Province gives Calgary money... council deciding what to do with it.

[topfiverecords]

#4

[SebC]

Originally Posted by V

I would vote for a neighbourhood revitilisation fund, something like what Edmonton does here. 50 year old neighbourhoods look brand new. It really is an awesome program.

Investing in transit could be a catalyst for revitalisation... #4 gets my vote.

[Knut]

Nenshi bucks!

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Keep in mind this money is $52.1 million annually. So, it's $1 billion over 20 years.

In the past, when the Province vacated "tax room" and the City has taken it and used if for capital projects. The first big tranche was a couple years ago - $42 million annually for the Community Investment Fund - which is funding the 4 new rec centres and a big chunk of the Central Library. Last year there was $10.2m in tax room that was dedicated to a bunch of little things like eliminating the resident portion of City-initiated sidewalk replacement, transit reliability measures, targeted traffic optimizations (lane reversals, signal syncs, additional turn lanes, etc) and so forth.

There are four proposals for this $52.1 million annually:

1. Return it to the residential property taxpayer so that your tax increase this year will be about 1.3% instead of 5.5%

2. Return it specifically to non-residential property taxpayer to reduce the differential between non-residential and residential property taxes. Non-res is said to pay a disproportionate share compared to residential (in comparison to other cities)

3. Create a neighbourhood revitalization fund - basically what Edmonton does - go neighbourhood by nieghbourhood and replace aging infrastructure (sidewalks, road surface, lights) and build other infrastructure to support redevelopment

4. Create a dedicated Transit Capital Fund. This would essentially allow the development of 5 or 6 dedicated transitways identified in the RouteAhead Plan - SWBRT, Centre Street Busway, 17th Ave SE Busway, SE Busway improvements (in advance of LRT development), West U of C campus mobility (possibly a gondola across the valley to connect to WLRT), 16th Avenue Crosstown BRT, etc. It would also fund all unfunded Light Rail Vehicle replacement and growth for the next ten years. The City must retire 82 of the original U2 LRT vehicles as well as grow the fleet to increase capacity (full 4 car LRT).

Why would you even present the top two options when I'm pretty certain that they have a 0% chance of happening or getting serious consideration from the powers that be?

If I were running the city I would choose option #2. But if it really was a choice between #3 and #4, which I'm pretty sure that's how it's being framed among the new urbanists then #4 would be the more responsible option. Revitalization gets payed for by private funds when it's next to transit infrastructure. Probably more bang for the city's buck there.

[Flamenspiel]

#1. I simply have no faith that the money would be spent wisely.

[RedMileDJ]

If the city blows all this on one project, like transit, I'm gonna flip a table.

Not all of us take transit or even LIKE transit. I have a car. I enjoy driving. Fix the damn roads. Ie: expand Deerfoot, ring-road, etc.

My 2 cents.

[Cowboy89]

^ The better the transit system the less people on the roads. That money at best buys 4-5 interchanges, but could move a whole lot more people more reliably with a couple of busways. That said I don't support anything that rips out existing roads and puts busways or bike lanes in it's place.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Red-Mile-DJ

If the city blows all this on one project, like transit, I'm gonna flip a table.

Not all of us take transit or even LIKE transit. I have a car. I enjoy driving. Fix the damn roads. Ie: expand Deerfoot, ring-road, etc.

My 2 cents.

Provincial responsibilities.

[Bigtime]

Official poll now!

I'm torn between 3 & 4.

What to do?

[RedMileDJ]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Provincial responsibilities.

Good point. Oversight on my part. But still, there are plenty of roads within the city, that the city is responsible for, that could use some TLC.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Red-Mile-DJ

Not all of us take transit or even LIKE transit. I have a car. I enjoy driving. Fix the damn roads. Ie: expand Deerfoot, ring-road, etc.

No matter how it is spent; not everybody is going to like it. The city and the province cannot base every decision on if there may be somebody somewhere that won't like it.

That being said; if transit is quick and easy for most Calgarians that will result in less traffic on streets for the drivers. As well, the two roads you mentioned are both provincial roads; at least for now. And the biggest thing holding back the SW ring road is the negotiations with the Tsuu T'ina.

[Tinordi]

Give it to Murray Edwards.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

How much is $50 million in infrastructure anyways? The really big head aches in this city are probably far in excess of that.

Yes but you could borrow against it at basically the province's credit rating.

[karl262]

I think the Transit Capital Fund is the best idea. Even though I myself never use transit the overall positive impacts of a great municipal transit system just helps everyone. They just have to spend it wisely.

[You Need a Thneed]

Start a transit capital fund. That way, when more dollars come to do the big LRT projects, we don't need to spend some of that cash doing the smaller transit projects.

If we don't get done the Routeahead goals in the next 30 years, we will be even further behind then than we are now. The city will be 2+ million people by then.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

^ The better the transit system the less people on the roads. That money at best buys 4-5 interchanges, but could move a whole lot more people more reliably with a couple of busways. That said I don't support anything that rips out existing roads and puts busways or bike lanes in it's place.

Why wouldn't you? Bike and transit investment is basically net-positive in public wealth generation. For every car taken off the road you save $thousands for other drivers of the life of the infrastructure. I really dislike this siloed/tribal thinking that investments in transit are zero-sum, either they're for vehicles or they're against vehicles. For the most part investments in alternative transit or even the removal of vehicle infrastructure can be beneficial to motorists.

edit: This is a good summary of the public good case to encourage alternative transport options, check out page 58 for a summary monetizing the benefits.

http://www.vtpi.org/nmt-tdm.pdf

The problem is that there is limited space in urban centres and that you will run into use conflicts between vehicles and other modes. It's nice to build bike lanes where there's an existing unused right of way but for the most part you're talking about taking out lanes. That's fine if it leads to lower congestion. Best example I have is the Burrard Street Bridge in Vancouver. Converted a whole lane to bikes on a 6 lane bridge, drivers were initially irate but traffic effects are negligible and there's 26% more cycling trips over the bridge and certain to rise further.

http://www.openalex.ca/2009/11/vanco...e-success.html

[Northendzone]

build some super sweet mountain biking trails, and a retracable dome over teh city, so we can have better weather.

[kermitology]

Transit capital fund.. for the love of god, do NOT give it back to us. We pay low taxes as is, and this city has desperate need for more infrastructure investment. Particularly transit, which is appallingly bad for a city of +1M people.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Why would you even present the top two options when I'm pretty certain that they have a 0% chance of happening or getting serious consideration from the powers that be?

I put it in no particular order. They are getting serious consideration, as various aldermen are championing these options.

On consultation, one thing the Mayor has mused about is each championing aldermen making a Dragon's Den style pitch to the public on youtube.

I'll note that I'm sure each option will be refined and explained in greater detail over the next couple months. The public is also welcome to suggest other options too.

The consultation is somewhat informal (not highly structured) - there won't be anything like scientific polling, but feedback from many different media (including ones like this) will be gathered to give Council a good sense on how citizens feel about this before they make the decision.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Bunk

On consultation, one thing the Mayor has mused about is each championing aldermen making a Dragon's Den style pitch to the public on youtube.

I like Nenshi, but that is super lame. How about council be professional and do something without this song and dance around it?