Raise the Hammer

Mrs. Tennier understands most of all that Hamilton must compete not for just companies and their jobs but for quality employees as well. She also seems to understand that, 100% capital funding, paid by someone else, is a once in a lifetime chance for a rapid transit proposal. She also understands that, pissing around with this proposal is dumb if not outright dangerous for your city's future development. I found several points in this article quite refreshing!

"escalating land costs in southern Ontario are such that large employers need to ensure that whatever land they purchase is put into productive use. Purchasing land so that 25 percent or so of it will be covered in employee parking will no longer be acceptable."

Part of my professional experience has been that, most companies already are straining financially and doing their level best to avoid building parking at all, for their new development projects. As a consultant the first transportation related question I often get asked is, "what's cheapest, building full sized parking lot or building a smaller lot and a lot of fancy digitally connected transit shelters for my employees?" When they see how much a full size parking lot costs to maintain per year, they usually go with a smaller lot and the smart transit shelters.

"How do I know that the approach of providing transit based on ridership is no longer acceptable? Because I am currently on a negotiating team for a large manufacturer where this is a significant point of discussion. The company is insisting on appropriate transit service from day 1, and the municipality has agreed to provide it. Hamilton must remain competitive with these changing employer expectations."

I know she means "current ridership" when she is commenting on this. This is one of the changes that has really surprised me the most, in my lifetime as a urban planning professional. The demands of companies, expecting a certain level of transit service on day 1. This was unheard of when I started in the early 1990's now, transit service frequency is an actual drawing point of one development site over another. The ability of a municipality to offer a certain level transit service to a site, especially in the suburbs means that a company can guarantee that their employees can actually get to the site on time everyday.

"The province has been clear that it is providing funding for LRT and not for other transportation options. Thankfully, this will allow significant redeployment of buses to the Mountain - hopefully the east Mountain where these major industrial employers are located. It will also increase the ability of downtown employees to efficiently get to the Red Hill Business Park."

She understands something that most of the councilors who are against LRT don't, or at least not fully. If you build LRT in the area of your busiest routes, you can redeploy those buses to other places where they can't currently serve. The best part is that the city or transit service doesn't have to buy more buses to serve these new areas they can use the existing fleet. This is one of those hidden operating costs with BRT systems.