Community members gather to discuss advocacy for better transit

Students are no strangers to the woes of Edmonton Transit Service (ETS). Whether you’ve missed a class because your bus was delayed or felt unsafe while waiting for the LRT.

On January 19, Michael Janz, the councillor for Ward papastew, hosted a City Hall Talks event at the University of Alberta. The U of A’s Sustainability Council, Edmonton Transit Riders (ETR), and Movement sponsored the event. 

Denis Agar, the executive director of Movement, spoke at the event. Movement focuses on advocating for better transit in the Metro Vancouver area, but is looking to expand beyond the city. 

Agar hopes to build a stronger transit advocacy system across Canada. He mentioned that other countries like the United States have strong advocacy groups that are able to push forward things like transit referendums. 

“They have three [national advocacy organizations], and in Canada, we basically have zero,” Agar said. 

“What I really want to see is to raise $1,000,000 and to have $100,000 go to 10 different cities, like transit activists like ETR in 10 different cities across Canada.”

Bringing more attention to transit concerns

Part of the conversation revolved around getting people excited about transit. Movement uses social media to try to draw people’s attention to their work. They recently started making videos for their Instagram about the Vancouver-based Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams. 

After mapping out where Williams worked and went to college, they thought it was highly likely that he had taken the route 49 bus. 

“[The 49] is the most crowded, the most delayed. It’s a disaster of a bus route,” Agar said. 

The hope is that their videos might catch the actor’s attention and get a response or a collaboration, which would draw further attention to the issues with the route.

For Edmonton, Janz said that while it’s difficult for transit groups to get more attention on the issues of concern, Edmonton’s Federation of Community Leagues is an asset. 

Each neighbourhood has a community league, which has a board with dedicated people for different responsibilities or issues. 

“But I have not seen a community league that has a dedicated transit representative,” Janz said. “Almost every neighbourhood has four transit stops.”

Another piece Janz encouraged was the idea of adopting a bus stop or route. The adopters would raise concerns to councillors in the ward about issues at the stop, whether it’s garbage or uncleared snow.

“We [councillors] hear all the time about traffic, but we don’t hear about bus buildings too much,
Janz said. “I think there’s an action gap between people like transit, but they feel like we’re powerless to change this massive system.”