By Pepper Parr
September 19th 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
Did you take anything away from the Food for Feedback event last weekend?
Did you get to talk to anyone? Were your questions answered?
The public got to respond to the questions: were these the right questions?
Did the “dot boards” make any sense to you?
Did you leave think you were listened to?
I had a chance to talk to Catherine Baldelli about transit – asking what free transit would mean to the organization she runs day to day.
Was an electric fleet the answer or did hydrogen have a future.
This was a friendly conversation – free transit for everyone is a front and center issue for the Mayor and there is a survey being to gauge how people feel about that idea.
Baldeli doesn’t make those policy decisions – she is operations and very quick to tell people that everything she knows about transit came from Sue Connor, one of the best minds in the business when it comes to municipal transit. Conner ran transit in Burlington and did a great job. When Tim Commisso, the then City Manager made the mistake of pulling her into an Executive Director task that she would do along with running transit Conner determined that it was time to move on.
She now does a lot of work with CUTRI – Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium, an exceptionally good think tank that does a lot of the research and education work that is going to be needed if transit is to play a bigger role in moving people around.
Another issue is – when will transit become a Regional wide service – merging all the existing transit operations.
Burlington currently thinking about a transit campus. The space they have now could not handle electric busses which appear to be the choice that will be made going forward.
Catherine Baldeli, Director of Burlington Transit – one of the more demanding tasks facing the city – how are we going to move people around the city that is going to go through massive growth
Baldeli is facing some serious thinking – just the way every other city service is – preparing for the significant growth that is going to take place in the city once financial conditions change and developers begin to put shovels in the ground.
Interpreting the data is going to take some time – the public might want to see the raw data.
Add to that a way to ensure that the affordable rental housing is available. The idea of owning a home with a back yard, a picket fence and two cars in the garage is fading for many young people.
There uncertainty on so many levels; it will be interesting to see how the city presents the data they collected and if they decide to spin it.
One wonders if the raw data will be available to the public.
Just wait until someone proposes an LRT
Free transit is NOT free. A tax increase will be needed to fund it.
Transit, like many CoB budget line items, needs to be addressed in the context of supporting the greater needs of Burlington residents. How many transit users are there? Where are the busiest AND most needed routes? Will this change over the next 5-10 years. Do we need large or small buses? Gas, hydrogen, electric or “other” fueled?
Capital investments that put the city into multi-year commitments need to be heavily scrutinized.
And BTW, what ever happened to the oft-used-in-private-sector concept of Zero-based budgets? Even at a proposed 5.5% increase for 2025 ( which, incidentally matches the proposed salary and benefits increases!) and the 10% we incurred this year, our elected officials need to reign in spending . Try getting to 0% increase- As if our lives DO depend on fiscal restraint?!
No the people who want to live here want a car or two and can afford it.
Can’t afford another feel good project.