The Big Disraeli Plan: Four Years Late

“I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?”
- 19th century British statesman and Winnipeg freeway namesake Benjamin Disraeli.

A few bloggers (Graham the rabblerouser and the ever-mysterious Black Rod) have mentioned that some citizens, including myself, had brought plans forward regarding the Disraeli Bridges Project.  My plan, based on conversations with literally hundreds of Winnipeggers, was to twin the Louise Bridge with a temporary span before any Disraeli closure was to take place.

However, the plan was not perfect: it required leasing of private property (a shed and equipment yard) and would have increased traffic on Higgins Avenue, which did not please some Point Douglas residents.  But I did feel that it was the best option considering the limitations that had we had been told existed.

Of course, most of Winnipeg found out in January of 2010, after four years of talk, that the bridge did not need to be closed at all.  Is that good news?  Yes and no.

It’s good news because the closure of Disraeli was unthinkable without increasing the capacity of other bridges.

It’s bad news because it shows that the city was completely wrong about the limitations of the project, and misinformed the 100,000 affected Winnipeggers for FOUR YEARS.   Not only did this cause undue worry, it also caused several businesses on Henderson to move to another part of the city.  In addition, there is still no plan for the Louise Bridge.

The options the city presented were either a) $250-300 million six-lane bridge still using the old piers and adding some new ones, or b) $125 million bridge refurbishment with 16 months of closure.  Now, the city is saying that a brand new four-lane bridge can be built for $195 million without any closure.

How can a third option come out of nowhere when the city made it abundantly clear that there were only two options?  There are two possibilities for this:

1. The city did not research the project thoroughly before deciding on what they found to be the easiest solution (particularly because they didn’t rely on the bridge to get to work each day).

2. The current project estimates are far too low, meaning that the $195 million price tag will be inflated significantly once construction has begun.

As a public-private partnership, the second option may not be a bad thing, depending on the specifics of the contract.  The city is borrowing $75 million up front, while the private consortium, Plenary Roads Winnipeg, will finance the remaining $120 million.  It is not clear from the information I have seen if cost overruns will be the responsibility of the private group or of the city, or if both will share the extra expense.

At this point, all that is clear is that the city did not think the closure was a big issue until the provincial government finally woke up and decided that it was an issue during a by-election campaign.

So in the end, is the new Disraeli plan a triumph?  No.  It’s a solution that should have been inevitable, but one which the city spent four years decrying as impossible.  The city and province both showed a serious lack of leadership on this issue.  At a time when we are all watching with curious dismay as the US House and Senate whittle away any chance of health care reform due to shortsightedness, partisanship, and selfishness, we see our own governments spending four years avoiding an issue that should have been resolved in four months.

I’m not sad that the city didn’t choose my fancy Disraeli plan, or that the city didn’t bother to consider it on any level; that’s the way government works around here, so it’s like being sad that pigs don’t fly.  But what I am sad about is that the leadership in this city and province has not even considered the damage that this four-year stunt has caused to the Elmwood residents and businesses at the foot of the bridge.

The Human Fund: Money for People

George Costanza was a visionary, despite being a fictional character based on Larry David.  Well, in truth, I just wanted a name to describe a concept, and most names are taken.  Even The Human Fund is taken, by an organization in Cleveland.  But that didn’t stop me…

So here’s the pitch: many of us who frequent blogs are idealists who hope for a better society, whether our focus is on local issues or on global affairs.  Some of us donate money to various causes, while others feel as though charities are simply “in the business of charity”, worrying that the administration and salaries might be taking too much of the donation money.

As an East Kildonan Lion, I know first-hand that there are charities that are truly working to help the communities they work in; Lions, for instance, do not spend any proceeds on administration costs, which means that all of the money from fundraising and donations goes directly to worthy causes, and not to salaries or awards dinners.  I’ve also seen the work that groups like the United Way and Siloam Mission are doing in Winnipeg, and they are worthy causes.

But there are other projects that I feel would benefit Winnipeg, and they don’t always fall under the auspices of charity in the traditional sense.  Some of these projects are on a line between charity and angel investing, because they are near a break-even point economically, so may not be considered viable enough for standard capital or not-for-profit enough for donations.

One of these projects is the Grassroots Apartments Project I talked about in an earlier post.  Another idea that I might write about in future is Youth Cafés.  Either of these projects, if they could be given a solid business plan, could receive capital from a rag-tag assortment of Winnipeggers who want to see some of their spare change used to enhance the build environment of our city.  This same concept could be extended to provincial, federal, or worldwide issues, whether it’s money for a prorotype of an algae biofuel plant or a little bit of cash to research the effect of Martian gravity on the development of embryos in mammals in anticipation of building a settlement on Mars.

If any of these projects sound good, great; if any of these projects sound incredibly stupid, that’s good too.  Because I believe that there is room for a fund that allows its investors (or sometimes more accurately, its benefactors) to pick and choose which projects to invest in.  This would be handled through a website that lists all projects once approved by a volunteer committee.  The benefactors would be able to choose the projects to invest their funds in, based on the type of project and its apparent viability.

Some benefactors may choose to automate their investment choices, while others would choose manually on a project-by-project basis.  Some projects could be donations to other charities, while others could be microloans to local entrepreneurs.  It would possible for one benefactor to treat the fund solely as a place to donate money, while another benefactor would use the fund as a way to earn back a small income from projects they deem worthy and viable.

This type of project could be started immediately with the creation of a website and a not-for-profit organization.  Rather than making donations in an official sense, participants would be purchasing virtual goods.  These virtual goods would be traded to various projects, where the executives of that project would borrow money from the organization using the virtual goods as collateral (often along with other guarantees), or they would sell the goods to the organization outright (in the case of a donation); it would also be possible for the organization to enable shared ownership of a portion of a for-profit project by a project’s benefactors, similar to buying shares.
If a project executive failed to repay a loan, the organization would use conventional means of collection to retrieve the funds.  All funds recovered would be distributed back to benefactors, and all dividends from shared ownership would be distributed as well.  All benefactors would be able to withdraw their funds at any time when their funds are not committed to a project.

So is this a worthy endeavour?  Is it something that could be made to work, avoiding both fraud and over-complexity?  Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

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Why Climate Change Doesn’t Matter

Climate change doesn’t matter because people are worried about keeping their jobs.

Climate change doesn’t matter because people are scared that the government is trying to control them.

Climate change doesn’t matter because developing countries are trying to punish the West.

Climate change doesn’t matter because there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

Climate change doesn’t matter because scientists are human and make mistakes.

The truth is, as much as we progressive types like to talk about climate change, and as much as we all seem to spout off about Kyoto and Copenhagen and renewable energy, climate change doesn’t matter to most North Americans, and that’s not going to change if we keep using tired old talking points.

Emissions reduction is a term that means one thing to most people: reduction of productivity.  It’s a logical point of view; how can we reduce emissions while increasing output?  We need output for economic growth, and reducing output will hurt the economy.  Green collar jobs sound appealing, but it’s hard to visualize unemployed workers in Youngstown, Flint, or Oshawa smiling in front of a new “green widget factory”.

Rather than being a new Apollo Project to energize society, climate change is on its way to becoming the next H1N1, a serious issue that loses the public’s attention.  People are starting to tune out, feeling as though the whole concept is overblown, or perhaps completely made up.  Even governments in Europe will soon feel the sting of climate change backlash, if they haven’t felt it already.

So those of us who do believe in climate change, who have read about the changes in the Arctic and in Australia, and who understand that declining glaciers will cause catastrophic drought in South Asia… we need to start accepting that talking about reducing emissions is the wrong way to change the world.

What is the right way to combat a climate change that doesn’t matter?  Restoring a proper balance to the atmosphere and the oceans while continually increasing global energy production is a hundred-year strategy, and at this point we haven’t even begun.

A Global Energy Strategy

The goal of this strategy is to increase global energy production as quickly as possible, raising the standard of living for all of humanity without penalizing developed nations.  More energy allows for new technologies in agriculture, electronics, biomedicine, construction, infrastructure and transportation that will lead to reductions in poverty and disease and an increase in opportunities for the people of all nations.

We need to expand our current energy production from 15 TW to approximately 35 TW by 2050, while replacing fossil fuels before supply dwindles to the point of being uneconomical.  By 2100, the world economy will require almost 100 TW of energy.

The declining supply in available fossil fuels, combined with ocean acidification caused by uncontrolled carbon emissions and changes to weather patterns based on changing atmospheric content, are the first issues to be resolved by this strategy.  Energy production based on oil, whether for electricity or for gasoline, must be phased out first (by 2050), followed by coal and natural gas by 2100.

This phase-out can be achieved only if all viable alternatives are pursued, including increases to efficiency in production and consumption, investment in renewable energy, construction of next generation nuclear fission reactors, sequestration of carbon emissions (to safeguard our fisheries and agricultural industries) and space-based solar power.

Meanwhile, research into nuclear fusion reactors must be maintained and increased when possible, as fusion energy will be required after 2050 in order to maintain economic growth at the desired pace.  In addition, innovation in space flight must also continue, both for space-based solar power to be economically sustainable and for new raw materials and fuel sources for the Earth.

Continued economic growth depends on new energy technologies, and not on continued stagnation with fossil fuel exploitation in its current state.  All agreements on energy policy must keep long-term economic growth as the ultimate goal, and this growth will only be possible if we prevent catastrophes caused by an overreliance on fossil fuels (or any one source) for energy production.  Such catastrophes can include the destruction of fisheries, a massive decline in agricultural yields due either to changing weather patterns or to a lack of fuel for equipment, or economic depression caused by rising energy costs.

Only if the focus of government investment and a healthy dose of private money are put towards various energy solutions will we see continued economic growth over the next century.  The future progress of humanity depends on a course of positive actions towards technological improvement.

The Same Actions, A Different Point of View

Defenders of a status quo in energy production will continue to oppose technological innovation that could affect their bottom line, but the vast majority of the population, including business owners and investors, are only concerned about changes in energy policy that could affect their ability to earn a living, consume products, and maintain a lifestyle to which they’ve grown accustomed.  By focusing on increasing energy production in order to foster economic growth, rather than simply pushing for reductions in emissions, we can send a message that changes in energy policy are to replace antiquated fuels with new technologies, and that curtailing economic growth is counter to the mainstream progressive agenda.

As long as the solution touted by Al Gore and others consists mainly of emission reduction, it will be forever tied to the notion of economic reduction; the emphasis needs to be placed on better energy and more of it, and our real-life policies and solutions need to reflect that point of view.

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Yet Another Opinion on Rapid Transit in Winnipeg

Rapid transit is a hot topic in Winnipeg these days (these days having begun in the 1990s and continued ad nauseum up to now).  But personally, I worry that we’re not investing in rapid transit for the right reasons.

Transportation is based on the idea that a person needs to get from one place to another, and the biggest reason that there are so many different forms of transportation is because there are many different places that people need to go.  If you’re heading to Mars, you won’t be taking a bicycle, and it would be silly to build a rocket to get to the local park.  And if you live in East St. Paul, you generally expect to use a car for at least one leg of each trip into Winnipeg.

Some Winnipeggers work in industrial parks or at out-of-the-way workplaces in the suburbs, including schools or in other people’s homes.  In such cases, it’s expected that public transit to those places will be less convenient than to those places that receive a large number of workers, such as shopping malls, universities, or downtown Winnipeg.  So any rapid transit solution will logically exclude most industrial parks and thinly-populated suburbs, and focus on major routes and work centres.

In order to know where rapid transit is needed, it’s important to know how “not rapid” existing transit is.  Here is a quick sample of transit times to downtown from neighbourhoods that are fortunate enough to have direct bus routes:

1.    East side of Transcona to Downtown (Portage and Main)
Morning (rush hour): 40-43 minutes
Mid-day (after lunch and before rush hour): 45-48 minutes
Evening (around 10pm): 41-44 minutes

2.    Charleswood  to Downtown (Portage and Main)
Morning (rush hour): 49-56 minutes
Mid-day (after lunch and before rush hour): 48-54 minutes
Evening (around 10pm): 47-56  minutes

3.    Westwood to Downtown (Portage and Main)
Morning (rush hour): 42-48 minutes
Mid-day (after lunch and before rush hour): 51-58 minutes
Evening (around 10pm): 50-57 minutes

4.    North Kildonan to Downtown (Portage and Main)
Morning (rush hour): 33-37 minutes
Mid-day (after lunch and before rush hour): 38 minutes
Evening (around 10pm): 30-36 minutes

These times can increase significantly when your point of origin is off the main routes; this is the last mile problem, as it becomes far less efficient to bring buses out to the far points of the suburbs to access the last houses at the edge of the neighbourhood.  Assuming that these last mile people will be expected to either be very exact in their timing for a commute on the rare feeder bus or drive their care for the first leg of their trip, we focus on main routes for rapid transit.

The biggest problem with rapid transit is that once it’s built, there’s no guarantee that the level of use will justify the expense of construction.  This is a possible problem with our current rapid transit project.  The rapid transit corridor from downtown to the University of Manitoba may cut travel times by ten minutes each way; assuming a base time of 35 minutes from Downtown to U of M by bus, we can estimate a 25 minute trip to the university using bus rapid transit.  For the average student in Transcona, Charleswood, or Westwood, the trip could be brought down from 70 minutes to an hour.  Will that be enough for a significant number of students to abandon their cars and parking passes in exchange for a bus pass?  I don’t think it will.  So is the investment worthwhile?

In the other direction, there will be people from South Winnipeg who will be able to use the busway  to get downtown.  From St. Norbert to downtown is around 40-45 minutes by bus, so this could be reduced to 30-35 minutes.  However, this assumes that the commuter lives right on the bus route; the last mile could add 10-15 minutes of walking time to this trip, instead of a couple of minutes by car.  Again, it’s hard to believe that a faster bus with fewer stops will increase ridership by enough to justify the expense.

So if we can’t guarantee that rapid transit will increase ridership, why are we building it?  Is it simply because we want to hop on the bandwagon?  Is this a way to fill the void from when the Jets left?

The truth is, rapid transit does not remove the reliance on cars that exists in the single-family homes of suburban areas; even people who take the bus to work, such as myself, still use cars for other trips within or between suburbs.  When I need to buy groceries in East Kildonan, I either walk to the Sobeys or I drive to Superstore.  Taking the bus doesn’t even enter into my mind, even though if I time it right I can leave at 9:00pm and get to Superstore by 9:15.   That’s my window, and as long as I’m willing to wait until 10:20pm to catch the bus back home, it can work. That’s because I live right next to Henderson Hwy and McLeod Ave, which are both bus routes.  If I’m too lazy to look up bus times to get to Superstore and to wait for the return bus (and miss the Daily Show at 10pm), how can I expect someone who lives further away from bus routes to give up their car?

I do not believe that we will see a large reduction in the number of cars in Winnipeg over the next fifty years; what I do envision is far more efficient cars, including plug-in hybrids that may never see a gas station, along with flex fuel and electric cars.  If downtown populations rebound, we may see a higher percentage of Winnipeggers who live downtown and choose not to keep a car, but that won’t mean that suburbanites are going to send their cars to the auto wrecker.

If the success of rapid transit is based on seeing significant numbers of residents from Winnipeg suburbs (as they are today) abandon their cars in favour of public transportation, it will not do the job.  Either rapid transit is a bad idea at this time, or the goal of rapid transit needs to be something other than simply getting single-family home suburbanites out of their cars and onto the bus.

So let’s look for positive ways of making rapid transit work:

Increase density along rapid transit routes

This is part of the city’s plan for rapid transit, including a future Ikea spur along Sterling Lyon that passes through the home of the Parker Avenue land swap.  The idea is that greenspace and brownfields will be converted to mixed-use developments, including apartments and condos.  The residents of these buildings will have a real choice of whether or not they want to own a car, because they could take the busways to work (assuming they work in a serviced area, such as downtown), and they could buy their essentials at stores in and around the new development.  The University of Manitoba will also be building their own developments on the former Southwood golf course, which will be located close to the second stage of the busway currently under construction.  In theory, a good rapid transit system will result in higher density along the route(s), and this does happen in other cities, so it could happen in Winnipeg if the municipal and provincial governments actually work towards that goal; the province has a history of working against a denser Winnipeg, with initiatives such as Waverley West and their most recent plan to replace industry in Point Douglas with parkland rather than an expanded residential community.

This idea is better for the tax base and the environment than more sprawl, but is not as good as downtown residential development.  It makes little sense to build all of our new residential towers in far-flung suburbs when there are acres upon acres of space within our core area.  I would like to see more effort put into expanding residential development downtown before we see transit spurs out to empty fields.

Develop a downtown transit system

Actually, Winnipeg already has a downtown transit system called the Winnipeg Walkway System or Winnipeg Skywalk.  It’s for walking only, so it can be a long trip from one end to the other with groceries or library books.  The walkway connects from The Bay along Memorial Blvd all the way to the Grain Exchange Building in the Exchange District.  There are also two shorter Skywalk systems along St. Mary Ave that are not joined to the main system.  It would take approximately 25 minutes to walk from the Exchange District to The Bay, and the entire trip would be indoors.  This walkway system could be expanded to reach the Convention Centre, Union Station, the Manitoba Legislature, and even City Hall and the Centennial Centre underground.

In addition, the walkway system could be enhanced by the addition of a lightweight automated transit system.  This system could be low-fare like Detroit, or completely free as in downtown Miami.  A single line bidirectional guideway with loops at either end could run from Fort Street, along Graham Mall/Avenue to The Bay, and then south to the Legislature and the Osborne Street bridge.  The guideway and rolling stock would cost around $100 million.  A downtown loop, also reaching Centennial Centre, Union Station, and the University of Winnipeg, would cost around $150 million.  It would then be possible to create an Osborne route extending to the busway under development or to replace the busway with a uniform system.  (The Osborne-University route would cost an additional $200 million.)  None of these estimates include property acquisition, which could add from $10 to $50 million to each concept, but mostly for loading platforms, as the guideways themselves would fit over existing sidewalks and streets.

This automated transit system would consist of rubber wheels on a concrete guideway, which would reduce noise and would be cleared of snow and other obstructions by a specially-equipped sweeper/plow car.  This transit system would be elevated for the most part, but would have much smaller pillars than would be required for a light rail system.  This is an important consideration, because Winnipeg’s architecture would not be blocked by large elevated platforms.  The loading platforms would be built into the existing walkway system where possible, sometimes floating above the street with ample clearance for trucks.  The walkway and transitway would complement each other, which would give both systems better coverage of downtown.

If fare is collected, it would be done through smartcards, with cards being available for purchase through vending machines throughout the walkway system.  This would mean that the loading platforms would require a minimal amount of space, reducing property acquisition/leasing costs.

Park and ride, kiss and ride

Park and ride areas in Winnipeg usually consist of parking spaces leased from shopping centres and other businesses, including Garden City, McPhillips Street Station Casino, Kildonan Place, and the Whyte Ridge Shopping Centre.  A new park and ride is the Taylor Park & Ride, which includes electrical outlets and costs $3/day or $32/month; it also has its own bus route to downtown, the 39 Taylor Park & Ride.  This concept was designed in part to encourage workers from Manitoba Hydro to take the bus from their former workplace on Taylor, rather than driving downtown.

Park and ride stations with guaranteed parking and electrical outlets are a good way to tempt suburban commuters, but the 80 available stalls at Taylor Avenue won’t be enough to make a big difference in ridership.  By looking at the traffic flow map of Winnipeg, we can deduce good locations for serviced park and ride.

It looks as though many of the existing park and ride locations are well-placed, and could support expansion of park and ride facilities.  Stalls with electrical outlets could be developed for paid parking, and improved heated shelters could be constructed, perhaps with vending machines and a lounge area.  Basically, any shelter at a park and ride bus stop should be able to pass the book test: a good shelter should be comfortable enough that a passenger with a book will be happy to pull it out and start reading.  This means a well-heated and well-lit shelter with comfortable seating; as part of a pad site leasing agreement, shopping centre security could monitor the shelter if available, or Transit could hire a separate security monitoring service.  In addition, the shelter would be equipped with security cameras and a panic button.

Better incentives in transit fares

The majority of city council seems to be opposed to reducing bus fare, favouring the idea of subsidies for lower income users.  For me, high bus fares are a big part of why I don’t take the bus more often.  As part of my lifestyle and family situation, we have chosen to have a car; because this decision has been made, we already pay significant transportation expenses, including a lease payment, car insurance, and licenses for two drivers.  On Fridays, my wife and daughter sometimes pick me up from work so that we can go out together; at other times, appointments may result in me being picked up instead of taking the bus.  Because of this, I find that every week I use between 7 and 9 bus tickets, which means that I spend less money on tickets than I would on a bus pass.  I could decide to buy the monthly pass, but that would require 36 trips to break even.  This December, I probably won’t even reach 25 trips due to Christmas vacation, while in summer I try to ride my bike at least some of the time.

Winnipeg Transit is planning to move to Smart Cards in the next year or so; if this happens, it’s a great opportunity to reward transit usage with dynamic fare reductions based on frequency.  Here’s how such a system could work: I sign up for a smart card, and either hook it up to a credit card, or choose to load a balance onto the card up front (with the ability to load additional funds).  The first number of trips would cost approximately the full cost of a ticket, while subsequent trips would gradually reduce that fare until it reached the monthly pass level, at which point the trips would be free or at a minimum floor price.  (Transfers would be automatic within a time frame; after a certain lapse time, the transfer would expire, and a new fare would be charged.)

Here is one such breakdown based on 2010 fares:

Trips 1 – 10: $2.25    10 trips/month: $22.50
Trips 10-20: $2.00    20 trips/month: $42.50
Trips 20-30: $1.75    30 trips/month: $60.00
Trips 30-40: $1.50    40 trips/month: $75.00
Trips 40+: FREE

This fare breakdown gives commuters an incentive to use the bus for other trips, but does not penalize commuters who don’t take the bus every day.  Serviced park and ride access could be handled the same way.  For bus users who don’t want to worry about loading funds or using a credit card, they would be able to bring their card to a participating merchant at the start of the month to pay their $75 monthly bus pass fee, and can be pleasantly surprised once in a while to see that they have a small credit from the month before.

There are other benefits that smart cards can bring, including different fares for different routes and different times of day; express routes could cost more than regular routes, and evening bus travel could cost less than daytime in an attempt at putting more riders on the bus during off-peak times.

Transit improvements for the right reasons

Diamond lanes have not been popular with many Winnipeg drivers, and there are valid arguments that there isn’t enough benefit to buses to justify the increased road congestion on some routes.  In addition, while the updated transit signs and improved shelters are nice to have, they are not likely to change hardwired commuter patterns.

Priority in transit improvements should go to items that have the best chance of increasing ridership as long as basic updates for maintaining existing ridership aren’t neglected.  Transit should continue its pursuit of SmartCards, and should continue to expand and improve Park and Ride.  The City of Winnipeg should spend more effort on transit-oriented development, with more emphasis placed on downtown instead of suburban areas.

These efforts will give us more transit riders, even if we still have plenty of cars on the road; if we’re lucky, we’ll see less cars per person as our city grows.

There’s plenty of work to be done to make that happen.  For one thing, lazy people like me should really start to think about using the bus a few more times a month, or at least fixing our flat bike tires in time for spring.

Winnipeg’s Public TransportationRapid transit is a hot topic in Winnipeg these days (these days having begun in the 1990s and continued ad nauseum until today.  But there is a secret to Winnipeg’s current transit system that isn’t mentioned often enough: our transit is already pretty quick for a significant number of Winnipeggers.

Transportation is based on the idea that a person needs to get from one place to another, and the biggest reason that there are so many different forms of transportation is because there are many different places that people need to go.  If you’re heading to Mars, you won’t be taking a bicycle, and it would be silly to build a rocket to get to the local park.  If you live in East St. Paul, you generally expect to use a car for at least one leg of each trip into Winnipeg.

Some Winnipeggers work in industrial parks or at out-of-the-way workplaces in the suburbs, including schools or in other people’s homes.  In such cases, it’s expected that public transit to those places will be less convenient than to those places that receive a large number of workers, such as shopping malls, universities, or downtown Winnipeg.  So any rapid transit solution will logically exclude industrial parks and thinly-populated suburbs, and focus on major routes and work centres.

Here is a quick sample of transit times to downtown from neighbourhoods that are fortunate enough to have direct bus routes:

1.    East side of Transcona to Downtown (Portage and Main)
Morning (rush hour): 40-43 minutes
Mid-day (after lunch and before rush hour): 45-48 minutes
Evening (around 10pm): 41-44 minutes

2.    Charleswood  to Downtown (Portage and Main)
Morning (rush hour): 49-56 minutes
Mid-day (after lunch and before rush hour): 48-54 minutes
Evening (around 10pm): 47-56  minutes

3.    Westwood to Downtown (Portage and Main)
Morning (rush hour): 42-48 minutes
Mid-day (after lunch and before rush hour): 51-58 minutes
Evening (around 10pm): 50-57 minutes

4.    North Kildonan to Downtown (Portage and Main)
Morning (rush hour): 33-37 minutes
Mid-day (after lunch and before rush hour): 38 minutes
Evening (around 10pm): 30-36 minutes

These times can increase significantly when your point of origin is off the main routes; this is the last mile problem, as it becomes far less efficient to bring buses out to the far points of the suburbs.  Assuming that these last mile people will be expected to either time their commute well or drive their care for the first leg of their trip, we would concentrate on routes such as these for rapid transit.

The biggest problem with rapid transit is that once it’s built, there’s no guarantee that the level of use will justify the expense of construction.  The rapid transit corridor from downtown to the University of Manitoba may cut travel times by ten minutes each way.  Assuming a base time of 35 minutes from Downtown to U of M by bus, we can estimate a 25 minute trip to the university using bus rapid transit

So for the average student in Transcona, Charleswood, or Westwood, the trip could be brought down from 70 minutes to an hour.  Will that be enough for a significant number of students to abandon their cars and parking passes in exchange for a bus pass?  I don’t think it will.

In the other direction, there will be people from South Winnipeg who will be able to use the busway  to get downtown.  From St. Norbert to downtown is around 40-45 minutes by bus, so this could be reduced to 30-35 minutes.  However, this assumes that the commuter lives right on the bus route; the last mile could add 10-15 minutes of walking time to this trip, instead of a couple of minutes by car.  Again, it’s hard to believe that a faster bus with fewer stops will increase ridership by enough to justify the expense.

So if we can’t guarantee that rapid transit will increase ridership, why are we building it?  Is it simply because we want to hop on the bandwagon?  Is this a way to fill the void from when the Jets left?

The truth is, rapid transit does not remove the reliance on cars that exists in suburban areas; even people who take the bus to work, such as myself, still use cars for other trips in the suburbs.  When I need to buy groceries in East Kildonan, I either walk to the Sobeys or I drive to Superstore.  Taking the bus doesn’t even enter into my mind, even though if I time it right I can leave at 9:00pm and get to Superstore by 9:15.   That’s my window, and as long as I’m willing to wait until 10:20 to catch the bus back home, it can work. That’s because I live right next to Henderson Hwy and McLeod Ave, which are both bus routes.  If I’m too lazy to look up bus times to get to Superstore and to wait for the return bus (and miss the Daily Show at 10pm), how can I expect someone who lives away from any bus routes to give up their car?

I do not believe that we will see a large reduction in the number of cars in Winnipeg over the next fifty years; what I do envision is far more efficient cars, including plug-in hybrids that may never see a gas station along with flex fuel and electric cars.  If urban populations rebound, we may see a higher percentage of Winnipeggers who live downtown and choose not to keep a car, but that won’t mean that suburbanites are going to send their cars to the wrecker.

If the success of rapid transit is based on seeing significant numbers of residents from Winnipeg suburbs abandon their cars in favour of public transportation, it will not succeed.  Either rapid transit is a bad idea at this time, or the goal of rapid transit needs to be something other than increasing overall suburban ridership.

So let’s leave the concept of failure for a while, and look for positive ways of making rapid transit work:

Increase density along rapid transit routes

This is part of the city’s plan for rapid transit, including the Ikea spur along Sterling Lyon that passes through the home of the Parker Avenue land swap.  The idea is that greenspace and brownfields will be converted to mixed-use developments, including apartments and condos.  The residents of these buildings will have a real choice of whether or not they want to own a car, because they would take the busways to work (assuming they work in a serviced area, such as downtown), and they would buy their essentials at stores in and around the new development.  The University of Manitoba will also be building their own transit-oriented developments on the former Southwood golf course, which will be located close to the second stage of the busway currently under construction.

This idea is better for the tax base and the environment than more sprawl, but is not as good as downtown residential development.  I would like to see more effort put into expanding residential development downtown before we see spurs out to empty fields.

Develop a downtown transit system

Actually, Winnipeg already has a downtown transit system called the Winnipeg Walkway System or Winnipeg Skywalk.  It’s for walking only, so it can be a long trip from one end to the other with groceries or library books.  The walkway connects from The Bay along Memorial Blvd all the way to the Grain Exchange Building in the Exchange District.  There are also two shorter Skywalk systems along St. Mary Ave that are not joined to the main system.  It would take approximately 25 minutes to walk from the Exchange District to The Bay, and the entire trip would be indoors.  This walkway system could be expanded to reach the Convention Centre, Union Station, the Manitoba Legislature, and even City Hall and the Centennial Centre underground.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_Walkway

http://www.mtscentre.ca/location/directions.php

In addition, the walkway system could be enhanced by the addition of a lightweight automated transit system.  This system could be low-fare like Detroit, or completely free as in downtown Miami.  A single line bidirectional guideway with loops at either end could run from Fort St, along Graham Mall/Avenue to The Bay, and then south to the Legislature and Osborne Street bridge.  The guideway and rolling stock would cost around $100 million.  A downtown loop, also reaching Centennial Centre, Union Station, and the University of Winnipeg, would cost around $150 million.  It would then be possible to create an Osborne route extending to the busway under development or to replace the busway with a uniform system.  (The Osborne-University route would cost an additional $200 million.)  None of these estimates include property acquisition, which could add up to $50 million to each concept, but only for loading platforms, as the guideways themselves would fit over existing sidewalks and streets.

This automated transit system would consist of rubber wheels on a concrete guideway, which would reduce noise and which could be cleared of snow and other obstructions by a specially-equipped sweeper/plow car.  This transit system would be elevated for the most part, but would have much smaller pillars than would be required for a light rail system.  This is an important consideration, because Winnipeg’s architecture is too important to be blocked by large elevated platforms.  The loading platforms would be built into the existing walkway system where possible, sometimes floating above the street with ample clearance for trucks.  The walkway and transitway would complement each other, which would give both systems far better coverage of downtown.

If fare is collected, it would be done through smartcards, with cards being available for purchase through vending machines throughout the walkway system.  This would mean that the loading platforms would require a minimal amount of space, reducing property acquisition/leasing costs.

Park and ride, kiss and ride

Park and ride areas in Winnipeg usually consist of parking spaces leased from shopping centres and other businesses, including Garden City, McPhillips Street Station Casino, Kildonan Place, and the Whyte Ridge Shopping Centre.  A new park and ride is the Taylor Park & Ride, which includes electrical outlets and costs $3/day or $32/month; it also has its own bus route to downtown, the 39 Taylor Park & Ride.  This concept was designed in part to encourage workers from Manitoba Hydro to take the bus from their former workplace on Taylor, rather than driving downtown.

http://myride.winnipegtransit.com/assets/153/PandR-map-oct2009.pdf

http://myride.winnipegtransit.com/public_content/pdfs/Service_Changes/Nov2008/39_Taylor.pdf

Park and ride stations with guaranteed parking and electrical outlets are a good way to tempt suburban commuters, but the 80 available stalls at Taylor Avenue won’t be enough to make a big difference in ridership.  By looking at the traffic flow map of Winnipeg, we can deduce good locations for serviced park and ride.

http://www.winnipeg.ca/PublicWorks/Transportation/pdf/2008TrafficFlow.pdf

It looks as though many of the existing park and ride locations are well-placed, and could support expansion of park and ride facilities.  Stalls with electrical outlets could be developed for paid parking, and improved heated shelters could be constructed, perhaps with vending machines and a lounge area.  Basically, any shelter at a park and ride bus stop should be able to pass the book test: a good shelter should be comfortable enough that a passenger with a book will be happy to pull it out and start reading.  This means a well-heated and well-lit shelter with comfortable seating; as part of a pad site leasing agreement, shopping centre security could monitor the shelter if available, or Transit could hire a separate security monitoring service.  In addition, the shelter would be equipped with security cameras and a panic button.

Better incentives in transit fares

The majority of city council seems to be opposed to reducing bus fare, favouring the idea of subsidies for lower income users.  For me, high bus fares are a big part of why I don’t take the bus more often.  As part of my lifestyle and family situation, we have chosen to have a car; because this decision has been made, we already pay significant transportation expenses, including a lease payment, car insurance, and licenses for two drivers.  On Fridays, my wife and daughter sometimes pick me up from work so that we can go out together; at other times, appointments may result in me being picked up instead of taking the bus.  Because of this, I find that every week I use between 7 and 9 bus tickets, which means that I spend less money on tickets than I would on a bus pass.  I could decide to buy the monthly pass, but that would require 36 trips to break even.  This December, I probably won’t even reach 25 trips due to Christmas vacation, while in summer I try to ride my bike at least some of the time.

Winnipeg Transit is planning to move to Smart Cards in the next year or so; if this happens, it’s a great opportunity to reward transit usage with dynamic fare reductions based on frequency.  Here’s how such a system could work: I sign up for a smart card, and either hook it up to a credit card, or choose to load a balance onto the card up front (with the ability to load additional funds).  The first number of trips would cost the full cost of a ticket, while subsequent trips would gradually reduce that fare until it reached the monthly pass level, at which point the trips would be free or at a minimum floor price.  (Transfers would be automatic within a time frame; after a certain lapse time, the transfer would expire, and a new fare would be charged.)

Here is one such breakdown based on 2010 fares:

Trips 1 – 10: $2.25    10 trips/month: $22.50
Trips 10-20: $2.00      20 trips/month: $42.50
Trips 20-30: $1.75    30 trips/month: $60.00
Trips 30-40: $1.50    40 trips/month: $75.00
Trips 40+: FREE

This fare breakdown gives commuters an incentive to use the bus for other trips, but does not penalize commuters who don’t take the bus every day.  Serviced park and ride access could be handled the same way.  For bus users who don’t want to worry about loading funds or using a credit card, they would be able to bring their card to a participating merchant at the start of the month to pay their $75 monthly bus pass fee, and can be pleasantly surprised one in a while to see that they have a small credit from the month before.

There are other benefits that smart cards can bring, including different fares for different routes and different times of day; express routes could cost more than regular routes, and evening bus travel could cost less than daytime in an attempt at putting more riders on the bus during off-peak times.

Transit improvements for the right reasons

Diamond lanes have not been popular with many Winnipeg drivers, and there are valid arguments that there isn’t enough benefit to buses to justify the increased road congestion on some routes.  In addition, while the updated transit signs and improved shelters are nice to have, they are not likely to change hardwired commuter patterns.

Priority in transit improvements should go to items that have the best chance of increasing ridership as long as basic updates for maintaining existing ridership aren’t neglected.  Transit should continue its pursuit of SmartCards, and should continue to expand and improve Park and Ride.  The City of Winnipeg should spend more effort on transit-oriented development, with more emphasis placed on downtown instead of suburban areas.  And lazy people like me should really start to think about using the bus a few more times a month, or at least fixing our flat bike tires in time for spring.

Friday Thoughts: Pet Adoption, Downtown Parking, and NDP Apologists

Q: What do pet adoption rates tell us about our economy?

A: It tells us quite a bit more than we get from stats on consumer spending or consumer confidence.

If I were to buy a TV or even a car, it could be for one of two reasons:
a.    I need a TV/Car
b.    Wouldn’t it be cool to have the latest/fanciest TV/Car?  I’m going to buy one!

You could argue that people who NEED an item would not be buying the newest or best example of that item, but that’s not always true.  When we needed a car because the last one was attacked by a falling tree, we didn’t buy the cheapest used one available; we found a more expensive one, because it had the features that we had been without with the last car.  Yes, we have to pay every month for it, but we decided that we wanted a safe car to take our daughter places that aren’t particularly bus-accessible (or for when we have a case of the lazies).  So we would have bought some kind of new or almost-new car, and we didn’t feel that economic circumstances could bring us to a different result.

When we finally buy a new TV (we’ve lost three in the past year, and have been taking other people’s TVs to our palliative care facility), it won’t be the cheapest; it’ll be the one that best fits in our living room (probably 32 or 36 inches).   And with the TV, we’ll buy it once, and that’ll be it.  We won’t be financing it or leasing it, so we don’t need to worry if we’ll have money to make payments in three months.

Pet adoption is a different story.  Adopting a pet is a commitment to take responsibility for another life.  If money is tight, or a family is worried about keeping their jobs, adopting a pet will seem like a luxury they can’t afford.  At least that’s my assumption, since pet shelters are overflowing with animals, and adoptions are nowhere near keeping pace.

When I read in the paper that consumer confidence is up or that Christmas retail sales are at a good level, it doesn’t say nearly as much as when I hear that many pet shelters can’t take any new animals and that foster families are maxed out.  That information, coupled with the personal stories of bankruptcy that are becoming far more common, tells me that we’re still in the middle of this economic downturn.  And Manitoba has not escaped the effects; we’re just seeing them happen in slow motion compared to our friends in other provinces, and as transfer payments are slashed, it’ll take us longer than our neighbours to recover.

And following that uplifting anecdote…

Q: Why is downtown parking becoming the polarizing debate of our time?

A: People seem to have deluded themselves into thinking that parking is the core issue of downtown revitalization.

I know that parking is an important part of the character of our downtown, and I don’t like staring at surface parking lots or the WRHA’s tribute to urban decline on Main Street.  But realistically, I know that the city will continue to worship parking, just as I do between Christmas and Easter, and fighting downtown parking is like chaining yourself to the McDonalds at the Louvre to protest the lack of McRibs while museum staff is busy painting a bra onto the Venus de Milo.

There are two issues in downtown that turn parking into a boneless pork patty: historic preservation and residential growth.  I agree that surface lots don’t disappear when parkades are built, particularly when surface lots are left intact while adjacent historic buildings are torn down to make space for new parking; I know many people who will gladly exchange a bus pass for a parking spot if supply outstrips demand and prices start to drop.  Personally, I like the idea of incentives for surface lot redemption, to be followed after several years by a surface parking levy to finance further incentives.  In addition, it should be made impossible for ANY structurally sound building to be replaced with a parking structure or surface lot as long as there are existing surface lots on the same block.

But that doesn’t mean that parkades should be banned, or that all surface lot owners should have to pay five times the taxes because “there ought to be a building there”.  If they want to put a parkade in the East Exchange, I wouldn’t stand in their way if:
a.    No existing buildings are demolished
b.    Street-level commercial space is incorporated into the parkade
c.    The architectural design of the parkade is deemed acceptable by city council

Obviously, in a perfect world, I would put far stricter requirements on the construction of parkades in the Exchange District; one item I’d love to add is that construction materials for the building façade should come from reclaimed brick, but I don’t think that’s realistic in our current political environment.  As with everything else, city council will not back the Exchange District 100% until they are utterly convinced of just how valuable the area is.  I find it strange that the East Side of Lake Winnipeg is considered UNESCO-worthy by the province, but the Exchange District is left to be demolished one building at a time.

Why is it that a provincial park around Fisher Bay is touted as being worth $38 million, while the Exchange District, a national historic site, is completely ignored?  Do our governments have no concept of how much that neighbourhood is worth, or how much potential it has?  In the words of Councillor O’Shaughnessy: “The debate is getting lower and lower and lower. Please don’t compare this building or even our whole exchange district with the walled city of Quebec.”   Because the Exchange District will have no historical value no matter how old it gets,  we should replace it with parkades while financing is cheap.

And lastly…

Q: Why do NDP apologists feel the need to defend every action by every member of the Manitoba government?

A: Because it seems to work?  Does it?

I understand the idea of supporting your party; I even launched an incredibly successful fundraising campaign for the Manitoba Liberals: Help Block Out PC Websites! (as of today, only 6% behind the Progressive Conservative Fundraising Campaign!)

But sometimes, the men and women of your political party make mistakes.  I won’t list any Liberal mistakes, but I will admit (shockingly) that mistakes have been made.  If bloggers such as Never Eat Yellow Snow and Just Damn Stupid were to focus on defending more defensible actions on the part of the NDP, wouldn’t people be more convinced that their points of view have merit?

Note: I do apologize if any of my past actions mixed with this post now warrant a BlockReganHypocrisy.ca.

Replacing Fossil Fuels in Energy Production

The current 15 Terawatts (TW) of energy that we consume on Earth includes around 12-13 TW derived from oil, gas and coal.  It will take a very robust mix of various renewables to replace 13 TW; in fact, to replace around half (6 TW) of fossil fuels by 2040, we would need to replace the 6 TW as well as provide an additional 16 TW of energy from other sources to keep pace with global energy demand.  So 22 TW is required in order to halve the amount of carbon emissions from today, in addition to the approximately 2.5 TW of renewables that currently exist.  So the magic number of total renewables would need to equal 24.5 TW.

If we look at all of the existing and potential renewable production, we can come up with an estimate of the amount of renewable energy product we could have by 2040.  Please keep in mind that current production is estimated, and hopefully conservatively, so that actual production should be at or slightly above these estimates:

1.    Hydroelectric: Assuming current capacity of 1 TW (it’s actually a little less), it could be possible to see 2 TW by 2040 with hydroelectric dams; that is an optimistic forecast, as many of the best dam locations in developed nations are in use.  However, there are other forms of hydroelectricity, including micro-hydro, tidal power and osmotic power, and while generally unknown today, they should see some growth over the next few decades.  For the purposes of increasing the total hydroelectric energy, however, these other technologies may not provide too much of an increase by 2040.  It would be best to assume that these additional methods only serve to increase the probability of total hydro production reaching 2 TW.

2.    Geothermal: power from within the Earth currently provides around 10 GW of electricity and 28 GW of heating, which equals 0.038 TW in total.  Geothermal has much potential in many areas of the world, including British Columbia, where it’s possible for geothermal electricity to be generated.  Even areas that may not have efficient electricity production can use geothermal for direct heating.  In theory, almost all space heating and cooling on Earth (around 1.5 TW) could be provided by geothermal and passive solar, but it is unlikely that every home on the planet will be equipped with a geothermal heat pump and optimized for solar heating by 2040.  It is more realistic to assume strong growth in geothermal to a level where we could see a total of 1 TW, including electricity.

3.    Biomass: Ignoring the fact that not all Biomass energy production is sustainable, the current production of approximately 250 GW could increase due mainly to biofuels derived from agricultural waste products or algae (as opposed to ethanol from corn and other food crops, which is more of a fad than a solution).  I can optimistically imagine an increase to 1.5 TW by 2040, as there is abundant potential in mature economies for biofuel production.

4.    Wind: We currently have over 120 GW of wind worldwide, and we are seeing major growth of wind capacity in various countries, including Canada.  However, wind has a very large divide between peak capacity (high winds) and actual capacity, as sometimes the wind isn’t providing enough force to create a measurable amount of energy.  The “uptime” of wind can be estimated at 40% by wind optimists and at 1% by its critics.  In my opinion, wind is an excellent companion to solar, but still requires an additional backup for the rare times when there is no wind or sun.  However, improvements in battery technology (including plug-in hybrid cars) could help to make the 40% capacity a more reliable figure; in addition, efficiency will probably be improved somewhat by innovation.   So our current 50 GW of actual capacity (0.05 TW) could possibly expand to as high as a full TW by 2040.

5.    Solar: Along with geothermal and wind, solar has far larger potential than is currently being employed.  It is estimated that 120,000 TW of solar energy is available for use, and while it’s impractical to capture all solar energy that visits the planet, a miniscule percentage could be harnessed to meet all of our current needs, as long as reliable methods of storing the energy can be employed (battery technologies).  Solar energy, including solar space heating and solar water heating, amounts to around 120 GW (0.12 TW).  The capital costs of solar are declining due to mass production and innovation, and I expect that solar installations will increase over the coming years, and will be given a boost by the coming commercial availability of plug-in hybrid automobiles.  Plug-in hybrids function not only as automobiles; they are also mobile batteries for storing excess energy.  It will be possible to charge a battery using renewables such as solar or wind when there is abundant energy being produced, and the battery could then be connected to a home electrical grid to provide power.  It is possible in my opinion that solar could increase to 5 TW of actual capacity (versus peak capacity), which is the figure that is most important when looking to replace baseload fossil fuel generation.

If we combine these totals, we see that my total projection for worldwide renewable energy production to equal 10.5 TW by 2040.  On its own, this would be a good start to replacing fossil fuel production at 2009 levels, but it cannot also accommodate the projected growth in worldwide energy usage.

Many environmentalists hope that better efficiency in energy generation and consumption will cut back the growth in energy usage, but I believe that it is not realistic to expect growth to be curtailed by more than several terawatts.  It’s not impossible that cap and trade programs or carbon/consumption taxes in G20 countries can allow efficiency gains to result in a decrease in energy usage (defying Jevons Paradox), but we cannot and should not expect less developed nations to stop any economic growth that outpaces gains in the efficiency of their current energy resources.  In truth, we can’t really expect that G20 nations would be able to slow economic growth to such levels even if there was consensus to do so.

Assuming that the global population will be at or around 9 billion by 2040, freezing power consumption to current levels would require every person on Earth to cut their energy usage by a quarter in order to accommodate the newcomers.  Of course, this is more likely than the idea of freezing the global population at 6.8 billion, but is still very difficult to imagine.  Realistically, I can imagine the 14 TW shortfall being reduced through conservation and purposeful consumption restrictions to 10 TW; a ten terawatt shortfall is about as optimistic as I can be.

If we can cover this shortfall of 10 TW, we’ll see the maximum carbon dioxide threshold reach between 450 and 500 ppm by 2040, at which point we will need to immediately begin removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere to minimize the damage as much as possible.  A threshold of 350 ppm is currently recommended by many activists and scientists as our ultimate goal.  Barring any unexpected and amazing technological breakthrough in energy production, I don’t think it’s possible to avoid reaching 450-500 ppm (note: carbon dioxide isn’t the only greenhouse gas, so 450 ppm CO2 can mean different things based on other gases as well as some cooling effects such as aerosols).

The damage done by the carbon emissions that have already occurred can only be reversed quickly through energy-intensive geoengineering.  Geoengineering involves various engineering technologies to mitigate or reverse climate change or remove emitted greenhouse gases, and is an important second step after alternatives to fossil fuels have been developed and deployed.  The ideal geoengineering methods are any that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere; methods to reduce the amount of sunlight (and heat) reaching the Earth will not solve other greenhouse gas emissions problems, such as ocean acidification.  However, devices such as artificial carbon-removing trees and scrubbing towers may take too long to reverse temperatures on their own, so concepts such as cloud-seeding and even deflecting sunlight could help to accelerate a decrease in warming.

It’s very important to note that the energy- and capital-intensive nature of geoengineering makes the notion of using it without reducing fossil fuel usage unrealistic; the additional fossil fuels required to power geoengineering would in all likelihood add more emissions than the geoengineering would be able to remove or mitigate, making the whole strategy pointless.  While it’s expected that fusion power will be available in the second half of the 21st century (the running joke is that it’s fifty years away today, and that it will still be fifty years away fifty years from now), there are no absolute guarantees that this technology will ever be ready for commercial use, and continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions may result in catastrophic changes in climate before fusion-powered geoengineering can come online.

To make up the shortfall in energy production involved in halving fossil fuel usage by 2040, there are four options available (that I know of):

1.    Heavier investment in renewables: a worldwide campaign to equip all buildings on Earth with solar panels and geothermal heat pumps, and to place wind farms and next-generation hydro next to every city is possible, but it’s difficult to see how a strategy can be agreed upon when there isn’t even consensus on the sheer impossibility of conservation and our current renewable energy growth rates removing the need for fossil fuels anytime soon.  Until such time as we can expect to see our world leaders telling us that we could be 10 TW short of survival, I don’t expect an even larger growth in renewables than I’m predicting above.

2.    Continued use of fossil fuels using on-site sequestration of emissions: sequestration is a movement that is gaining momentum in the two largest coal-burning nations, the United States and China.  However, even if “clean coal” can replace the thousands of coal plants in these two countries, it does not solve other environmental issues with marginal oil extraction (including tar sands) and coal mining; in addition, sequestration will reduce the efficiency of existing fossil fuel power plants and has a negative effect on air quality; lastly, we will still eventually run out of fossil fuels.  China has already started to work at replacing its most inefficient coal plants with gas-fired plants and cleaner coal plants; the first coal plant in China to sequester its emissions is planned for operation in 2011.

3.    Space-based solar power: if launch costs to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) could be reduced to $2,500/kg (and that looks to be possible by 2025) and the increased cost of fossil fuel energy (due to consumption taxes and not just demand) can rise to a high enough level, it would be possible to assemble solar arrays in Low Earth Orbit.  The assembled satellites would either be left in LEO (smaller antennas) or thrust outwards to Geostationary Orbit (less redundancy required) to transmit power to terrestrial receiving stations using microwaves.  While there are no amazing new technologies required (aside from the advanced composites used in the next generation of launch vehicles, which are already being developed), the economics and risks of this venture make it a challenge to achieve within a 30-year timeframe.  Ten Terawatts of solar power would weigh approximately 10 million tons, which would require 150 yet-to-be-developed 150-tonnes-to-LEO heavy-lift launch vehicles launching approximately 475 times each (twice a month for twenty years).  In addition, there would either need to be additional propulsion to bring the solar array to geostationary orbit, or more satellites for 100% uptime in LEO, as well as the large receivers on Earth that may need to be as large as 5km in diameter.

4.    Nuclear Fission: Fusion may be commercially available by 2040 if we’re lucky, but fission is here today.  There are environmental costs to uranium mining, and there are definite concerns about safety and nuclear proliferation, but I don’t believe these outweigh the benefit of revisiting nuclear power.   The biggest threat to good ideas is fundamentalism on either side, and the “no nukes ever” argument could affect more than global energy production: nuclear power is an essential part of space exploration and exploitation.  Ironically, nuclear fission may be the key to accessing extra-terrestrial sources of fusion fuel and space-based solar power that will eventually make our current nuclear power plants obsolete.  In the short term, newer designs involving passive safety, along with the addition of light water reactor sustainability for existing plants could result in an increase in nuclear power both through construction and the life extension of existing plants.  Because it takes around ten years for a new nuclear power plant to go from planning to operation, it would take serious devotion and effort to expand the current global nuclear capacity of under a terawatt to three or four TW.  To reach 10TW with nuclear alone, we’d need around 10,000 new nuclear reactors, which is 500 per year over twenty years.

So which of these options is the best choice for humanity?  I believe the answer is all of them.  To find that missing 10 TW of energy, we will need more than just one strategy; if one of these options succeeds, it will get us closer to our goal, but won’t be enough to get us all of the way in a reasonable timeframe.  If two out of four, or perhaps three out of four succeed, we will finally see emissions drop to a manageable level; only then can we start looking at step two, reducing the greenhouse gases that have already been released.

I am all in favour of reduce, reuse, recycle, and the idea of planting trees and investing in cleaner fuels; a strong spirit of conservation can save us terawatts of energy.  But emotional environmentalism isn’t enough on its own to conquer our current energy crisis; we need to start looking at our energy crisis in absolute terms, including both the required energy and the costs of construction and operation.  This involves not being sucked into the arguments of the zero-growthers or people who obsess over a climate change conspiracy, which will result in more arguing and no progress.  No matter your view on just how much warming there is, or how much of it is due to human activity, we are still left on a planet with finite fossil fuels and a population that will continue to expand in numbers and in energy consumption.  A revolution in energy is required for the future progress for humanity, and we’re running out of time.

Winnipeg 2010 Rumour Mill – Part 1

I’ve heard a rumour recently that there is an NDP-affiliated councillor considering a run against Mayor Katz in 2010; I won’t mention which one, as it’s not my duty to ruin people’s surprises, but I do think it’s nice to see the potential for a competitive mayoral race.

If this individual wants to run, he or she will need to make that decision soon, obviously.  In reality, the decision should have been made sometime over the summer, so that this new competitor could have returned to council in September with a bang, getting some press coverage going and framing the big issue(s) of the day.

Mayor Sam Katz is very popular according to opinion polls (see Bart’s WFP article from summer); this is despite many recent events that seem to have angered an increasingly vocal opposition, an opposition that may or may not be increasing in size.

As a dirty Liberal, my vote and support is not a given either for Mayor Katz or for the Mysterious NDP Candidate, but I do think that a real campaign from a challenger could give the voters in Winnipeg a chance to reflect on what kind of model they would like to see in this city.

There are two different models, each with disparaging names for the other.  But to try to keep some objectivity, I’ll call them the City-as-a-Business and the City-as-a-Benefactor models.  These models are based on a) how Winnipeg is currently run, and on b) how I would expect the city to be run based on the leadership of the NDP-supported challenger.   One model implies financial efficiency, perhaps at the cost of social programs, while the other gives the impression that the public good is paramount, and that this is achieved by a healthy dose of public money.

Here’s a handy comparison of these models:

City-as-a-Business (Mayor Katz)

1.    Revenue: Property taxes must stay frozen at all costs, and business taxes must be reduced wherever possible.  This could mean service cuts and user fees, with citizens paying only for what they use while being expected to accept that the city can’t do everything for them.

2.    Governance: Executive Policy Committee  reigns supreme, and the Mayor controls EPC (that’s why they call it his cabinet).  City Council Meetings are seen as a noisy formality, where it’s best to push things through as quickly as possible before the “negative nellies” have a chance to criticize every little decision.  The opposition may be angry, but since they don’t have the numbers to change anything, they don’t seem to be considered too much of a threat as long as issues don’t have a chance to linger.  Mayor Katz decides the direction and policy of the city, with input from his chosen city staff.  It is possible that the Mayor will also rely on the results of the OurWinnipeg consultation process, but no one knows for sure.  Mayor Katz’s reign is seen as efficient, because there is no need for three months of negotiation for every initiative as it moves its way through the decision-making process; sometimes decisions can go from one committee to the next on the same day.

3.    Relations with the Provincial Government: Mayor Katz has maintained a good relationship with the Province of Manitoba, and along with Councillor Swandel has been able to secure operating funds from the province to cover shortfalls in the budget.  The City-as-a-Business model has worked well with the Doer government, and it is expected that it will continue to work well with the Selinger government.

City-as-a-Benefactor (The Mayoralty of the Mysterious Stranger)

1.    Revenue: The belief is that property taxes should rise, and that businesses should pay their fair share of various taxes, with no cuts to business tax.  The middle and upper classes would support the lower-income families through tax dollars, rather than having blanket user fees, with the view that all citizens must have access to services in order for this city to prosper socially and culturally.

2.    Governance: Due to the current balance of power in council (which isn’t likely to change too much in the next civic election), the challenger would not have an automatic majority on most issues.  In fact, he or she would likely be in the minority for some initiatives.  EPC would change, most likely including representatives of all three major parties (Conservative, Liberal and NDP).  Initiatives from the mayor or from any councillor would not have a default number of supporters or opponents, leaving each issue to be reviewed on individual merit.  This may slow down the process of EPC and Council, but more debate and consensus-building is assumed to create better results.

3.    Relations with the Provincial Government: While there will be kinship between an NDP mayor and the current NDP government of Manitoba, it may also be more difficult to negotiate when the city has become an ideological junior partner whose mayor is more left-wing than the premier.  Also, the looser power structure within Council may serve to weaken negotiations with the provincial government.

Any challenger wishing to promote the City-as-a-Benefactor model needs to convince Winnipeg voters that the City-as-a-Business model is failing them.  It’s hard to argue that people should vote for someone who will raise their taxes, so the challenger will need a bigger issue to get people’s attention.  Service cuts probably won’t work as a focus, since most Winnipeggers haven’t noticed any cuts so far, and the “photo radar as cash grab” concept has limited appeal, particularly among the Winnipeggers who will actually show up to vote.

So what issue exists that could command the attention of Winnipeg voters?  Crime is a definite possibility, although it’s not an easy target for an NDP-affiliated candidate.   One other idea is to focus on governance itself.  It doesn’t sound like an interesting topic, but it may be possible to paint a picture of the various Winnipeggers who have felt abandoned, betrayed, or tricked by the current civic system.  Perhaps the challenger could collect quotes and interviews from Winnipeggers about the water utility, demolished community centres, or the Riverside Park story that will never die?  A nice crime story or two could fit in there nicely, too.

The notion of “Making Winnipeg Our City Again” isn’t as exciting as the Obama campaign or even the ongoing soap opera in and around the House of Commons.  But it is something that could resonate with the small minority of Winnipeggers who will cast their ballot in 2010.

Help Block Out PC Websites!

A strange fundraising campaign has been launched by the Manitoba PC Party.  They are asking people to donate $10 for a “virtual cell phone” that will cover up part of a photo from Nov 2008 (a year ago) of Deputy Premier Rosann Wowchuk using her cell phone while driving, a shocking and rather stale example of NDP hypocrisy.

So of course, I needed to get a piece of that action.  I’ll get into that later…

I just don’t understand how these antics demonstrate that the Progressive Conservatives are ready to assume leadership of this province.  Their Chicken Wing Party of Manitoba of 2008 still has a Facebook page, and one can only hope that during its active phase it had more than the 30 members it has today.

Curtis has an unusual response to the latest PC campaign, while Cherenkov says what I think most of us are thinking.  So what would I have done better?  That’s a difficult question.  I can certainly understand the frustration that the PC party is feeling; as a Liberal, I’m frustrated, too.  The NDP have been responsible for some very serious scandals over the past decade, including mistakes that have cost lives, as well as an ongoing matter with Manitoba Hydro that could result in billions of dollars being lost.  But at the end of the day, many Manitobans are still supporting the NDP party.

I have a few ideas I’m working on for how to get Manitobans to start listening to alternatives, and I may try some of them out on this very blog.  But for the time being, I’ll just leave it at this: for anyone who donates a minimum of ten dollars to the Manitoba Liberal Party, and who e-mails or posts a comment to let me know (we can use the honour system and clever pseudonyms, since I won’t bother checking), I will add one package of Beef Jerky to cover up this banner for the PC Victory Fund.

Exhibit A: The Beef Jerky of Liberal Justice

Exhibit B: The Victory Fund Banner (until the takedown notice arrives).

Note: As this brilliant campaign took 10 minutes to develop, I won’t be too upset if I don’t get my 30 fans.

Call to Action for OurWinnipeg – Open Houses

The new OurWinnipeg concept, a proposed successor to Plan Winnipeg, has been brought to several different locations in the city for Open Houses (along with the new recycling plans).  I dropped by the open house at Bronx Park CC tonight (quelle surprise) and saw what they were up to.

While the ideas are good, and I believe that the OurWinnipeg/Speak Up Winnipeg team are sincere, I know full well that the OurWinnipeg concept is only as good as the buy-in from city council and particularly the mayor.  After the recent series of contentious issues that were rammed-through council with little warning (water utility, parkade sale, etc), I am left with the feeling that the only major roadblock to achieving the eventual goals of OurWinnipeg is from elected officials at City Hall.

However, the governance issues in our city don’t mean that we shouldn’t all voice our opinions.  It seems that in general, the vigilant urbanites of Winnipeg are close to a general consensus on what needs to happen in this city.  So I’m going to try my best to leave some comments at Speak Up Winnipeg and I hope that other progressive Winnipeggers will do the same.  The system they are using to keep track of the comments is much more ambitious than I thought, with categorization of all suggestions based on subject area, feasibility, and timeline.  Anything posted at Speak Up Winnipeg could end up in the official OurWinnipeg plan.

Also, for those of you who want the open house experience, there’s one more Thursday, Nov 26, 2009 at Canad Inns Garden City (2100 McPhillips St) from 5 to 8 pm.

One Loudmouth’s Reaction to the Sale of the Winnipeg Square Parkade

So it’s official: a 10-4 vote at city council in favour of selling the parkade (Bartley Kives, Winnipeg Free Press).

Also, a post from Policy Frog on how the vote came about.

I personally believe that whenever a government sells off an asset that makes money, it should be for the right reasons.  The right reasons are not:

a.    To get some extra spending money.
b.    To gain personal reward for elected officials or their friends and family.

Despite the $400,000 commission for Mayor Katz’s acquaintances at Shindico, I don’t think that b) was the reason for today’s sale.  And despite the possibility that the mayor’s perception among the minority of Winnipeggers who would vote against him will be hurt by the involvement of Shindico, I doubt the majority of voters are particularly concerned.

However, I do worry about that first reason.  Sometimes when we’re having a tight quarter at the Wolfrom house, the fanciful idea of selling stuff comes up: “we could sell the — for some extra cash.”  But in truth, we know that a little bit of extra money at the moment won’t make up for long-standing financial problems.  The root of the problem isn’t that I haven’t sold enough of my stuff, it’s that I spent all of my money on multiple copies of Fraggle Rock: The Complete Series Collection (backups in case of fire, flood, or act of Gunge).

In the city of Winnipeg’s case, the budget problems aren’t caused by not enough fire sales, it’s caused by a property tax freeze that has gone on longer than anyone thought would be possible (among other things that are off-topic).  Now, I don’t like paying property tax, but I’d certainly pay a little extra if it’s required [insert qualifiers here].  This would work if the Education Levy was removed from our property tax bills, with funding coming from the Manitoba government’s general revenues (but that’s another discussion).

So what are the right reasons for selling a government-owned revenue-generating asset?  I can think of only one at the moment: it makes sense to sell such an asset if the sale will improve or at least maintain the functioning of the asset (if it has value for the citizens, which this asset does) while providing favourable compensation to the government.  The city’s real estate officials estimated that $21 million was the minimum price to make the sale worthwhile, and the final sale will be for $24 million.  Repairs to the parkade are estimated to cost between $2.5-12 million.  According to Winnipeg Parking Authority figures, building a new underground parkade of similar size would cost approximately $45 million, not including the cost of the land.

The City of Winnipeg earns parking revenue ($1.5 million) as well as $326,000 in lease payments per year.  Selling the property will replace this income with new property taxes of $407,250.00 (which will probably not increase nearly as quickly as the parking revenue over the next few years).  This results in approx. $1.4 million less revenue every year.  Assuming that the repairs would have cost the city $12 million (judging from recent city construction costs which are at or over budget), the city would have lost between six and seven years worth of revenue had the repairs taken place, assuming no major increase in parking costs (note: the repairs may increase the value of the asset, but if it doesn’t increase revenue, it won’t increase by much).  Realistic increases would probably have resulted in the city only losing around five years of revenue, but we’ll use six in our comparison.   Instead, the city is receiving $23.6 million, which compensates for the city’s lost revenue of $1.4 million (income minus the new property tax) for 16 years, again assuming flat parking revenues.  This means that the city will be receiving in one payment the same amount of revenue that it would have collected from 2010 to the end of 2031.

Those calculations actually make the deal sound pretty good, but at the end of the day we’re still losing an asset, and we won’t make the money back over the long run unless we can manage a compound interest rate of almost 5% a year.  In reality, the money will be spent over the next few years on capital projects or to cover operating costs.

So at the end of the day, just as Councillor Steeves alluded to at council, it all comes down to individual philosophies about which services the city should run (and by extension, which assets it should own).  The existence of a Winnipeg Parking Authority had led me to believe that parking was once of those services, but I could be mistaken.  But it’s not just about parking; from what I can tell, the city of Winnipeg is currently run by a majority of councillors who honestly believe that the city should strip itself of services and assets until it runs as few services as possible, allowing private enterprise to handle the balance.  That is why garbage collection has been privatized, and why the water utility will become as private as the city can make it (which is around 49% private, I believe).  That is why the city would rather lease space for libraries instead of building new assets, and would rather tear down and sell the land where an underperforming community centre once stood.

I personally believe that any services and assets that either a) can be run efficiently by the city, or b) would not be as safe in the hands of private entities, should remain owned and operated by the city.  As a revenue-generating entity, parking can be handled privately or publicly, since it’s not a life or death service, while water utilities and fire and police departments are essential for human health and safety and should remain publicly controlled.  So in this case, it’s about the numbers, and for the Winnipeg Square Parkade the numbers aren’t that bad for either scenario.

So my problem isn’t with the parkade when it comes to city council; my problem is with the philosophy.  I’m trying my best to look at both sets of numbers to make up my mind, but I think philosophy is far too often the deciding factor for city councillors on both sides.  One side says “don’t own, lease” while the other side declares that you can’t trust the private sector.  Hopefully, we’ll see more councillors like John Orlikow, who votes on the issues not as part of a bloc, but as someone who is trying to represent his constituents.  Maybe if we see more councillors acting like that, I won’t be as worried about the city firesales of 2011.