John Angus reclines behind an organized, wooden desk in his Garry Street office and peers ahead into the future.

The veteran city councillor, an independent from the University ward, forsees continued development in the Fort Garry and Fort Richmond area. The effect will be nightmarish traffic problems along Pembina Highway, even more congestion and fewer parking spaces downtown.

"We have to make plans to walk into the 21st century," said Angus, who will be in the centre of renewed debate on rapid transit this month.

"Other cities of comparable size in Canada all have a rapid transit system up and running," he continues. "And we are just dusting off the plans."

The rapid transit issue in Winnipeg has characteristics similar to a comet. It seems to appear about every 10 years and then goes away for a while. It's due to return presently.

A transit planning committee, at the request of the city's executive policy committee last August, has been working on updating the costs of a rapid transit system for Winnipeg. The study should be made public this month.

City councillors will be given a review of a mid-70s report dealing with this issue, including the converted costs of various rapid transit projects into 1986 dollars.

Jarvis Kohut, a transit planner involved with the update, wouldn't tip his hand as to the exact contents of the research, but suggests light rapid transit systems haven't gotten any cheaper.

"Without senior government involvement, either at the provincial level or federal level or both, the costs blow LRT right out of the park," he said.

A tri-government agreement on the issue is exactly what Angus would like to see occur. He suggests an effort similar to the North Portage Development Corp. tackle the project with representatives from the three levels of government working in the best interests of Winnipeggers.

"If we don't start planning for the future now, we're not going to get anything done," he urges.

The federal government has already made an indication of its willingness to get involved with the project. When Liberal MP Lloyd Axworthy was transportation minister in 1983, the government earmarked $23 million in an industrial agreement designed to entice Winnipeg industry into the area of urban transit.

"The agreement was designed to make Winnipeg the centre for research and development in the field," Axworthy says in a telephone interview, "and I'm amazed that it's still sitting there unused. I think only $70,000 of it has been spent."

Nonetheless, even if there was a three-way deal worked out to fund the building costs of and LRT project, city councillor Don Mitchelson (Ind—East Kildonan-Transcona) says the problems are only beginning.

Though he believes something must be done to help alleviate traffic problems, Mitchelson is not convinced Winnipeg has the population base to support an LRT. He says the current public transit program is subsidized by 50 per cent. A similar commitment to support an LRT would be staggering.

"We are about 250,000 people short," he asserts. "I doubt we could even afford our share of the capital costs."

Alan Artibise, director of the University of Winnipeg's Institute of Urban Studies, agrees with Mitchelson. He says that the politicians should be considering the next best system to LRT, a bus corridor.

"This isn't Toronto or Vancouver," he explains. "Winnipeg isn't growing like they are and I doubt we can afford it."

The cost of funding a major rapid transit project is only one dimension to the topic. Other relevant issues include the worthiness of an LRT compared with a right-of-way bus corridor and the desired route on the agreed project.

Previous studies undertaken by the city have considered different modes of transporting commuters and the most efficient routes.

In 1968, the Winnipeg Area Transportation Study suggested an eight kilometre LRT line for $158-milliion.

The grade separated project (which would involve underground stations downtown) extended from the Winnipeg Arena-Stadium-Polo Park neighborhood along Portage to the corner of Main, and turned north along Main. It crossed the Red River by the Redwood Bridge and ran along Hespeler Avenue to Henderson Highway.

Then, about 10 years later, the South West Transit Corridor Study was completed. That 70-page report identified the 10-kilometre, hotdog-shaped stretch between the University of Manitoba and the city centre as a prime location for a rapid transit project.

The corridor study was a comprehensive assessment of the rapid transit issue. Its conclusion favored a right-of-way bus route operating directly alongside the Letellier subdivision, separate from Pembina Highway. In 1976 dollars, the study found that the busway would have a total capital cost of $22 million to $29 million.

The tome rejected the idea of an LRT or a monorail system such as the one espoused by former Mayor Steve Juba. The estimated cost of the LRT ranged upwards to $45 million and the fixed guideway system cost an estimated $86 million in 1976 (those costs today could be 10- to 15-times higher.)

There appear to be no benefits in introducing either of these technologies to the corridor, the report concludes. Beyond 1991, however, changes may occur ... (that) may be significant enough to warrant re-examination of higher capacity systems.

Artibise suggests that the current infrastructure of roads in the city could be easily adapted to a separated bus system. "We don't have a lot of physical barriers, other than the rivers," he says, "but we have plenty of bridges."

The worthiness of an LRT project in favor of a right-of-way bus system resurfaced in Calgary, of all places, recently. And the debate there could serve as a precedent to the Winnipeg situation.

In short, University of Calgary economics professor Bob Wright produced a study which questioned the effectiveness of one of the completed LRT lines built jointly by city and provincial funds.

Wright says an LRT is inflexible and locks a city into a specific pattern of development. And he says that Calgary (which is roughly the same size as Winnipeg) does not have a sufficient population density to support the project.

"Politicians like to use the '85 equivalent of a '35 street car and think they are making progress," he says. "Buses are as efficient and much more flexible."

However, as one Winnipeg councillor points out, the knock against buses is that they are too slow. "It seems they are always stopping every 300 feet," he notes.

The questions regarding who will pay for the project, and what mode of transportation should be employed, are at the foundation of the issue. However, selection of the route would be no less important and equally political.

The neighborhoods receiving a rapid transit system will enjoy increased economic development and property prices as a spinoff, planners suggest. But, city councillors such as Bill Clement (Ind.—Charleswood) don't see parochial ward politics influencing decisions made on the subject.

He says it's obvious that Pembina, Portage Avenue and Main Street control the bulk of the city's traffic. He doesn't think it is necessary at this point to look beyond those arteries.

"Ideally, it would be nice to see some sort of monorail fly right down Portage into downtown," he suggests, "but that might be a little more difficult now that the skywalks are being put in place."

Though Angus hints that he favors some kind of LRT running from the university into downtown (with a guaranteed payload at each end). He says he is not limited to a plan running through his ward and that he is open to other suggestions about routes.

Mayor Bill Norrie, in his inaugural address to city council last autumn after being returned to office in a civic election, suggested an LRT project for the city. He outlined a light rapid transit system linking the southwest and the northeast corridors to a downtown terminal in the East Yards.

Most plans for an LRT have included using the East Yards as a focal point. But, as one transit planner suggests, a shuttle system of buses would have to be developed to move people around downtown, adding to costs to the system and extra time to the trip.

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