Raillery

Being as I don't drive, you'd think I'd be a huge proponent of public transit. And I am. But the way my city is going about modernizing its system is, quite frankly, making me ill.

Trying to make this short and sweet. I live towards the northern end of one city that goes by three names. Depending on where you are, this place is called Waterloo, Kitchener, or Cambridge. The latter is itself comprised of Preston, Galt, and Hespeler.

Kitchener and Waterloo are one city...just remember that if you say so to somebody from Waterloo, you'd best be running backwards as the words escape your mouth. Waterlooers are kind of snotty that way: there's a $5o-100K location premium for houses at this end of town. But seriously, if you took the signs down, somebody from away would have a hell of a time telling you where one city ends and another begins. Cambridge is somewhat distinct, but tendrils of Kitchener and Cambridge have met each other and begun entwining in conurban bliss.

Like Topsy, this place just growed. For a long time through the eighties it was the fastest growing region in Canada, and it's up there again thanks to a serious infusion of tech companies. (RIM's head office is about a seven minute walk from my front door.) The streets are crazily confusing to an outsider. The two main drags in K-W run north, south, east and west: 256 King Street could be any of four locations (or two on the completely unrelated King Street in Cambridge). Moreover, King and Weber parallel each other through Kitchener and Waterloo, but your fifth grade math teacher would be horrified: these parallel lines cross. Three times.

So we have K-W in the north, aligned largely (but by no means exclusively) north-south, and Cambridge in the south, aligned somewhat east-west. Clear? Yeah. As mud.

Connecting this urban area via public transit is something of a challenge. To date, the best they have done is something they've dubbed the 'iXpress', which takes 75 minutes to get from north Waterloo to downtown Cambridge. This is more than twice as long as the trip takes by car...which is why public transit will never supplant the private automobile.

Enter light rail.

I have never in all my life seen a controversy rage in the newspaper half as long as this one has. The letters page has been thoroughly dominated for years now by zealots arguing for LRT and zealots arguing against it. Every possible argument pro or con has been repeatedly advanced and cut to shreds. It's an abortion-level controversy, by which I mean nearly everyone's minds have been SET as if in cement, one way or the other.

And anybody against LRT for any reason, no matter how considered, has been shouted down at every turn. It's become increasingly obvious that on June 15th we'll be committed to an $818-million LRT system connecting two shopping malls and ignoring half of Kitchener and all of Cambridge. Further, the proposed LRT will save three or four minutes of commuting time over the bus system we already have...for all those thousands of people who live at Fairview and work in Conestoga, or vice versa. It will disrupt traffic whenever traffic isn't disrupting it.

But if we don't get exactly this system, the city will (we're told) become unliveable. I got a pamphlet in my mailbox the other day that was my final straw.

WITHOUT THE LRT, it thundered, I WORRY FOR MY GRANDCHILDREN.

Give me a freakin' break.

Look, I support sustainable, walkable communities. Public transit is an integral part of them. But in order for public transit to succeed, it has to take people from where they are to where they want to go, preferably as quickly as possible. Light rail built right down the center of the streets from one shopping mall to another is not going to accomplish this.

If we are absolutely wedded to that north-south corridor...why not a monorail along the lines of Vancouver's SkyTrain? This would still serve developers' interests while permitting life to continue beneath the route as normal.

Or--for that matter--what's wrong with a modified/expanded iXpress service, perhaps using smaller busses where appropriate, giving them higher priority at intersections or even their own lane? That would be considerably less expensive, using roadway we already have.

Ah, hell, I'm spitting into the wind: their minds are made up and there's no changing them. Maybe that's what most annoys me. There's talk about how other cities are trying to steal OUR federal and provincial funding, almost as if said funding ISN'T coming out of our left pockets while the Region has its hand in our right pockets. Antediluvian conservative Ken surfaces from yon tar pit to shout an old mantra of his: THERE'S ONLY ONE TAXPAYER!