Many people decry investment in public transit, arguing that our population numbers just don’t warrant it.
They have a point — we’ve all seen the empty, or near-empty buses.
The financial numbers show that most of the routes in the Cowichan Valley don’t pay for themselves (with a few notable exceptions).
Nevertheless, we argue that the time is now to invest in public transit, and not just buses, but rail, too.
It’s not just about the nostalgia of it, but having at least the basic infrastructure for the future, when the population will inevitably have grown from what it is now. In North America in general we’ve made the mistake of putting all of our eggs in the individual car basket.
We’ve spent trillions — more — on infrastructure for that. Highways, intersections, bypasses, bridges, you name it, we’ve built it. And we continue to repair and expand upon it, happily shovelling more millions into asphalt and concrete, stoplights and cloverleafs.
A few places have been a little forward-thinking and put in some bike lanes.
But all in all, we still subscribe to the philosophy of a car for every person.
As we grow, this is not a sustainable philosophy.
Already look at downtown Duncan on a busy day. The parking, we complain, is impossible. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem. People don’t take transit because it doesn’t run often enough. It doesn’t run often enough because more people don’t take transit. And we wince, too, at those empty buses.
But if we want really liveable communities and cities for our future, we have to bit the bullet and invest in transit infrastructure now, even if the buses aren’t full and the train won’t be efficient for many years to come.
If you want to know why, just look at communities that have invested in public transportation as they’ve grown, compared to those that haven’t.
Look at cities with subways that siphon off traffic from above ground compared to those who’ve just built wider highways.
It’s way more efficient to do it now.
Of course, our area’s not getting a subway, but some commuter rail and buses every 10 minutes shouldn’t be out of our ambition.