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Lorne Gunter: Edmonton can look at cutting cost of new transit garage

The city is building another new transit garage, this time in southeast Edmonton. It was originally to cost $367 million and have capacity for 430 buses.

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It comes as no surprise city council approved the 6.9 per cent residential tax increase it has been planning since last December.

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This council can’t refuse any tax increase. Indeed, it often raises taxes mid-year, above the level it originally set.

When council first set out its planned tax increases for the current four-year budget cycle that ends this year, it promised three years of property tax raises of nearly five per cent, each, followed in the fourth year (this year) by an increase of 4.4 per cent.

The first year, 2023, it held to its five per cent promise. Thereafter, taxes were approved of 8.9 percent, 5.7 per cent and the 6.9 per cent approved on Tuesday.

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When it comes to approving higher taxes, our council is reliable, just not in a good way.

If you own a typical Edmonton home worth not quite $500,000, you tax bill is going up just about $300 in total.

Council and the administration always announce these overall annual increases as if they were too small to worry about. This year council and the administration suggested (as they always do), residents should be happy because the money is going to fund all sorts of good things, such as city services, parks, trails, roads, transit and attractions.

Isn’t that what tax revenues are used for every year? Isn’t that what taxes are supposed to be used for?

When the tax increase exceeds, as it does this year, the amount the average city family will see in increased income, that means council believes it knows better than regular families how their money should be spent, which is ironic given that three-quarters of council, including Mayor Andrew Knack, ran in last fall’s municipal election with help from the union-backed Working Families Edmonton. Yet their tax decisions will leave real working families with less money for groceries, gas, clothes, recreation, and sports fees for their kids.

But let’s look at just one project that sums up the attitude that gets council and the administration into such a tax spiral.

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The city is building another new transit garage, this time in southeast Edmonton. It was originally to cost $367 million and have capacity for 430 buses.

Why so expensive? The city’s other two major bus barns, Kathleen Andrews and Centennial, cost just a little more than that, together.

No explanation fits except that the city has a habit of overdesigning projects and has a devil of a time keeping them on budget. Think of the Lewis Farms recreation centre which is already $32 million over budget even though several of its amenities have been cancelled from the final project. The Edmonton Police Service northwest campus was almost 20 per cent over budget and the Quarters development east of Downtown has a $64-million shortfall.

But the administration’s proposal to keep the cost of the southeast transit garage at existing levels by reducing the number of buses it can house to between 255 and 290 has transit advocates up in arms, including those advocates on council.

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The Edmonton Transit Riders group recently pointed out that the city cannot expand its transit service unless it can buy more buses. And it can’t buy more buses until it has more (new, expensive) places to store them.

But here’s the kind of idea that never occurs to most members of our tax-mad council — reduce transit service.

At present less than 10 per cent of Edmontonians use transit regularly. It’s too inconvenient and perceived as too dangerous.

Yet a service for just one in 10 city residents is the second-largest item on the city budget. It consumes 15 per cent of operating expenses and is only topped (a little) by police.

Maybe council should axe the southeast garage altogether before approving more tax increases.

lgunter@postmedia.com

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