If you take the time to read the latest "independent study" praising Winnipeg's proposed bus rapid transit, you'll find that it's not really a study at all.
Rather, it's a marketing paper written to help secure federal funding for a $75-million project.
The study, inaccurately described as a cost-benefit analysis, was penned by a group called Metropolitan Knowledge International for Winnipeg Transit.
It was circulated among city councillors yesterday.
And it's supposed toobe the latest evidence that rapid transit would be a "boon" to Winnipeg.
Trouble is, the study is full of holes.
For starters, the report fails to include the $25-million cost of buying the rapid transit buses ii its analysis. None of the ridership data and other information used in the study was independently verified. And estimates that rapid transit would increase ridership by 25% is purely speculative and not adequately explained.
On top of that, the report is dated Sept. 3, 2004 — nearly six months after the city approved rapid transit.
How can this be the cost-benefit analysis used to support the decision to approve rapid transit if it came out six months after the decision was made?
A real cost-benefit analysis would have provided evidence-based projections on ridership levels. And it would have weighed rapid transit against other viable options to increase ridership.
For example, the study says, diamond lanes and priority signals on regular roads between roads between Jubilee Avenue and the University of Manitoba would substantially improve the service under rapid transit.
So why don't they have those for regular buses now along Pembina Highway?
In fact, what would happen if transit implemented those, increased the frequency of express and super express buses along Pembina, improved bus shacks and brought in computer-based scheduling?
How much would that increase ridership? How much time would that slice off the average travel time? How much would that cost versus a massive capital project like BRT?
None of those questions has been answered.
Transit has to examine these options, cost them out and weigh them against each other.
You don't jump into a $400-million proect without that kind of analysis.
What's laughable is the argument in the report that somehow rapid transit would pay for itself.
"Most transit systems in Canada are subsidized by government," the report says. "However, this project unto itself should result in a net financial benefit to Winnipeg Transit and is therefore a strong investment, fro ma fiscal sustainability perspective."
A few pages earlier, though, the report concedes that it did not subject the project to the kind of "due diligence required for financial markets," and "does not reflect the actual fiscal performance of the project from the point of view of the transit authority."
So which one is it?
A confidential memo from the city's executive policy committee secretariat on the report, obtained by The Sun says it best:
"The MKI study affirms that proceeding with the proposed BRT southwest corridor at this time will create substantial financial costs for the city of Winnipeg while generating limited, speculative and difficult to quantify socio-economic benefits."
I couldn't have said it better myself.