Transit and parking

A smaller transit network that works well is better than a bigger one that does not. Frequency on the backbone routes comes first, and FLEX has earned the right to expand. But we need to grow ridership. One way to do so is to stop subsidizing car usage, starting with introducing fair price for parking.

Where I stand

Needing a car is one of the biggest affordability issues in North America, and Saint John is no exception. Insurance, gas, maintenance, payments, depreciation: the average household car bill is over $10,000 a year. We once had trams and passenger rail. We are not getting those back. But that does not mean we must give up on offering people a real choice.

Public transit works when it matches people’s needs: frequent buses, on large scale, at all times. As the old joke goes: pick two! I pick frequency and longer operating hours. Fares cover only about 35% of transit costs, and growing the network from subsidies alone is not in the budget. And it all comes down to efficiency. A bus every ten minutes on a busy corridor will earn ridership and revenue as more people in the area rely on them. A bus every forty-five minutes on a long route will not be appealing to people who got used to the convenience of driving.

Extending bus hours is another opportunity to attract riders. If someone knows there are no buses for the way home, they won’t be riding the bus there. Using FLEX buses on main routes outside of rush hour could be the right balance between operating cost and coverage.

On the question of electric versus diesel: I say this with a heavy heart, but frequency before electrification. A packed diesel bus running every ten minutes displaces more emissions than an empty electric one running every forty.

Buses also have to be fast. And that means shortening some bus routes that cut through many neighbourhoods. It’s less wear on the buses, faster turnaround time, and shortened travel times. It is a sacrifice that will be painful for some. But it can be alleviated by covering those areas with FLEX service.

I will be also looking at the usability of FLEX. I’ve heard complaints about the onboarding experience. Stops can also be hard to find. These are not huge structural problems, just small tweaks that could unlock FLEX for a wider audience.

One efficiency I want council to take seriously: the parallel bus system. School buses and city buses run similar routes at similar times. School buses deadhead empty back to depots after morning drop, sit idle through the day, and run again at afternoon pickup. Cities in Quebec and across Europe moved high schoolers onto public transit decades ago. Saint John could do the same, gradually and measuredly. High schoolers first; middle schoolers stay on dedicated yellow buses for now. The order of operations matters: frequency on the backbone routes first, then student integration. The savings on parallel infrastructure are real, the long-term ridership gain is bigger, and the school district and the province are the partners we need at the table for it to work.

On parking. Saint John subsidizes car use. Undervalued meter rates and deeply discounted parking passes for residents. Parking minimums add a different kind of subsidy: they force every shopping plaza to oversize for cars, pushing retail to the edge of the city where the land is cheap. Every taxpayer bears the cost of that sprawl. That’s land that can’t be used for housing, or economic activity. It just collects rainwater, and is filled once a year, during Black Friday.

Parking minimums have another side too. In greenfield developments, where land is cheap, the rule is met without much friction. For inner-city infill, where land is expensive, developers prefer to pay in lieu rather than build the parking themselves. But the fee the city collects has not been enough to fund the creation of high-density structured parking the inner city would actually need. And surface lots in a dense core are not an option, since they defeat the very walkability the inner city depends on. The pay-in-lieu fee should match what the parking it replaces actually costs to build. Otherwise the city ends up with fees that fund nothing, while residents of new buildings park on the street.

What I will push for on council

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