Imagine a better city

It is hard to picture the amount of change necessary in the attitudes of Calgarians for the following to become an eventuality, but it is easy to see how the benefits might play out. As traffic becomes more and more of an issue in major urban centres, the talk of "congestion charges" surfaces more and more frequently. A congestion charge, like that recently adopted by the city of Milan, is essentially a tax on driving downtown during business hours. In some cities, it is enforced at parking meters based on license plate numbers or special stickers. Here in Calgary, despite some progress being made towards carpooling, and increases in transit ridership, the average car occupancy rate is still considerably less than two people per vehicle.

In Milan, the congestion charge is $14 a day, the monetary equivalent of adding over three round-trip passengers to the transit services, as well as encouraging an increase in actual passengers. While the city actually does as fairly efficient job of moving people from the periphery to downtown, especially in peak hours, travel across the city, from east to west without stopping downtown, is rather poor and could benefit from expanded services, helping to alleviate congestion on major arteries like Glenmore Trail or McKnight Boulevard.

Of course, many Calgarians will argue that perhaps we already pay too many taxes, or that we should simply increase parking rates, allowing the market to decide. But the fact remains that Calgary has the largest carbon footprint of any Canadian city and we tend to be spoilt by the luxury of our lifestyle.