I was encouraged to hear this week that St. Albert Mayor Nolan Crouse, the chair of a new sub-committee of the Capital Region Integrated Growth Management Planning Board tasked with creating a public transit plan for the capital region, that this could be the beginnings of a unified regional transit system.As I've written in the past, I think a regional public transit service replacing the three current municipal transit services - Edmonton Transit Services, St. Albert Transit, and Strathcona County Transit - would be a great first step in fostering cooperation, eliminating expensive duplication in services, and could bode well for creating a more efficient transit service for the entire region. With Edmonton, St. Albert, and Strathcona County already proving that they can work together on important issues such as the Universal Bus Pass (U-Pass) for University of Alberta and Grant MacEwan College students, a future regional transit service doesn't seem that unlikely.
As long as the accountability for the three systems resides with three different sets of elected officials, you will never see them become one body.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like such a no-brainer, but I don't have high hopes for it.
ReplyDeleteSherwood Park, Edmonton and St. Alberta collaborated on a report looking at coordinating disabled transit services several years ago and nothing ever came of that.
The poster above me is correct. Perhaps what's needed is a regional transit authority.