Citizens' Agenda Phase II - A City Built for Everyone

Sustainable Calgary launched the Citizens’ Agenda project in 2005. One thousand citizens volunteered 5000 hours to the task of analyzing issues and indicators and brainstorming actions and policies to tackle the city’s most pressing issues. Ultimately these citizens selected Policy and Action Priorities that they judged would create a healthier, more caring, vibrant and sustainable Calgary over the next five year and published them in a report- The Citizens’ Agenda - A City Built for Everyone.

Citizens' Agenda Phase II - A City Built for Everyone was initiated in 2007. The purpose and focus of the project is to build awareness and understanding of these policy and action priorities and engage people in making these priorities a reality. Current work on the project focuses on the community need for sustainable, equitable and smart transportation. Statistics from Natural Resources Canada and the City of Calgary show that Calgary needs to reduce its large ecological footprint, urban sprawl and dependence on cars. Based on our discussions with Calgarians, people also need accessible, affordable and sustainable transportation options.

Change is needed but there are barriers to change: 1) Limited vision - about options and unclear information and ideas about what sustainable, equitable options entail and how they will fit into existing neighbourhoods, 2) A gap between decision-makers and citizens - citizens do not understand the change process in our city and politicians are not hearing the voices of citizens encouraging them to act. 3) A rush to grow quickly - Calgary is continuing to build outward to play catch-up because of the large influx of population 4) Inconsistent implementation - there is a disconnect between sustainable and equitable transportation policies conceived at the City Hall and implementation. Both the City of Calgary and the Calgary Regional Partnership are working on long-term land use and mobility plans that will affect the future for the next 60 years. There is a window of opportunity to reduce barriers and make significant changes. We are working to bridge the gaps by providing opportunities for education, discussion and citizen engagement.

Transportation Spending

One of Sustainable Calgary's Roles is to be an Advocate for Sustainable Principles in projects in the City. Right now City Council is talking about its budgeting process for the next year. We are asking them to consider spending more money on sustainable transportation and less on car-related expenditures. Here is what Noel Keough, our Senior Researcher, says on the issue.

Critical Choices for a World Class Transit City

The new council has gotten off to a running start with the allocation of infrastructure money secured from the Provincial government. It is indeed a good sign to see that a large portion of this money will go toward the further development of our LRT system. I would like to offer some food for thought for Calgarians and especially for our new council as they deliberate this week on their priorities for the coming three years.

Most importantly I think, a city reliant on the automobile significantly marginalizes many Calgarians. The often-heard refrain that ‘Calgarians love their cars’ is a myth. Some Calgarians love their cars. Many see the car as a necessity in our sprawling city. According to figures from the Alberta government there are in fact over 170,000 driving age Calgarians without a license – about 20% of those eligible to drive. And many more of those of us with a license are without the financial resources to afford an automobile. This includes many people with disabilities, people who have to work for less than a living wage and need to make their way to perhaps two different jobs on a daily basis, single parents and new immigrants unaccustomed to our city. Despite the city policy of transportation choice, many of these people have no practical choice in how they get around the city. It restricts their ability to get work and get to basic services like schools, health clinics or grocery stores. It is simply not right to build a city that marginalizes so many of us. A transit system that is accessible, affordable, available and safe for all Calgarians wherever we live or work is the only way to alleviate this problem.

To provide such a system requires resources. It is imperative that we make a significant shift in municipal transportation spending in favour of transit. Despite the wise decision to spend a large sum of the new infrastructure money on transit, we still spend too much on our road system. From 1995 to 2006, according to city reporting, we spent over 60% of our transportation infrastructure dollar on roads. According to those same reports, projected transportation spending for the period 2007-2010 would see at least 50% of spending on roads every year – some years roads spending projections approach 70%. Even with the new infrastructure money for LRT, spending on transit infrastructure still only amounts to about 55% of the transportation budget.  In 2006, Sustainable Calgary involved over 1000 Calgarians in a process that resulted in a recommendation to spend at least 65% of the municipal transportation dollar on Transit.  This is a bare minimum to make Calgary a city where transit is a viable option for all Calgarians.

Let me offer a couple of reasons for this recommendation. First, the viability of transportation choice is dependent on the infrastructure we make available for cars versus transit. Based on city numbers for infrastructure replacement cost, we currently have about 80 to 85% of all transportation infrastructure in roads. No wonder it is easier to get around Calgary in a car. I suggest that to achieve the fairest most sustainable, effective and efficient transportation system we need to reverse those numbers.  Second, municipal transportation spending is only a portion of all spending on transportation. Most provincial spending makes it easier to drive our cars and does nothing for transit. The ring road, for example, will inject another 3.4 billion dollars in roads infrastructure into the mix.

Even if you can afford a car, an auto-dependent city just does not make sense. Based on Canadian Automobile Association estimates of the cost of owning and operating an automobile in Canada, collectively Calgarians annually spend in the range of 5 billion dollars on our cars – the rolling stock for our road network. This is perhaps 8 times the total transportation budget of our city. And all those cars are overwhelming our transportation infrastructure and reducing transit system effectiveness. Our buses spend the day stuck in all that car traffic.

Finally, to make Calgary a truly transit oriented city for the long haul will require landuse decisions that support that vision. Continuing to chase our ever-sprawling city boundaries out in every direction with expensive new bus lines, LRT tracks and roads is untenable. We cannot afford to build or maintain such overstretched transportation systems. To build a transit oriented city will require a bold decision to hold the line on new suburban development, choose perhaps two LRT supported growth corridors to grow into if we must grow outward and focus city resources to develop land already on or within striking distance of our transit system.

To their credit, the city and developers have already begun to turn their attention to LRT station redevelopment, rehabilitation of old industrial sites and urbanization of major corridors such as 17th Ave SE. To optimize that strategy requires that we hold the line on new suburban development. There is plenty of room for all of us, and newcomers, to live within the already built up area of our city. As an illustration of how much space we have available, the next time you take a ride on the LRT, take a look at the land uses along the route. It is mostly parking lots, industrial yards and car dealerships. The beauty of the strategy I suggest is that by making our city more compact we actually reduce the burden on our transit system by allowing more people the option of walking and bicycling to their destinations.

The old adage that you can’t have your cake and eat it too is an apt one in our present predicament. I think we are fooling ourselves, and setting ourselves up for a future of higher taxes, reduced services and deteriorating infrastructure if we try to accommodate the free flow of the private automobile and a city-wide transit system or if we try to densify within our city at that same time as we continue to allow new development on the entire perimeter. For a fair, healthy, a fiscally viable city - a city built for everyone - choices have to be made and now is the time to make them.

Noel Keough is senior researcher with Sustainable Calgary Society and Assistant Professor of Sustainable Design at the Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary.

Please write your council representative and request a change in the focus of transportation spending.

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