public transit is an essential service that supports employment, education, economic development and access to health care. If Winnipeg is expected to deliver a substantially better system, the province should be prepared to help pay for it.
A properly funded transit network could provide more frequent service on major corridors while restoring or expanding neighbourhood connections where they are needed.
It could make transfers less onerous, reduce long waits and improve the reliability of the entire system. It could also make transit a more attractive alternative to driving, which is essential if the city wants to reduce congestion and accommodate future growth.
None of that is impossible. But it won't happen simply because a mayoral or council candidate promises to bring back the good old days.
Any candidate who claims to be able to substantially fix Winnipeg Transit with the existing budget, while restoring old routes and hundreds of stops, either doesn't understand the system or is deliberately misleading voters.