planning processes » Ren Thomas

Maastricht’s strategic vision

Members of our transport planning group at the Liège railway station: Roel ter Brugge, Jake Wiersma, Florian Langstraat, Andrew Switzer, Ori Rubin, Lucas Harms, Luca Bertolini, Xue Hou, and Guowen Dai.

Last week, our transport planning research group at the University of Amsterdam visited the Municipality of Maastricht (population 122,000), capital of the southernmost Dutch province, Limburgh. The city is built on both sides of the Maas river, has a rich history as a Roman settlement and early industrial city, and is strategically positioned near the Belgian and German borders. One of our PhD students, Jake Wiersma, has been working on the strategic vision for Maastricht in his position as a planner at the Municipality, and invited us to participate in a workshop.

As Maastricht’s traditional industries of mining, ceramics and pottery have declined, the city has regenerated several brownfield sites, including the Céramique potteries site near the town centre where several new housing blocks, a new Aldo Rossi-designed museum and new library have been built. The Entre Deux and Mosae Forum shopping centres, the area around the main railway station, and the walkway along the river are other recent developments.

Housing blocks on the former Céramique potteries site takes on a very different form from traditional Dutch housing

As Maastricht tries to curb its persistent traffic problems, it has converted roads to pedestrian-only routes and squares. This one used to bring cars right to the central Market Square.

However, the region is one of two in the Netherlands whose population will shrink in the coming decades (the other being the eastern part of the province of Groningen). It is also one of the more car-dominant cities in the Netherlands, partly because its elevation is not nearly as flat as cities like Amsterdam in the north. Persistent congestion problems on the A2 motorway have led to a two-level tunnel through the city, currently under construction. Maastricht is still trying to discourage parking in its inner city and improving other options, such as walking and park and ride options. Besides trying to decrease driving in the city centre, one of the planning problems is how to maintain accessibility for residents of the rural towns and villages.

Another issue is regional planning–Maastricht is perhaps the most international city in the Netherlands, with students and workers commuting daily from nearby German and Belgian cities. German is widely spoken, and French names and words persist in the Limburgh dialect (and, as you can see, in the names of sites and neighbourhoods). Companies such as BASF, Vodaphone and Mercedez-Benz have extensive bases in the city. However, until recently there has been no attempt to try and plan for the region as a whole. Like many regions in the Netherlands, there is a long-standing debate on the question of which scale is the most appropriate for planning things like transportation infrastructure or employment growth. How far does the “region” actually extend–as far as Aachen (31km east) across the German border, or across the Belgian border to Liège (25km south) and Hasselt (25km west)? Should the region’s boundaries remain within the Netherlands, perhaps including Eindhoven (70km north)? The city is currently trying to determine which of these neighbouring municipalities to include as planning partners in its strategic vision process: in our workshop, we broke into three groups trying to tackle the international, regional and local scales.

Liège-Guillemins, a mere half hour by train from Maastricht, is one of three Belgian cities on the high-speed rail route, and is linked to Brussels, Paris, Aachen, Cologne, and Frankfurt. Here you can see the contrast of the Santiago Calatrava-designed station, which opened in 2009, with the old city behind it.

Maastricht planners at the municipal and provincial levels must now put their shoulders to the wheel: it will likely be years before a regional vision coalesces, if Amsterdam-Utrecht and Rotterdam-Den Haag are any indication. Amsterdam and Utrecht, two cities that share commuters and population growth but are in two different provinces, have struggled to plan anything at the regional level. Rotterdam and Den Haag have making slow but steady progress in this direction with the RandstadRail and Stedenbaan projects. Maastricht must make extensive use of the polder model to engage all its possible stakeholders in this strategic vision process.

Public approval of density

My generation, which represents one-quarter of Ontario’s population and 70% of inner Toronto’s population growth since 2006, is finally making headlines. “Echo boomers” (those of us born between 1972 and 1992) are much more likely to live in central, high-density neighbourhoods with access to good-quality transit. This trend is remarkable considering that one of the most persistent problems faced by planners today is the public’s lack of acceptance of planning concepts such as higher densities to support transit provision. In an article for the Globe and Mail, Doug Sanders explored Vancouverism, a Canadian-born model of livable density (“The world wants Vancouverism. Shouldn’t Canada?” February 23, 2013) While planners from Melbourne to Dubai are adopting the principles Vancouver has espoused for 30 years, Canadian cities still lag behind supporting higher-density living. How can planners influence public perceptions of density?

Perhaps there are lessons to be learned from echo boomers, whose trends and patterns have been ignored for far too long in favour of their richer, suburbanite parents. Access to transit and proximity to work are the main reasons people in our demographic choose to live downtown, which is practical considering we’re much more likely to change careers than the previous generation, requiring more commuting flexibility. A recent report from TD Economics (Toronto: A Return to the Core) showed that key neighbourhoods in inner Toronto, such as Trinity-Spadina, grew by 16% from 2006-2011, supporting key real estate trends like a boom in condo development. Employment growth in Toronto’s inner city outpaced suburban job growth during the same time period.

Planners around the world have also been developing better ways to dialogue with community members about density. One strategy that worked in Perth, Australia, is conducting a comprehensive series of discussions with a range of people. ‘Dialogue with the City‘, an innovative and extensive deliberative forum with citizens, communities, industry and practitioners, was launched in 2003 to discuss and deliberate how to make Perth ‘the world’s most livable city by 2030′. The year of dialogue and discussion, funded in partnership with the Government of Western Australia, Western Australia Planning Commission, and private partners, seems to have contributed to a shift in perception among planners, politicians and the public over time. The Network City strategy is being used to implement the outcomes of Dialogue with the City and 42% of the participants said they changed their views as a result of the dialogue. Vancouver’s Greenest City dialogues have taken a similar approach.

Residents’ perceptions can change during the trajectory of specific projects. Planners at TransLink, Vancouver’s regional transportation authority, found that when they conducted public meetings on the proposed Broadway-UBC LRT line in 2011, local residents were quite upset about the idea of increased density along Broadway during the first round of meetings. It didn’t help that many of the businesses along Cambie Street had experienced financial setbacks during construction of the Canada Line LRT just a couple of years earlier. But by the time the second round of meetings happened, residents had become more supportive of the idea. In Vancouver and other cities with persistent housing affordability problems, another key to acceptance of density has to be the development and use of tools to protect affordability, such as community bargaining agreements and condominium conversion regulations.

Planners can learn from key demographic groups (echo boomers, recent immigrants, students, single-person households and seniors) who tend to choose more centrally-located, transit-accessible neighbourhoods. The old logic that these groups choose transit because “they can’t afford to drive” doesn’t necessarily hold true in the era of urban sustainability and hipster neighbourhoods. And planners can continue to develop processes that engage communities in discussions about what density really means–but this means providing information on building types and density levels that will support public transit, services, and employment, not just collecting opinions. Today’s online tools allow a broader range of community members to participate and have their voices heard than traditional public meetings, and don’t suffer from the same time/place constraints. They have the potential to allow early and ongoing discussion on polarizing topics such as density, long before plans and policies are formulated.

Symbiotic exchange: Part II

Anne Katrine discusses "holy cows"

In an earlier post, I described an informal exchange between the transportation planning researchers at the Universities of Amsterdam and Groningen. This week, the University of Amsterdam hosted a similar exchange between our researchers and the fine folks at the University of Aalborg. The idea for the symposium came about last year’s AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning) conference in Ankara, no doubt through the charisma of our fearless leader, Luca Bertolini.

Luca and Patrick Driscoll (PhD candidate, Aalborg) began the symposium by introducing the group to key issues in transportation planning in the Netherlands and Denmark, respectively. In a session on assessment of transportation plans, Morten Skou Nicolaisen (postdoctoral researcher, Aalborg) summarized his research determining the accuracy of forecasts used in Danish transport project evaluations: he found that for road projects, there is about 10% more demand than expected, while for rail projects there is as much as 30% less demand than expected. Large fixed projects such as major rail infrastructure had the least accuracy; smaller-scale and lower-cost upgrades have the most accuracy. In cases where projects were delayed extensively or scrapped altogether, there was actually 7% less demand than anticipated for the ‘do-nothing’ alternative; this knowledge should impact our valuation of this alternative in our plans. Els Beukers (PhD candidate, Amsterdam) presented her work on using cost-benefit analysis as a learning tool, based on Kolb and Fry’s experiential learning cycle (which I detailed in the post on Groningen). Patrick then presented his work on using ex-post project evaluations as a tool for social learning: we assume that new knowledge will lead to better evaluations, but does it? He discussed several ex-post evaluation attempts, including the Federal Transit Administration’s before and after studies of New Starts projects in the US and the Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) of Major Schemes (highway projects costing over £10 million) in the UK. POPE includes a meta-analysis of projects one year and five years after project completion, and has found that the projects give a positive economic outcome, environmental impacts were as expected, and there was no systemic bias.

Lucas and Andres discuss possible collaboration

In a session on transition studies, Andrew Switzer (PhD candidate, Amsterdam) presented his work on the transportation transitions in Munich and Zurich: the history of concrete threats in catalyzing transportation shifts has been observed in both cities (e.g. the threat of climate change, overdependence upon the car manufacturing industry, and loss of historic buildings to road expansion from 1970-1990 was linked to decreased car use). Nina Vogel (PhD candidate, Aalborg) explored Fredericia Kommune in Denmark, a community founded with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions. However, it is located in a very car-dependent part of the country with little transit accessibility, and residents appear to be technical optimists reluctant to pursue transportation demand management routes. Andrès Felipe Valderrama Pineda (postdoctoral researcher, Aalborg) discussed transitions in Copenhagen, which showed the same pattern as many other European and North American cities: a transition to car and bus transit in the 1950s-1970s; slowing of car use, growth in transit, and protests against highway infrastructure in the 1970s-1990s; reinvestment in city centres and increased rail infrastructure from the 1990s-2000s, but still fairly high rates of driving. He took a multi-level perspective to these trends, examining which were rooted in the landscape (very long term, seeing rapid change only through disrupted events), the regime (very stable, rooted in institutions) or niches (short terms of less than ten years, not necessarily local). Michel van Wijk (postdoctoral researcher, Amsterdam) presented his research underway on airport regions which will use Q-methodology to draw strong statements from interviews with transportation and planning practitioners. He will then ask actors who do not know a lot about the topic whether they agree or disagree with the statements, and using Q-sorting will be left with several frames that they can test through serious gaming.

In our final session on conditions to policy success in transport planning, I presented my work on critical success factors in integrating transportation and land use planning: at this time I’m halfway through a meta-analysis of 11 case cities. Anne Katrine Braagaard (PhD candidate, Aalborg) discussed “holy cows” in planning. In her study of Carlsberg Town, architects created a master plan prioritizing cycling and providing less parking, but when it was turned into a local plan and strategies, the municipality allowed the “holy cow” of car use and parking to re-enter, resulting in a watered-down plan. Finally, Jan Duffues (PhD candidate, Amsterdam) presented his study of compact city development in the Netherlands. So far he has found that planning documents attempt to integrate transportation and land use but there is only partial recognition of the effects of densification on the expansion of the car network and little mention of cycling or walking. While transportation planning becomes more prominent and less linked with land use at the higher levels (major projects and initiatives), at the level of project documentation land use is seen as fixed and projects are divided up into pieces so there isn’t an integrated transportation-land use approach–there can even be contradictory outcomes.

Next steps in the new partnership

The following day, we discussed directions for future partnerships between Aalborg and Amsterdam, including joint sessions at AESOP and the upcoming World Society of Transport and Land Use Symposium in Delft (2014), a couple of joint articles, and coordinating a special issue of a journal on sustainable mobility. Jan and Patrick will explore the use of social strategy games and other gaming possibilities in our research. Luca, Morten and I will explore the idea of comparative case research. Patrick has created an online file sharing environment for us on Podio. We will encourage the development of an informal exchange of Masters and PhD students working in each others’ departments, carrying out research on Danish and Dutch transportation and land use issues. I’d say the first Aalborg-Amsterdam Symposium was a great success, with many of us discovering common interests and research strategies. We will continue to build on these relationships over time, hopefully creating a lasting network of researchers and students exploring issues of sustainable mobility: obviously our countries need our help!

Calling all planners

I’m pleased to announce the call for papers for my upcoming edited book on Canadian planning. It’s been accepted by Oxford University Press with the working title Planning Canada: A Case Study Approach and will feature case studies from across Canada on issues as diverse as infrastructure planning, food policy, affordable housing, and natural resource planning. We’re hoping to give undergraduate students an understanding of the diverse plans, policies and processes that are happening right now across the country.

I’m looking forward to receiving proposals from interested authors from academic, public, private practice, and non-profit planning settings in a number of theme areas: for more details about these, check out the dedicated page on my site, www.renthomas.ca/publications/books

Proposals are due February 1, 2013 and selected authors will have until December 1, 2013 to finalize their case studies.

Congratulations Dr. Cornelia Sussmann!

Many congratulations to my colleague and co-conspiritor at SCARP, Dr. Cornelia Sussmann. Cornelia finished her Ph.D. this August, unfortunately (for me!) just after my move to Amsterdam. She has been a friend, mentor, collaborator and valuable sounding board before, during, and after my Ph.D. years at SCARP.

Dr. Sussmann’s dissertation, Towards the Sustainable City: Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek, tells the compelling story of sustainable planning initiatives in a city that tops the “most livable” lists each year. Through in-depth interviews and analysis of the Southeast False Creek project goals and targets, she showed that only minimal reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and ecological footprint were achieved–quite an underachievement for a LEED-ND Platinum-rated project that won a UN Livability award. However, the City of Vancouver may have achieved important political, bureaucratic, industry and public support with this “stepping stone” project. After all, in the past three years the City has embarked on The Greenest City initiative, a comprehensive and broad-based attempt to make Vancouver the world’s greenest city by 2020. While the technical achievements of Southeast False Creek won’t impress our Professor Emeritus Dr. Bill Rees, they illustrate the messy collision of planning politics, construction and development paradigms.

Dr. Sussmann is currently working as a post-doctoral fellow at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in a continuing collaboration with SCARP alumni Dr. Meidad Kissinger (Ben-Gurion University).

Tax-averse? Not so much

Public participation in planning processes is required by law, but it can be time-consuming, difficult and expensive. This year the City of Vancouver introduced a broader range of public participation tools in their budget planning process, as I detailed in a previous post. The City aimed to educate the public on the cost of services and the challenges in balancing the budget; to measure and understand why any changes in tax tolerance and service priorities; and to gather ideas for identifying cost efficiencies in the budget.

The City produced a Budget Basics booklet available online and distributed it to all city libraries, created a web portal at www.talkvancouver.com, introduced an online budgeting tool, and advertised in local newspapers, on the radio, and on Twitter. A total of 1221 residents and businesses completed the phone or online survey. Although people were also encouraged to comment by email or the City’s 3-1-1- phone services, most chose to do the surveys. A surprising 31% of respondents to the online survey were 25-34 years old; while the response rate for 18-24 year olds was only 7%. Thirty-seven participants used the online budget allocator tool. This is a vast improvement on public meetings on the budget (at a public meeting held this year, only 13 people attended).

The proposed 2012 Operating Budget details the City’s commitment to fund critical programs, increase productivity and make strategic adjustments to programs and services, while increasing property taxes by 2.5%. Several improvements in efficiency have already been made: the City introduced a bylaw adjudication model to deal with unpaid parking tickets quickly, expanded their electronic pay notices to include 97% of City employees, and streamlined sanitation services. The City also increased its utility revenues from sewer, solid waste and water utility rates by 7.9%. In the 2012 Operating Budget, there are increases in the policing and utilities budgets, and small increases to libraries, parks and recreation, and engineering services. The other areas remain the same as in 2011.

There were some other interesting findings for planners. The top three local issues were identified as social (homelessness, affordable housing), transportation (public transit, congestion and bike lanes), and taxation. Several of these issues are federal or provincial responsibilities, illustrating the challenges municipalities face in responding to critical priorities among residents. Crime and personal safety were lower priorities less than ever before; only 10% of residents and 8% of businesses identified this as a major issue. The vast majority of citizens and business were satisfied with city services, but felt that property taxes were too high. However, when asked specifically about the 2012 budget, 80% of residents and 65% of businesses indicated a willingness to accept up to a 3% property tax increase; in fact, most people (81%) were unwilling to reduce city services, preferring a property tax increase or increase in efficiencies instead. Half of homeowners were willing to pay a tax increase of 9% and 59% were willing to pay an increase of 6%, which the report states is “quite typical” (I found this surprising). Among renters, 77% were willing to pay $5 more in rent per month to maintain current service levels. Businesses are far less supportive of these higher tax levels. Some initiatives to lower costs had strong support from the public: using green techniques and less mowing to manage open spaces, offering more city services online rather than in person, and reducing garbage pickup frequency while increasing the ability to recycle food waste.

Planners and planning theorists take note: both residents and businesses were in favour of decreasing the number of public hearings and meetings, reduced enforcement of nuisance and minor City by-laws, and reduced land-use planning as cost saving measures. Other forms of feedback (phone/online surveys, mail-back and email methods) were preferred over public hearings/meetings. This is a sign of the times, and a confirmation of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s comment that town halls and public meetings were the most expensive and least useful engagement methods in their budget planning process last year. I’ve never been a fan of these types of open forums, and I’d love to see more targeted outreach to demographic groups such as youth and young adults (e.g. Facebook surveys, continued advertising of planning processes on Twitter).

The City of Vancouver will hold a public hearing on February 29th to allow citizens to respond the proposed budget, and then deliberate on the Final Budget Report, which will presented March 5th.

Treading a new path: Indigenous planning at SCARP

The multitude of planning concerns faced by Aboriginal communities across Canada hit national headlines a few weeks ago when Attawapiskat, a First Nations community of about 2,000 in northern Ontario, declared a state of emergency. Horrific health conditions exacerbated by poor water supply, sewage problems, inadequate housing and schools resulting from decades of wrangling over governance and funding have devastated the community. The conditions prompted the Red Cross to provide emergency relief, provoked international criticism and launched intense debates in the House of Commons (“NDP challenges Harper to visit Attawapiskat himself”, The Globe and Mail November 30, 2011, “Aboriginal Affairs Minister dispatches team to Attawapiskat“, The Globe and Mail November 25, 2011). This is, in fact, the fourth time Attawapiskat has declared a state of emergency due to chronic infrastructure failures. Many serious health and housing issues persist in Aboriginal communities. The need for First Nations, Inuit and Métis (who comprise Canada’s Aboriginal peoples) to use their own knowledge and self-determination in planning their communities, for planners to help with the development of local plans and help negotiate collaboration, has never been greater. On a hopeful note, the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) is embarking on a new initiative in 2012: the launch of the Indigenous Planning concentration within our current Masters program with the First Nations House of Learning.

SCARP professor Leonie Sandercock has been working with First Nations communities for several years. Her most recent work, the documentary film Finding Our Way, highlighted the decades of turmoil faced within the Ts’il Kaz Koh First Nation (Burns Lake Band), the Cheslatta Carrier Band, and the Village of Burns Lake, BC. Dr. Sandercock has been instrumental in working with the First Nations House of Learning and members of the Musqueam, Carrier, Nisga’a and Cree Métis Nations to develop the Indigenous Planning concentration at SCARP. Professor Ted Jojola of the University of New Mexico Community and Regional Planning program also advised UBC on the creation of the program; the planning program at the UNM School of Architecture and Planning has an Indigenous Planning component and hosts an Indigenous Architecture lecture series. Dr. Jojola visited UBC recently for an “Indigenous Planning Teach-In” hosted by SCARP and the First Nations House of Learning. At this event the Tsawwassen First Nation, Musqueam First Nation and Westbank First Nation presented their community plans, highlighting public participation processes and the role of external planners as consultants in plan development. Several non-Aboriginal professionals specializing in law, governance, community economic development, and cross-cultural planning spoke about their work with Aboriginal communities across Canada. (Watch a video about the development of the degree, featuring scenes from the Teach-In, here.)

There have been some fantastic examples of Aboriginal community planning in recent years: the Seabird Island First Nation in BC built its own housing in partnership with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), National Resources Canada (NRCan), and 25 building industry and community groups in 2003-2004. They later launched the Seabird Sustainable Community Project to provide “information to First Nations and other communities across Canada solve housing challenges in an environmentally sensitive, healthy, energy-efficient and affordable way.” The Ty-Histanis Neighbourhood Development, about 10km from Tofino, BC, is a new community being developed by the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations (TFN) in partnership with CMHC and NRCan (ecoAction and EQuilibrium Communities Initiative). It is applies the TFN concept of Hishuk nish tsawaak (all is one), through practical, sustainable community development principles. The new community will include 171 single-detached units, 32 duplex units and a 12-unit elders’ complex; a school, health clinic, pharmacy, recreation centre, youth centre and elder centre are all located in the core area. The project target is a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases, mostly through building and energy efficiency. Forty per cent of the development site will remain undisturbed protected habitat, bogs will be used for natural water retention, and walking will be encouraged through footpaths and the mixed-use design of the site.

Clearly, there are many opportunities for planners in Aboriginal communities, whether they are local, community-based planners or external consultants in the planning process. SCARP’s new Indigenous Planning concentration will consist of five core courses covering law and governance, community economic development, regional sustainability planning, cross-cultural skills, and indigenous planning as an emerging paradigm. It will also feature a one-year practicum working in a First Nations community in BC and an optional internship with a First Nations community in the Lower Mainland. It is hoped that graduates (both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) will go on to ensure immediate infrastructure concerns are addressed, help communities across the country plan for their futures and, over time, prevent crises like Attawapiskat.

Want immigrants to integrate? Give them better transit and affordable housing

Talk about timing. A few weeks ago, in time for provincial elections in Ontario, Manitoba, PEI, and Newfoundland and Labrador, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities released a report urging the federal government to support public transit and affordable housing in cities. This in itself is nothing new: FCM has long advocated stable funding for public transit and affordable housing in municipalities, who have been struggling to pay for new infrastructure and operating costs. The twist: FCM maintains that better transit and affordable housing can actually help immigrants integrate, and that municipalities should offer them along with services such as English language training (download their report: Starting on Solid Ground: The Municipal Role in Immigrant Integration). This echoes the findings of my Ph.D. dissertation, which found that flexible approaches to housing and transportation increased community resiliency.

This week, FCM and the Canadian Urban Transit Association met with members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities to discuss the idea of a National Public Transit Strategy. They argued that fast and efficient transportation connections through public transit are crucial to strengthening the economy. MP Olivia Chow, NDP critic for transport and infrastructure, introduced a private member’s bill on September 30th (Bill C-615, An Act to Create a National Public Transit Strategy) calling for the federal government to work with municipalities in the creation of a national transit strategy and create a stable source of funding for municipalities. She noted the economic benefits and the disadvantages of long commute times: Canada’s big city mayors have been pushing for a national strategy since 2007. In the CBC’s unofficial poll on this topic, 88% of readers agreed that Canada needs a national transit strategy. I needn’t go into this issue here in Vancouver: this week, an Angus Reid poll of 504 Vancouver residents showed that 85% want improvements to transit service and 75% felt those improvements should be funded by the provincial government. As I wrote in my last post, the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation votes today on the adoption of the Moving Forward strategic plan, which includes a 2% hike in property taxes and the beginnings of a new provincial-municipal funding agreement to help pay for transit improvements.

It looks like public transit is becoming a hot issue among cities of all sizes. The Regional Municipal of Waterloo is in the process of constructing an LRT line (currently in the planning process) funded by the provincial and federal governments. A strong motivation for the Region, which includes the municipalities of Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo, was increased immigration to the area, a point they raised at this year’s Metropolis Conference on Immigration and Migration in Vancouver. It’s very humbling to see the recommendations I made in my Ph.D. dissertation being echoed at the municipal, regional and federal levels. Considering the numbers of immigrants settling in Canadian cities every year (approximately 250,000 Permanent Residents and 200,000 Temporary Workers), governments need to do a better job of helping them integrate, and that includes more housing and transportation options. Maybe after decades of research and policy innovation in municipalities, we’re finally reaching the tipping point: let’s keep a close watch on Bill C-615 and Bill C-400, the bill creating a national affordable housing strategy (Bill C-304, the former private member’s bill of the same title and wording, was scrapped after the May 2011 election).

The future is now: Metro Vancouver’s Moving Forward plan

In an article in today’s Vancouver Sun (“Seven mayors weigh in–The case for funding public transit”, October 4, 2011), seven regional mayors weighed in on the importance of public transit infrastructure to the Metro Vancouver region: Dianne Watts (Surrey), Peter Fassbender (Langley), Richard Walton (District of North Vancouver), Gregor Robertson (Vancouver), Pamela Goldsmith-Jones (West Vancouver), Greg Moore (Port Coquitlam), and Richard Stewart (Coquitlam). This Friday, the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation, made up of 22 elected officials from around the region, votes on TransLink’s Moving Forward Supplemental Plan. The proposal includes a 2 cent-per-litre gas tax that will require provincial approval, a new joint long-term funding proposal approved by the Mayor’s Council and the province, and a temporary property tax increase that will cost about $23 per household for 2013-2014. Transit improvements include the Evergreen Line construction, improvements to existing SkyTrain stations, and service improvements in Langley and Surrey. If the plan passes, Minister of Transportation Blair Lekstrom has said that he will introduce legislation this fall enabling the gas tax by April 2012.

The mayors cite increased traffic levels and the 19.6 percent jump in transit ridership from June 2010 to July 2011 (due to transportation mode shifts during the Olympics) as proof that the region is overdue for transit improvements. 2011-2012 is shaping up to be another record year. They also reflect on the vision of previous leaders, who in 1980 struggled with the concept of rapid transit lines but eventually decided in favour of them. Clearly, they see themselves in sync with the region’s early strides towards sustainability.

“We have had the debate. Now we must move from words to deeds. The decision we make on Friday will forge the path Greater Vancouver so badly needs. Passing the 2012 Supplemental Plan is the right decision for Metro Vancouver’s transportation system, economy, and future livability.” –Dianne Watts, Peter Fassbender, Richard Walton, Gregor Robertson, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, Greg Moore, and Richard Stewart

However, the municipalities of Burnaby, Richmond, the City of North Vancouver, Delta, and Langley Township have said they will probably vote against the plan. This is surprising considering TransLink’s extensive public consultation during the creation of Moving Forward showed that 80% of those consulted agreed with the proposed improvements and 75% said the Evergreen Line was important in reaching the goals outlined in Transport 2040, the regional transportation strategy. It’s also surprising considering Burnaby and Richmond have both been big winners in terms of transit infrastructure: the three existing LRT lines have paid off for them. With municipal elections a mere five weeks away (November 16th), the stakes are high; yet the stakes for the region have never been higher.

Update: The Mayors’ Council voted to support the Moving Forward Plan with 70% support from its 22 members.

Skeptics reluctant to board the Ford train

As promised, new Toronto mayor Rob Ford has taken significant steps to kill Transit City, Toronto’s plan to build several new LRT lines in the coming years. Ford’s most recent move has been to encourage an extension of the Sheppard subway, which has only slightly more ridership (about 46,000/weekday) as the Finch bus line or the Spadina streetcar. Among the many problems with Ford’s proposal: a subway extension would cost much more, serve fewer people, cost the city and province a lot of money in plan redevelopment, and it would not be built until Ford loses what is left of his hair…not to mention the next municipal election.

The Sheppard subway extension would cost more than ten times as much as the LRT line proposed under Transit City. The mayor’s office is proposing a $13 billion extension to the existing subway line, instead of the $1.1 billion LRT line adopted in the Transit City plan. At least $5 billion would be raised through development cost levies and tax increment financing (TIF). TIF has been used extensively in the US, normally in areas that have suffered disinvestment for years, have a majority of low-income residents, low land values and often, an under-used rail line. When the state DOT takes on a transit-oriented development in the area, TIF is used to leverage funds: the city floats a bond and the money from the increased property values upon completion is used to fund the development. However, TIF hasn’t been used in Canada; to use it in Toronto, the proposed subway development would have to be approved by the province of Ontario. The laws governing TIF and development-cost levies would need to be updated. None of this is likely to happen before this year’s provincial election, and in Canada, governmental regime changes are death knells to public transit proposals.

There is a whole literature around public-private partnerships (or P3s), which have been very common in the past two decades. State infrastructure is expensive, whether it is hospitals, highways or LRT lines. In order to finance these projects, all three levels of government have become accustomed to contributing a part of the capital costs, while the private sector carries the majority of the burden. This in itself is not unusual in Canada: Vancouver’s Canada Line was built this way. While they seem to be good for the municipal budget, P3s often speed through crucial stages such as public participation. Private companies are not elected officials or state authorities; they aren’t as concerned about involving local residents in the planning process. This is part of their appeal for state authorities: a more streamlined process (as former BC Minister of Transport Kevin Falcon put it, when he eliminated TransLink’s elected board in favour of one made up of his private-sector appointees). Councillor Doug Ford, Rob Ford’s brother, recently said that he believed in the strong mayor system, where the mayor “should have veto power…he should have enough power to stop council.” Any P3 has the potential for less public control and less accountability.

There’s also the issue of ownership and maintenance of the line after its construction, and this is where things get a little sticky. Vancouver transit passengers complain to TransLink, for example, when they can’t find maps of the station, they want more security at stations, etc. But in fact, the British Columbia Rapid Transit Company (a subsidiary of TransLink) runs the Expo and Millennium lines, and ProTrans BC runs the Canada Line. This complexity is invisible to the frustrated passenger, and as a result TransLink, as a provincial body, bears the brunt of the criticism; it takes longer for TransLink to implement changes in customer service, orientation and other operational issues since it must go through an intermediary.

Ford argues that P3s using private funding are commonly used in Hong Kong (skeptics have pointed out that there might be a slight discrepancy in the densities between Toronto and Hong Kong). The Sheppard-Yonge corridor has attracted condo development, as John Lorinc and Kelly Grant point out (“What it will take to make subway plan a reality”, Globe and Mail), and there may well be developers interested in backing a new subway line. But the fact is that development has been much slower than either Mel Lastman or Rob Ford would like, and the ridership of the Sheppard line is no higher than the city’s busiest bus and streetcar lines. If the Sheppard extension is built and new development doesn’t happen as quickly as planned, the public will have to provide the funding shortfall.

A Sheppard subway extension would probably serve fewer people than the proposed LRT: the subway line would be 8km long and have 7 stops, while the LRT would be 12 km and have 26 stops. Anyone who’s driven or taken the bus along the busy section between Kennedy and Morningside will tell you that better transit is definitely needed here; a subway line would bypass this section altogether. Despite the Province’s (and Premier McGuinty’s) lackluster support of Transit City, the plan did propose much better service for Toronto’s suburbs, where the immigrant population is high; immigrants in Toronto have a much higher transit commuting rate than non-immigrants. Ford’s argument that “everyone wants subways” doesn’t fly either…despite the miniscule amount of subway infrastructure in the inner suburbs, there is barely any difference in ridership between the suburbs and the downtown. David Hulchanski’s “Three Cities” report, tracing thirty years of income polarization in Toronto, showed that 31% of those living in the inner city travelled to work by transit compared to 33% of those who lived in the outer suburbs.

Outside of the thorny acronymous issues of TIF and PPP, there is the incredible amount of taxpayers’ time and money Ford is wasting on forcing the TTC and Metrolinx to drop the plans they’ve been working on for years and instantly come up with a new subway plan. Everyone has been frustrated at the slow pace of building and financing expensive subway lines, and that was the appeal of the Transit City plan. Ford’s proposal, even if it made any financial sense, would take years and years to get off the ground, and by then Ford and McGuinty won’t be in power any more (remember the proposed Queen subway line?) Transit City, for all its criticisms, was adopted and funded by the Province. Ground has been broken. Contracts have been signed. We have only to recall the tumultuous history of the original Sheppard subway to know how rare this is, and how hard Toronto residents, councillors, and transit advocates fought to get a plan that worked for the growing inner suburbs. Bringing all of this momentum to a screeching halt has left Toronto with one hell of a concussion; Transit City languishes in a tangled heap. When your skeptics are people like Dr. Eric Miller and former city budget chief Shelley Carroll, you might want to call in the paramedics and do some damage control.

Ren Thomas

M.A., Ph.D. (Planning)