Fort Saskatchewan's city council is voting tomorrow on whether or not to remain within the regional transit services commission:
http://www.sturgeoncreek.ca/ThePost.../2_Fort_to_vote_on_regional_transit_plan.html
I spoke with Councilor Gordon Harris, who represents the Fort on the interim board, and he had some interesting points:
- Local transit services within the region will be amalgamated into the commission; only ETS will remain outside of its scope for now, due to its size. Around five years after its formation, assuming that the commission launches as planned, the board will vote on whether or not to bring the LRT into the fold or if it should remain under Edmonton's control and budget. I assume that also goes for the rest of ETS, but I could be wrong.
- The interim board is currently in the hiring process for a CEO of the commission, and hope to have one by the year's end.
- Local communities will have a certain amount of time, from when the commission is formed to when it begins service, to finalize their routes to "set the tone." After that, route planning for local and regional connections will be under the purview of a board of planning experts working for the commission.
-At the beginning of its operations, the RTSC will contract out services rather than providing services itself. For instance, it could continue to contract local service in Fort Sask to Pacific Western, and contract regional transit between Fort Sask and Edmonton to ETS.
- The commission will be named something along the lines of: the "Edmonton Metropolitan Regional Transit Services Commission". I forget the exact wording, but I think that's it.
I emailed all of the city councilors to voice my support, and a couple of them had some pretty disappointing responses. Councilor Brian Kelly asked me:
" Do you have any authoritative research that conclusively illustrates the economic and environmental benefits that you allude too? Btw I hope you do because my search has yielded nothing. "
While Councilor Deanna Lennox asked me:
" If you could provide some information about your statements like “Fort Saskatchewan has long needed to expand transit” and that the RTSC will be cheaper and more efficient. Do you have some statistics or data that supports those statements?"
While the second question from Lennox is fair I guess, the first one seemed to be in poor faith. I don't think that a private citizen should be expected to provide statistics in order for their opinion, that local transit is lacking, to be considered valid. Apparently, five councilors are thought to support remaining in the commission, while two councilors want the Fort to leave it. From the responses I got, I think it's safe to say that Kelly and Lennox are the ones most opposed to the commission. Hopefully, come the meeting tomorrow, the Fort's city council does not make the shortsighted decision to leave the commission after spending so much time and resources contributing to its formation. This commission will make communities outside of Edmonton much more attractive to newcomers, and leaving it will only isolate the community in my opinion.