[IanO]

Good to see no loitering coming back and 'no visible drug use'. The vast majority of folks I see loitering are not visibly homeless, but rather using or awaiting to commit an act.

 

[Greenspace]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmo...ng-help-and-hope-to-people-in-need-1.6473252?

 

[The_Cat]

 

[positive1]

Not sure that's going to make it to the Edmonton tourism guide. Jeez, it looked depressing

 

[The_Cat]

I'm sorry, but ETS will have to work hard to win back riders, even with 1.77 gas.

 

[barhonda]

Thanks for the video. The payment system is so archaic, i agree with her statement that nobody carries cash or coins these days. Can't this be resolved by a simple app where users can pay on their phones instead?

Even throughout Covid with all other businesses going to a "no cash" payment system, there seems to be no attempt by ETS to adapt.

 

[IanO]

It's ridiculous that in 2022 you must carry coins.

 

[barhonda]

For the Canada vs Mexico game at Commonwealth. Waited 30 minutes in line for the single payment machine at bay/enterprise station only to find out they don't accept coins when I got to the machine. Shrugged and jumped on the train without paying.

 

[thommyjo]

I know we can’t run transit like a private business, but could we tie exec compensation to performance metrics like ridership? Blows my mind how little people care. Also, I think most execs for transit need to use transit regularly and have to live in the city. Maybe this is the case, but a few I know are 100% suburbanites than never use transit. And we wonder why it’s bad.

 

[IanO]

It often feels like ETS is an after-thought and lags its peers by 5-10-20 yrs. Some good work of late, but generally speaking there seems to be very little accountability and motivation to lead rather than follow.

 

[occidentalcapital]

Has the PA system been fixed yet? Last time I was through there, it kept cutting off the beginning of the announcements. I thought it was somehow caused by the Metro Line electronics but shouldn't that equipment have been cleared out by now?

 

[CplKlinger]

An important thing to keep in mind is that the ETS operational budget hasn't been increased in 20 years; outside of the occasional fare increase. The previous council was so cool towards funding it properly that, according to a comment Paquette posted on reddit, when he made a motion for administration to study sustainable funding models right before the last election, he:

"had to use terms that were palatable to enough Councillors - and so terms like ‘funding formula’ because it was a phrase that would be accepted as being safe enough to not rock the boat or imply that we desperately needed a more appropriate Budget allocation for transit. Then there is the word ‘incremental’. Again - very safe, no sudden movements.

And the kicker: ‘outline of of current capacity for service growth.’ It was a way to address the fact that when the deciding Council chose to replace the old bus garage with the new one off of Fort Road and Yellowhead … THEY DIDN’T INCREASE CAPACITY. Seriously. An entirely new mega million dollar garage that wasn’t built with growth in mind. Let that sink in for a moment."

So, the staff at ETS have really been doing the best they can with a very shoestring budget. EPS raised heck when they only got a $1 million increase, but imagine if they only got a rounding error of an increase over 20 years... and then people blamed them for showing signs of the strain.

This council seems much more willing to consider giving ets the TLC it desperately needs; a number of councilors take transit or bike (not to mention Sohi's former occupation), so I think they get the need in a way that previous councils just didn't.

I'm not trying to argue that the status quo is good. It isn't. It's garbage. But if we truly want to solve these problems, we should place pressure and blame where the responsibility lies: The city council who forces ETS to operate on a pathetically inadequate budget, not the staff who are trying their best just to hold it all together.

 

[EdwardEdm]

An important thing to keep in mind is that the ETS operational budget hasn't been increased in 20 years; outside of the occasional fare increase. The previous co who forces ETS to operate on a pathetically inadequate budget, not the staff who are trying their best just to hold it all together.

I am at a loss to understand what you mean that the operational budget hasn't increased, because clearly it has. ETS runs more kilometers in 2022 than it did in 2002, operates more service hours etc.
Are you talking more as long the lines of the ETS budget per capita? Or as a portion of he total city budget? or something along those lines?

 

[IanO]

Resource allocation is a part of good service delivery, management and leadership.

Ever think that more people might take it if they didn't have to bring a Toonie or find somewhere that has ETS tickets.

Make it efficient, effective and EASY.

 

[CplKlinger]

I am at a loss to understand what you mean that the operational budget hasn't increased, because clearly it has. ETS runs more kilometers in 2022 than it did in 2002, operates more service hours etc.
Are you talking more as long the lines of the ETS budget per capita? Or as a portion of he total city budget? or something along those lines?

That's something I'll need to try and ask Paquette to clarify, because he's the one who said that. Those are good points though, now I'm wondering that as well.