Once you get past all the glossy photos, fancy maps and glitzy video images, there's not much substance behind the city's official unveiling of a proposed rapid-transit plan for Winnipeg. Winnipeg Transit kicked off the first of three open houses yesterday for its so-called bus rapid-transit (BRT) system, the first phase of which is supposed to run from downtown to the corner of Pembina Highway and Jubilee Avenue.
You won't find a single dollar amount or cost projection in this presentation. There are no statistics on how much a BRT system might increase ridership. And there are no projections on how many people would leave their vehicles at home in favour of using a BRT system.
Instead, there's a lot of flowery language about the theoretical benefits of transit generally and about rapid transit specifically.
In short, they still haven't done their homework. Yet they've already budgeted $50 million to build its first phase.
What you may not know is that the $50 million will only cover less than half of the first leg of this project, which is supposed to eventually run from downtown to the University of Manitoba's Fort Garry campus. And it won't pay for the $1-million-a-piece buses.
In fact, no one's sure what the $50 million will cover because they haven't released any financial data.
What we do know is that not only will they have to build a separate, dedicated roadway and pay hefty sums to expropriate land. They will also have to build an overpass at Osborne Street and an underpass to get past the railway tracks south of that. That should cost a few bucks.
To complete the remainder of the southern corridor — no dates have been set and there are no spending estimates on it — the city is going to have to pay to have the railway tracks shifted to the side between Jubilee and University Crescent to make room for the dedicated roadway. I'll bet that will cost a pretty penny.
And all this will achieve what, exactly? Will people flock to leave their vehicles at home and jump on a BRT?
Well, nobody really knows because there's been no analysis done to make any kind of estimates.
The hope is that it will increase ridership by 15% to 20%, according to Transit officials. But that's just a guess.
And you won't find any of those numbers in the literature, glossy maps or videos presented in this month's series of open houses.
I suppose they don't want to be held to anything.
What they want to do is spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars on a rapid-transit system based on a hope and a dream that it will increase ridership.
I can't believe people in this community are not more up-in-arms about this, given the massive amount of money in question and the woeful lack of analysis that's gone into it.
They're planning to complete the first phase of this project by the fall of 2007.
If you care about this, show up at one of these open houses (Monday 2-8 p.m. at the Convention Centre and Wednesday 2-8 p.m. at the U of M), ask Transit staff some hard questions and then fill out their survey.
After that, call your city councillor and the mayor's office. Tell them what you think.
It's time to awake this sleeping giant.