|
Post by cathy on Jul 2, 2005 14:52:15 GMT -5
Due to Kelowna's large area, and the regular addition of housing estates on the outskirts of the city, the public transit system is growing out of date. Bus access is limited to the most central areas, and places such as the Lower Mission, North Glenmore, McKinley, Ellison, Black Mountain, etc., receive no, or very infrequent, bus service. The bus routes are also limited to the main roads, such as Gordon drive, Lakeshore, Springfield, and Glenmore roads, and tend to avoid the large numbers of houses and business extending a great distance from either side of these. The cost of providing service to all these areas is literally unfeasible, and more major bus terminals would need to be added if the system were to be updated. With the increase in Kelowna's population, traffic is becoming a problem. However, as people purchase real estate further and further from the city center, they are limited to traveling by car in and out of the city, since the buses do not provide adequate service. Since people don't generally drive to the nearest bus terminal for the sake of getting the bus, the traffic in and out of Kelowna is becoming unnecessarily high. Needless to say, better public transit service would be easier to provide in a higher density area. People would be more likely to either walk to where they needed to go, or walk to a nearby bus terminal or stop. Bus service would extend to all areas within the city core, and would decrease the need for cars in daily activities, such as going to school or work, purchasing groceries, etc. With easy access to the service, people would be much more likely to use the public transit system, and, as the city develops, an emphasis should be placed on its use.
|
|
|
Post by Rick Shea on Jul 5, 2005 12:52:40 GMT -5
The studies and data from elsewhere don't support that idea, or at least the utopian picture painted.
As well, our current council is doing everything it can to promote even more sprawl in Kelowna, including supporting removing land from the ALR for even more opportunity for sprawl.
So, although I agree that a good public transit system is critical -- and that it must be affordable for riders and for taxpayers -- it is not the solution to our problems, and neither is densification.
Cathy said it all, really, in "With the increase in Kelowna's population, traffic is becoming a problem."
Virtually every problem we currently face is due to population increase. Gee, I think I see a simple solution, and one that has worked well elsewhere already.
|
|
|
Post by John Zeger on Aug 18, 2005 11:27:58 GMT -5
As a transit user myself, I've been wanting to comment on this for a long time now (but I've been too busy waiting at the bus stop). Rick is correct. Improvements can and should be made to the transit system, but transit cannot bail us out of the fundamental problems that population growth is creating. Only limiting that growth will provide a solution. On the subject of improvements to transit, transit usage should be encouraged. The first important step is a very basic one -- getting the buses to run on time. Any transit user like myself knows the frustration of wasting lots of time at bus stops as buses are often not on time and sometimes with significant delays. Most of the blame for late buses has been attributed to the traffic congestion in the city which results in delays for all vehicles using the road network. So we must stop adding more vehicles to that network at the insane rate of the past few years and give our network and transportation system a chance to catch up. Despite all the grandiose plans that city transportation manager Ron Westlake has for an expanded transit system with express buses running from the Westside to UBC-O, you will never get significantly more people to take transit unless the buses run on time. Ron Westlake, are you listening? So until this condition is met I am not in favour of any significant increase in capital investment in the transit system as it will only be a waste of taxpayers money. I would also be in favour of the city conducting a study on the feasibility of assuming ownership of the local transit system instead of the present system where control is divided between the City , CORD, the Province, and Farwest (the private company that actually operates the system) which all begs the question "who's in charge here?" Perhaps if people knew who was in charge there would be less buck-passing and an increase in efficiency. But the main issue here is to stop adding more vehicles to the road network. Studies have shown that even by increasing densities and encouraging transit use that 80-90% of new residents of those new high density areas will still opt for using their private vehicle. So the notion that we can continue to grow at our current rate and that increasing densities with the hope that transit will bail us out is a huge myth. But it is a myth that politicians and planners both of whom are encouraging more population growth cling to in the hopes that enough people will be fooled into believing this lie and placidly accepting the continued rate of growth. Wendell Cox addresses this issue in the article "Transit : The Politician's Best Friend" which deals with the issue of population growth and transit in Toronto. www.publicpurpose.com/pp58-toronto.htm Another excellent report also by Cox on urban density, traffic congestion, and transit and be found at www.goldwaterinstitute.org/pdf/materials/95.pdf However, I differ with Cox's solution of simply enlarging the road network as that will only invite more population growth sowing the seeds for future traffic congestion. The only realistic and permanent solution is population growth management.
|
|
|
Post by John Zeger on Jul 13, 2007 12:55:03 GMT -5
On July 12, 2007 in an article on the 30th anniversary of Kelowna Regional Transit, the Daily Courier quoted Mayor Sharon Shepherd describing the system as "30 years of reliable, dependable, regional transit service." Shepherd obviously doesn't take transit because as a user myself I can attest that it is neither reliable nor dependable as buses frequently arrive late or not at all.
|
|