Canada can't pretend to be modern nation when it has no transportation policy
Hill Times Op-Ed, August 22, 2011
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May
Once, light years ago, I took a course called "Environmental Design." I memorized bits. The definition of a driveway: "A flat, usually unvegetated, asphalted surface that serves as the vehicular connection between home and road." Mass transit: "The conveyance of persons in bulk."
Transportation does not stay in one place. It is not merely about transport. It is about housing. It is about urban design. It is about smog. It is about land use. It is about greenhouse gases. It is about microclimate and heat islands. It is about storm drainage. It is about the health of a community.
Canada is the only country in the OECD with no transportation policy. How crazy is that? Within the OECD, geographically, we are the largest nation. We exist only by being knitted together, first by Sir John A. Macdonald and the railway. Then by the TransCanada. Now by airports. But transportation is more than about our big spaces. It is about our intimate neighbourhood spaces.
Transportation is one of the most integrated policy issues we confront. It is equal parts federal, provincial and municipal. With no national plan, there is no plan. Infrastructure crumbles. Bridges fall in the fiction of Terry Fallis's The High Road. And the concrete slabs of reality fall in the tunnels of Montreal.
Thirty per cent of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation. Reducing dependence on the internal combustion engine should be a priority. Instead paving for highways is valued as "investment," while support rail is called "subsidy."
Canada is rapidly approaching third world status for transportation infrastructure. Our brilliant technology for high speed rail is built in Spain and China and nations far beyond our border. We have antique tracks and antique trains. The VIA Rail station in British Columbia's capital was just slated for closure. The Island Corridor Railway is gasping for its last breath for want of less than an $8-million federal investment. Not faraway, in my riding, sits a $26-million-plus overpass, with five roundabouts, which few can defend as useful. It was part of the stimulus package, while rail was left unfunded.
Canada desperately needs a national transportation policy. A set of high level goals, to which all levels of government can subscribe, is urgently needed. National goals will promote policy coherence. All levels of government can direct spending in the same direction.
We need to recognize that modern mass transit—convenient, safe and affordable—creates investment in vital urban cores. Vital urban cores support the arts. Sensible land use planning locates child care near mass transit hubs. Mass transit reduces greenhouse gases and smog. Sensible urban transit supports communities. It allows children to go to day cares near where their parents work. It keeps the air cleaner. It reduces the stress of hours spent in gridlock. As Jane Jacobs knew, the health of a neighbourhood depends on its human linkages. Those linkages are violated when urban design puts the car first, and the child last.
We need bus service in areas that rail cannot support. Forget climate as a rationale. Look at demographics. We are an aging population, but we are not a dying population. Canada's 21st century seniors are not sitting at home and watching Coronation Street. We want to be active "zoomers." We want to go out to the theatre without the risky behaviour of driving at night. We need transport that is modern, safe and convenient.
Our economy needs efficient transport. We need freight that does not careen into watercourses as underregulated, overloaded, double-decker freight trains move too fast on a track that is too old. We need efficient border crossings, with rail moving faster with smart e-bills of lading.
How we can keep pretending to be a modern nation when we have no transportation policy, no transportation vision, is not a rhetorical question. It begs to be answered. The Green Party has a coherent transportation vision. It makes sense. It is where we should focus investment. And it would answer needs at all three levels of government. It's time.
