Dave Bronconnier and Benito Mussolini
This past Wednesday, Friday, and Monday I’ve been stuck on Calgary Transit.
Wednesday: power failure; Friday: trains backed up into the core; Monday: power failure.
Additionally, the previous Monday, an overhead announcement indicated a power failure in the opposite direction of my travels. Perhaps it’s merely coincidence but my frustration grows.
I’ll be moving in the next few months and my options in Calgary are severely limited in this backwater city because of my reluctance/refusal to drive. A number of my friends have resettled elsewhere in the country and transportation challenges were oft cited in the reasons for the exodus.
The livability of Calgary is suffering and not from any one challenge alone. But Calgary is destined to be a Detroit before it becomes a San Francisco, an example of missed opportunity rather than a hub of 21st-century creativity and prosperity.
It is a myth that Mussolini alone made the trains run on time in pre-War Italy. And it is a myth that Mayor Bronconnier has alone allowed our transit system to wither and waste in front of us. The leadership of this city needs to be clearly told that their complacency on this issue will increasingly challenge their reelection.
Candidates or incumbents that do not strongly support transit, halt sprawl, and support mixed-use densification will suffer politically along with all the citizens who suffer day-to-day in a city collapsing under itself.
Unless, of course, we all move to Vancouver or Toronto.
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