LRT needed to keep pace in a changing world
The best cities in the world possess rapid, efficient and humane mass transit
As Hamilton councillors ponder the future of light rail transit in the city, we have one more perspective to bring to the debate — the user experience. Both of us — an itinerant journalist and a roving academic — have travelled widely and experienced the best and worst of transit systems.
Our conclusion is that the best cities in the world in which to work and live possess rapid, efficient and humane mass transit — and these systems exist because city councils have taken big, bold and timely decisions.
No one in Calgary, for example, looks back and castigates the city officials of the 1980s who forged ahead with the C-Train LRT system that sits at the core of the city’s transit system. They are now seen as foresighted pioneers who understood that Calgary may be an oil town by reputation, but as oil prices gyrate up and down, gas fields come and go, the essential resource remains its people. Its ultimate destiny lies in being a people city.
We both lived and worked in Calgary and came to rely on the C-Train to move easily back and forth between the downtown and the university, or from the downtown to some suburban business meeting. We could see how the train could knit together this far-flung city, the largest urban expanse by area in the country. We see commercial and residential development blossoming at key C-Train nodes, but also the renewed vitality at the more accessible core.
Consider that Calgary is a car town in culture and usage and yet almost half of downtown commuters now rely on mass transit to get to and from work. The C-Train is the centre of that commuting traffic, handling more than 330,000 passengers a day, 100 million a year, making it the busiest system (per population) in Canada and the second-biggest in North America.
Calgary, having completed a major LRT expansion a few years back, is gearing up for a multi-billion-dollar Green Line that will tap into new residential areas. The economy may be going through a difficult phase, but light rail transit is the hope for the future.
Look at other Canadian cities. Part of Vancouver’s allure as a desirable urban environment is the LRT which can carry people from the airport to the downtown and the spectacular waterfront. Edmonton continues to expand its LRT, knowing that it needs this tool in future development, knitting university, downtown and residential areas.
Looking farther afield to Europe, we have both worked in London, which has a terrific mass transit system with extensive underground and overground elements. We have watched as London has expanded its subway and LRT links, allowing seamless travel to Heathrow Airport to the west and the newly development Docklands to the east. No one has to rely on the snarls of traffic to enjoy relatively carefree travel. OK, the tube does get a little hectic at times but this is one massive concentration of people, and yet it all somehow works.
But if there is a prime example of the risk of deferred decision-making, Hamiltonians need only look east to their neighbour, Toronto. We both recall the Toronto of the 1960s and 1970s, which was booming on the back of earlier investments in subways. This was Toronto’s heyday as a livable, future-looking city.
Look at how it lost its mojo, as successive councils became mired in indecision, letting political division, parochial interests and dysfunctional government knock transit development off track. We now know that almost any informed decision would have been preferable to no decisions.
Now Toronto is paying the price with the city in traffic gridlock and the two major subway routes overtaxed by passengers. The council is dealing with a transit crisis of massive proportions, left by its predecessors. Toronto councillors must quietly envy their Hamilton counterparts in the potential to make a big, city-building decision with massive support from the provincial government — if council can move as one voice.
We also know that debate and skepticism are good — these decisions are, by definition, wrenching. Technology is changing and will alter the way we move about, but self-driving cars, combined with Uber-like business models, will never replace the cost benefits and efficiency of LRT for moving large numbers.
Buses too are valued complements to LRT — and with lower costs — but cannot handle nearly the volumes of people. Hamilton will continue to grow as a central piece of the huge Southern Ontario economy, and plans must be made for this growth. LRT also provides for far fewer traffic-related delays than buses, and for its ability to stimulate development along its tracks and near its stations. Businesses can see the LRT hubs as tangible investments in neighbourhoods and can make their moves with some certainty.
There is plenty of uncertainty with LRT — or with any transit mode. But for Hamilton to keep pace with the workable livable cities of the world, it must take the next step.