2023-09-05

Edmonton Transit and Edmonton City Council are objectively dumber than every American combined

Reason Magazine just published Five actions transit agencies should take immediately to deal with the post-COVID looming crisis affecting public transit. They are:

  1. Fully Fund Bus Service for Transit-Dependent Riders
  2. Charge Choice Riders the Full Cost for Service
  3. Replace Low Ridership Bus Routes with Paratransit
  4. Contract Out Service.
  5. Make Greater Use of Intelligent Transportation Systems
Curiously, they seem to be leaving some key recommendations off the table. I don't see anything in their policy briefs about...
  1. When you get told about an amazingly cool new advanced signal timing system from a dubious startup that hasn't yet been tried anywhere in the world, take a second look at it.
  2. When you're designing a transit system for one of the coldest cities in the Western world, make sure you use the same construction materials as every other structure.
  3. Trains have weight, so your bridge structures should be built to handle the weight of the trains. Actually come to think of it, bridge structures themselves have weight so you should build them to handle their own weight and not fail after less than 2 years long before trains full of people have been even running on them.
  4. When you're designing a transit system for one of the coldest cities in the Western world...actually no, wait, this isn't a localized problem. Do you know what every transit system on earth has to deal with? Oxygen. That's right, oxygen is a pretty common thing in the places where you might build a transit system, so you really should plan for there to be oxygen, and not be flummoxed when OXIDATION (which occurs every single time there's oxygen) occurs.