Grand River Transit will improve

Grand River Transit is regularly in the news here in the region and recently I read this opinion piece
Higher Bus fares are entirely fair about the fare hike that will be spread out over the next couple of years. I also found a related article Transit's long ride to value  that compares the transit system in K-W & Cambridge with 8 other transit systems in Ontario. 

First of all I learned that GRT was only established in 2000 and has since seen growing numbers of riders. The introduction of a mandatory term-long transit ticket for students surely plays a role in this as does the fact the the connections have improved by coordinating the services provided in three cities instead of letting them each do their own thing. And service is bound to get better, yeah: more express buses, more routes, and a light rail train. The latter one apparently is planned for K-W only at this point which upsets some Cambridge residents but I hope once the train is running and becomes a success (I can't imagine it doesn't) the connection to Cambridge will be made. After all it would simplify the commute between K-W and Cambridge a lot compared to hopping on a bus half way there.     

The main issue in these articles is the fare and how little it covers of the cost of running the transit system. GRT recovers only 38% of the cost! Politicians want to make it 50% in 4 years. For me that's the value that matters more than the average fare because once you use the average fare you need to take in consideration the ratio of student riders to other riders for each transit system. The term pass here is cheaper than the monthly adult pass which seems wrong. I don't care how many students ride the bus; I actually find it shocking how many students have a car - how do they afford that on top of living costs and tuition? If they can afford that car they can afford to pay more for the bus too, even if they don't use it. They most likely don't pay taxes so might as well do something for the transit.
   
As always taxpayers shoulder the rest of the bill which I don't think is wrong either. I can't help it that the federal government spends my taxes on oil sands subsidies. People who drive gas guzzlers might as well suck up to support an environmentally friendly way of travelling! Granted that GRT is deemed not as good yet as other systems in Ontario it still makes sense to raise the fare. After all, we want the Light Rail Train. "We" that's people like friend's of us who want to buy a house close to Uptown Waterloo so that once the train is there they live in walking distance and can get rid of their car. "We" that's members of the hiking group I'm out and about with almost every weekend. I'm not the only one without a car there and asking for a ride is not unusual.  We do need rides since the bus does not take us everywhere yet. Frankly, when we met at the Grand river yesterday I cycled in the snow because there was no decent connection to travel from the West to the East of the city. And  I'm glad to see that people here in K-W think better of public transit than in Edmonton.     

The Natural Step

I watched a documentation last night titles "A passion for sustainability". It's about a dozen businesses in Portland, Oregon, "the most sustainable city in the US". Ah! Already learned something new. As a matter of fact the footage of Portland was not bad, I almost want to go there but since it's in the US (security mania) I will not bother. The documentation introduced very different companies and how they turned their business practices into sustainable practices, considering the impact on planet Earth all along. At the same time these companies apparently increased their bottom line as well. 

There was a fashion designer (Anna Cohen) who designs clothing from soya, seaweed, hemp, and organic cotton fabrics; the pizza shop (Hotlips) that sources the ingredients locally, some even grown within city limits; an auto repair shop (Hawthorne Auto), a builder (Neil Kelly) that constructs attractive energy and material efficient house; a city developer; a water provider (Tualatin Valley Water District); a wood company (The Collins Companies) that manages its own forests, sawmills, produces particle boards etc; an architecture's office that designed an affordable housing project; a cleaning company (Terra Clean) that runs its trucks and vacuum cleaners on used kitchen oils that they collect from local restaurants; an organic winery; a carpentry that produced high end furniture, and  an engineering consultant (PAE). Last but not least it included NIKE that has a large, posh "campus" in Portland. I suppose that's the headquarters and where the designers sit, it's certainly not where the gear is produced which put me off a little. 

These, and more, companies follow the principles of The Natural Step, a NGO found about 20 years ago by Swedish Dr Karl-Henrik Robert. Although it was interesting to watch at the end the documentation became a kind of advertisement for The Natural Step. They way these business owners talked about it was a bit too "up-scale" for me though. I also could not follow the interview with Dr. Robert. Maybe, doctors and business owners are so terribly smart, educated, experienced, ... that they have to sound so sophisticated but hey when it comes to the environment, aka our planet, we are all in the same boat so keep it simple please. My hubby said it sounds like a "cult" they are talking about. But yes, I'm glad they do something. These businesses are leaders in what they do and hopefully pass on the bug to others. No, I would not shop at these businesses because they serve people with considerably higher incomes. (Considering we statistically belong to low-income-families in Canada I assume there's plenty of people out there who can afford the services or products of these businesses.) 

Products that are manufactured sustainably do not fall into the category of "affordable for everyone" something that I am not sure about will ever change. To a certain degree I don't think it can or should be changed. After all, what would be mass-produced, single-use/ throw-away items that are sustainable? Sounds like an antithesis to me. 

But organisations like The Natural Step bring us one step closer to a better future.  

http://www.thenaturalstep.org/en/canada
http://www.naturalstepusa.org/