Kaitlin MacLeod-Rogers
Opinion Reporter
This week’s budget talks for 2010 have hit Calgary transit right where it hurts, in the form of a $1.2 million cut. City council has rationalized the cut to transit as necessary since they want to minimize overall increases for taxpayers, currently pegged at 4.8% instead of an initially proposed 5%. But the editors of The Calgary Herald state this rationale as “backwards thinking” since the department already struggles to meet increased demand for services. The main argument in the November 15th piece is that reducing services is counterproductive in the bid to convince Calgarians to “hang up their car keys” and utilize public transit. The writer also takes aim at poor spending priorities: “The cuts are part of a 1.7% reduction all departments were asked to make, with the exception of police. Such across-the-board cuts fail to recognize that all departments are not created equally. Cuts need to be made where they make the most sense. If departments can’t identify those areas themselves, aldermen need to step in now … and set spending priorities.” Build a bigger, faster, more efficient system, says The Calgary Herald. Otherwise, city council has simply missed the bus.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/editorials/Transit+cuts+foolish/2225326/story.html
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