It might be taking “baby steps,” but the Capital Regional District is walking in the right direction with a new attempt to make sense of transportation in Greater Victoria.
This week, the CRD’s transportation select committee voted to set up a new regional transportation service by pulling all of its transportation-related functions under one umbrella.
Those services include regional trails, which will be moved from CRD Parks; transportation information, which will come from regional planning; docks, which will shift from the water department; and Gulf Islands transportation planning, which will be moved from the electoral-area budgets.
“This is a first baby step to move this region into a transportation service,” said Saanich Coun. Judy Brownoff.
It’s a welcome beginning in a region where people move freely, but municipalities tend to think in silos.
Some CRD directors made a bid in 2013 to take over responsibility for transit, but it wasn’t included in the regional transportation plan. Fortunately, CRD directors have not given up the attempt to bring some co-ordination to the movement of people and goods.
The patchwork of transportation initiatives is inefficient and ponderously slow to respond to the needs of residents.
We have only to look at the WestShore, which is growing by design and feeding the need for transportation infrastructure. Trying to get something like a dedicated bus lane between downtown Victoria and Langford would require approvals from Victoria, Saanich, View Royal, Colwood, Langford, the provincial Ministry of Transportation and B.C. Transit.
The advantages of the new transportation service go beyond improved planning and efficiency.
With the service, the district could be better able to get money from the province and the federal government for trails, because they will be seen as transportation rather than recreation infrastructure.
At this point, the district is not talking about big bucks. It estimates $1.25 million to begin with, of which $800,000 will come from the CRD Parks budget.
“There is no increase to the budget. This is just a reorganization of staff and dollars that currently work on transportation and it’s going into the service. There’s no increase to the budget,” Brownoff said.
Voters must hold her and her fellow directors to that promise.
Residents’ major concern with the CRD taking over transportation should be that the district’s projects have a tendency to grow. A new department could require a new director, with a staff. It could easily mushroom from there.
We will have to keep a close eye on the budget.
The district will have to spell out clearly what its intention is. Directors need only look across the water to the Lower Mainland, where TransLink is giving lessons in how not to run a transportation system.
Unlike TransLink, whose members are appointed, the CRD’s initiative comes from CRD directors, who are councillors elected in their own municipalities. It is a more locally driven plan.
The possibility of a regional service has been tossed around since 1999, as politicians and residents recognized that Victoria will never be able to reach the goals of the regional growth strategy or the regional transportation plan without some way to co-ordinate transportation priorities across jurisdictions and agencies.
The need for a rational plan is clear. These baby steps are a much-needed beginning.
