Edmonton Metropolitan Transit Services Commission

[MatthewB]

I didn't see a page for this commission, sorry if I missed it. A new regional transit service will begin operations in mid-late 2022. There are eight member municipalities, including Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan, and St. Albert. ETS local service will not be rolled into it at first due to its sheer size, but their regional transit will. FST, Stat Transit, and other local services *will* be replaced when it launches.

I made a Wikipedia page for it so that you can learn more about them, and I'll work on the CPTDB page later on as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton_Metropolitan_Transit_Services_Commission

Here is their website: https://www.emtsc.ca/

Here is the highly detailed planning and costing report PDF (https://www.edmonton.ca/documents/transit/Accelerating_Transit_in_Edmonton_Metropolitan_Region.pdf), and the addenum which was made to reflect Strathcona County's, Sturgeon County's, and Leduc County's decisions to opt out (https://www.edmonton.ca/documents/transit/accelerating-transit-in-the-edmonton-metropolitan-region-addendum-june-1-2020.pdf). The town of Morinville opted out later on, so their peak service to St. Albert, which is reflected in both reports, will not operate.

[MatthewB]

Paul Jankowski will become the commission's first CEO, starting on May 17th 2021.

"Leaving his role as Commissioner in the Regional Municipality of York’s Transportation Services Department, Jankowski will be responsible for leading the EMTSC as it creates an integrated, regional transit system. His most recent experience leading intermunicipal collaboration and implementing an integrated transportation service in the Greater Toronto Area provides him with tactical experience in this field."

Press release

[MatthewB]

Welcome aboard! Introducing EMTSC’s new CEO

[MatthewB]

The EMTSC's HR and Compensation Committee had their monthly meeting a couple of days ago, and the CEO (Paul Jankowski) gave an update on the hiring process: Their second permanent employee, the Director of Stakeholder Relations (position overview), has started. Their third permanent employee, the Executive Assistant (position overview), will start this coming Monday. The CEO hopes to have the fourth permanent employee, the Director of Financial Services (CFO) (position overview), hired and starting in late summer. I linked the job postings for if you want to see what capabilities these new employees add to the Commission as it goes through the onboarding process.

[brianc1981]

So has there been anymore news or updates regarding when things would get up and running?

[Uwe]

On 1/5/2022 at 7:24 PM, brianc1981 said:

So has there been anymore news or updates regarding when things would get up and running?

Looking at start up by March 2023. In the meantime have contracted WSP to do a network and bottom up costing analysis building on the work that EY did in 2019/2020. The WSP report will then feed an ETS analysis of what it means to them in terms on routes, assets and most importantly costs. Edmonton Council is having trepidations on the true costs of the EMTSC service, and rightly so. The EY report had Edmonton subsidizing many of the commuter services as the regional municipalities were informed that they would receive the same or more service for no additional costs. Nothing is free so not sure how a municipality, like Beaumont, could get more service without additional costs, unless Edmonton is footing the bill. 

[yaygya]

The Commission's use of Neue Haas Grotesk as their branding font really gives me Edmonton Transit vibes.

[Uwe]

The commission has to appease Edmonton or the whole thing falls apart.

[trevor_h_1985]

My manager told me can't confirm if correct or what that it is on very shaky ground right now and if it does go ahead all the regional buses are going to be painted black with like aqua stripes and called something else I cannot remember the name

[Uwe]

I heard it will be called Shift Metro but unconfirmed.

[Lu Haobang]

Edmonton city council has just voted against funding the EMTSC, so the whole thing might be dead in the water. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/regional-transit-plan-edmonton-decides-not-to-fund-1.6687381

[awstott]

St Albert has a motion on the table or will be coming to the table to possibly pull out too 

[brianc1981]

I am truly disappointed to hear about Edmonton pulling out. I have felt for many years that Edmonton and area needs more transit and more service going to suburban areas, as there are already a lot of people moving to the smaller communities but there is not direct connections to the city. I have also found it crazy that places like Fort Saskatchewan didn't have a bus running to Sherwood Park. Last time I tried to make the trip between the 2 I had to connect through Edmonton, pay 3 fares and it took almost 2 hours with the wait times downtown for the bus to Sherwood Park. I cannot imagine people doing that on a regular basis. Also when I lived in Edmonton I knew people that lived in Leduc and worked in Edmonton and the commute for them was not easy or convenient either. It was much easier just to get in the car and drive. Having a regional system could really help move people easier. I was also hopeful that after 2-3 years all of Edmonton could be incorporated into the regional network allowing buses coming from certain areas outside the city to run locally replacing or merging with ETS services. I know that Sherwood Park backed out in 2020 but I was hoping they would see the benefits after a couple years and eventually fully join the regional system too, so that Sherwood Park residents would benefit from improved transit, especially in the evenings or on weekends. 

I hope this doesn't derail the regional system but I don't think it looks good with no funding from Edmonton. 

What are others peoples thoughts on this?

[T6H-5307N]

I have very mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I agree that the region desperately needs better transit service and some sort of commission should be the most cost-effective way of making it happen.

On the other hand, I don't think the blame for this should be placed squarely at the feet of Edmonton's city council. The scope and sequence of the whole project should have been revisited back in 2020 when Strathcona decided to bail... clearly there are problems when your #2 (or #3 depending on where you place St. Albert) player isn't willing to cooperate.

Despite all of the negative press surrounding the ETS bus network redesign, transit security, and now the regional commission, in my experience the service is the best it has been in years. The problem is there is a very vocal minority of people (who would probably never even consider riding transit in the first place) who will take any opportunity to blame the city or ETS whenever anything doesn't work out exactly as planned. I don't blame Edmonton city council for taking a protectionist approach if it is the best value for the city in the current state of the commission. In a city like Edmonton, where there are a large number of separate "commuter" municipalities that arguably unfairly use Edmonton infrastructure (roadways) without paying taxes directly to the city of Edmonton, cost effectiveness for those living in the region with the highest tax base should always be the first concern.

I hope that the regional commission eventually does return and succeed, but as someone who lives and works exclusively within Edmonton proper, it is very tough to defend the regional commission in its current state.

[M. Parsons]

4 hours ago, T6H-5307N said:

I hope that the regional commission eventually does return and succeed, but as someone who lives and works exclusively within Edmonton proper, it is very tough to defend the regional commission in its current state.

Even in the adjusted way the Commission was planning things today vs. expectations 2-3 years ago, was it worth to kill the entire thing over $15 million/ year? Were all other City budget items that much more pressing that it was worth it for the City of Edmonton to take the hit to our reputation within the region?

I'm torn. The way it was going for the Commission routes overlapping ETS routes that would be maintained it seems, was ludicrous, but $15 million seemed reasonable for a starting point.

Huge missed opportunities to slowly bring components together. On Demand for all regions could have been done under one contractor with one region wide App.

The Commission had a plan for a Airport to Downtown bus which would have been cost shared. If the City of Edmonton decides that it still wants this, will the City end up paying the full costs now? Given the fight over costs for the 747 and the big stink the City made about that last time, I can't see other partners coming together to fund a more expensive (longer anyways, presumably more expensive as a result) service, even if it money was saved by cancelling the existing 747 service.

[BrianBotterill]

Now that I've been out of things for a year, I'll make a few comments on this.  I can probably add more, I'm just trying to decide whether I want to do it as a chat on video, or as a text post.

This section is purely my opinion, albeit one shared by Strathcona County at the time:

My biggest concern with the EMTSC work from start to finish was that "regionalization" was often viewed as the victory condition.  That is to say that I felt that governance was the outcome, not increasing ridership, customer experience, or improving efficiency.  There are other opportunities to improve regional service delivery as more likely to improve customer experience and efficiency.  Strathcona County transit was offering to operate services for other municipalities to reduce their start up costs, ideally find route synergies (like a route to/from Fort Saskatchewan), and grow regional capacity.  SmartBus and SmartFare (now arc) are great ways to reduce the "borders" in the regions transit network that don't create potentially impossible labor relations, governance, and capital cost transfer challenges.  

The EMTSC may have succeeded in a positive economic climate, but the uncertainty of the business case combined with the uncertainty of COVID-19 made any additional expenditure appear to be an unreasonable gamble.  Add on to that the impact of ATU's advocacy against the EMTSC (see page 3) and it became impossible.

The following are my thoughts on your comment ideally devoid of my personal opinion:  

On 12/18/2022 at 10:00 PM, M. Parsons said:

Even in the adjusted way the Commission was planning things today vs. expectations 2-3 years ago, was it worth to kill the entire thing over $15 million/ year? Were all other City budget items that much more pressing that it was worth it for the City of Edmonton to take the hit to our reputation within the region?

Realistically, the hit to reputation (at least in intermunicipal cooperation terms) will not be significant.  True, Minister Sohi and the federal government, did support the RTSC's work, but once he had announced his mayoral campaign, regional municipalities expected a renewed focus on Edmonton's internal needs vs Mayor Iveson's focus on regionalization.  

In addition, once COVID-19 impacted the transit industry, all the players involved with EMTSC acknowledged (if not publicly) the likelihood of success was significantly curtailed.  The business case for EMTSC which @MatthewBhelpfully posted above (the Accelerating Transit report) relied on several assumptions and more than a few leaps of faith for members that the economics would be successful in the 5-10 year timeframe.

Unfortunately, many of those assumptions were shaken by the impacts of COVID-19 and the ridership projections were based on a pre-COVID environment.  That may have been survivable if transit ridership rebounded faster than it has, but especially for the surrounding municipalities, concerns about ridership have been sparking real concerns locally much less regionally.  I know a few regional elected officials (not in Strathcona County) who were pondering if now is the time to significantly reduce or even cease existing services.

 

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I'm torn. The way it was going for the Commission routes overlapping ETS routes that would be maintained it seems, was ludicrous, but $15 million seemed reasonable for a starting point.

I haven't been involved in EMTSC conversations past the completion of the RTSC report, but my recollection was that the overlap was a result of compromise surrounding a desire to maintain a somewhat independent ETS and maintain frequencies in the interim until EMTSC gradually included all services.  Most of the routes with overlap would have justified the frequency so the cost overlap was somewhat mitigated.

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Huge missed opportunities to slowly bring components together. On Demand for all regions could have been done under one contractor with one region wide App.

This is still a possibility without a regional commission, in fact, I would expect to see it in the next few years.  I don't believe you will see that service crossing municipal boundaries, but one app for local On Demand transit across the region is a likely possibility.

The challenge today is that on demand has a number of different raisons d’être.  For Strathcona County, the political win was reducing "big bus driving around empty" complaints.  The operational win was addressing the fact that the community had outgrown dial-a-bus but hadn't grown to the point of supporting a fixed route network for low demand times.  For others it is about ensuring some coverage maintained as routes shifted to a frequency model.  In other municipalities, I know of elected officials who have openly pondered if it is cheaper to subsidize taxis or ride share vs providing local service at all.

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The Commission had a plan for a Airport to Downtown bus which would have been cost shared. If the City of Edmonton decides that it still wants this, will the City end up paying the full costs now? Given the fight over costs for the 747 and the big stink the City made about that last time, I can't see other partners coming together to fund a more expensive (longer anyways, presumably more expensive as a result) service, even if it money was saved by cancelling the existing 747 service.

The airport route is a political pandora's box.  Everyone "wants it", but no one can agree what "it" is.  Should it target airport employees?  Should it target passengers?  Should it makes stops in Leduc or Nisku?  Who (entity wise) actually benefits from the service?  The 747 also had a relatively high per rider subsidy, IIRC, it had the lowest cost recovery of any intermunicipal route in the region.

Part of the challenge is retained friction from the messy transition from C-Line to Leduc Transit.  It was a large investment for Leduc to start Leduc Transit, however, it was seen as a more palatable option than continuing to work with ETS (read into that as you desire).  There is also lingering issues vis a vis transfer fares to/from ETS, Leduc was never offered a transfer agreement like the one St. Albert and Strathcona County have.  Worse than that lingering issue though was when ETS was not accepting U-Pass for travel on the 747 from 2012 to 2018.

Determining who should pay is an ongoing challenge, and depending on the type of service, who benefits and ergo who should pays remains a challenge.  Moving to a longer EMTSC route that services the airport would as you point out be likely more expensive and less convenient for riders.  

[BrianBotterill]

On 12/18/2022 at 6:12 PM, T6H-5307N said:

I don't blame Edmonton city council for taking a protectionist approach if it is the best value for the city in the current state of the commission.

Neither do I.  I believe it was the right decision for Edmonton.  The regional transit providers can keep working together to reduce boundaries through initiatives like arc and avoid the challenges and pitfalls of amalgamation.

On 12/18/2022 at 6:12 PM, T6H-5307N said:

On the other hand, I don't think the blame for this should be placed squarely at the feet of Edmonton's city council. The scope and sequence of the whole project should have been revisited back in 2020 when Strathcona decided to bail... clearly there are problems when your #2 (or #3 depending on where you place St. Albert) player isn't willing to cooperate.

Statistically Strathcona County would have been #2 for ridership across the system.  For intermunicipal ridership Strathcona County is #1.

My assessment having lived through the RTSC work was that it the assumptions required for the business case to succeed were too uncertain which further hampered the already uncertain projections.  I had asked on more than a few occasions both to our consultants, but also Edmonton representatives, "Where's the win for Edmonton?"  Outside of "regionalization" itself being a win, there was no clear positives.

The only potential wins that I could identify would be:

1. If the EMTSC chose ridership as their overarching goal and shifted regional resources into the City of Edmonton to boost frequency on high-ridership routes within the city.  However, that would obviously be a political non-starter for the regional municipalities.
2. Off-loading Edmonton's transit debt to an independent body.  That would free up the City of Edmonton's debt limit for other purposes.  That said, the Government of Alberta would have to endorse that.

On 3/25/2022 at 9:26 PM, Uwe said:

The EY report had Edmonton subsidizing many of the commuter services as the regional municipalities were informed that they would receive the same or more service for no additional costs. Nothing is free so not sure how a municipality, like Beaumont, could get more service without additional costs, unless Edmonton is footing the bill. 

It'd be Edmonton and Strathcona County providing the majority of subsidy.  One could cynically view the EMTSC as a transfer payments like scheme to support service expansion in other municipalities.  

Realistically though, I think the first question that I would ask is "If a service isn't justified without the RTSC, why is it justified with the RTSC?"  Acknowledging that all existing operators in the region are tax dollar subsidizing transit services, why aren't we asking the other municipalities to do the same?

And to be fair, I asked the same question about Strathcona County Transit providing service to Ardrossan.  The plan of build it, subsidize the heck out of it, and hope they come is challenging.  See "On-It" version 1 as a great example.

Expanding service needs to be a frank decision where elected officials recognize, "Okay, this service will be a 90% subsidy for the foreseeable future.  Are we okay with that?"  And in some scenarios that answer will be yes, but having a pool of "regional money" to make it more palatable locally doesn't necessarily lead to good decisions.

[Uwe]

Interesting discussions. I will add my two cents now. First off the EMTSC would not have improved transit service in the region. In fact it led to many discussions as transit agencies like Spruce Grove and Leduc have agreements in place with non-commission members (Parkland County and Leduc County). Service to those areas would have been cut, resulting in no service to Acheson or Nisku. And would result in service reductions, inability of residents from those areas and Edmonton to travel to employment opportunities, such as Amazon, Hello Fresh, etc.

The EMTSC was pushing outright lies that they were improving transit service when in fact for start up day there were no plans to change what is currently occurring in Spruce Grove/Stony Plain/Parkland County, St. Albert, and Leduc/Leduc County. Edmonton's service was remaining exactly the same but with the addition of two overlay routes that would mimic futuristic BRT plans.  Devon was being forced to accept service to the west end of Edmonton when they preferred to travel to the Airport. Beaumont has always wanted to travel to Mill Woods/Grey Nuns area so will hopefully finally get that wish once the LRT is operational but has nothing to do with the EMTSC.

As for Route 747, that operates under the Airport Accord agreement which is cost shared with Leduc (30.5%), Leduc County (30.5%) and Edmonton (39%). The EMTSC would be absorbing that route and have the same agreement in place. No change.

As for the EMTSC improving service in the region is a total fallacy. This is because each municipality is responsible for its local service costs (100%) and depending on the municipality would be responsible for incremental costs for additional service. For example, if the EMTSC is hearing from the public that Leduc or Spruce Grove needs to add more commuter or local service, they would determine the cost and send that proposal to the municipalities. The municipalities would then determine if they could afford to add that service. If not then it won't happen. So all this malarkey that the EMTSC would improve service levels is a just a big nothing.

The airport to downtown route was a dream want for EMTSC CEO. While I personally do not believe it is required as it would duplicate the 747 and LRT, the addition of more service is always a good thing. Money would be better spent increasing the frequency of the 747, which was in EYs report (15 minutes throughout the day). And at no time was the airport to downtown route going to be cost shared in the region, it was always allocated 100% to Edmonton.

One question few are asking and no one is answering is how much are commission staff being paid. Rumour has it that the CEO is making more than Edmonton's City Manager. Not bad for a non-functioning entity.

[Mark Walton]

The Commission is now effectively if not legally dead: Regional transit commission winding down after Edmonton withdraws | CBC News

[Uwe]

Best news ever.