Ecolobus - Electric Transit Bus

The first day I was in Quebec City I saw the Ecolobus. It wasn't until the second last day of the conference that I was able to actually track one down for a ride!

Quebec City transit has recently started running these little guys around the downtown core. How recently? - the one I was in only had 648km on it! According to the city transit website ( french / english translation) they can run approximately 100km per charge so mine had only been in service for about a week.

The driver figured they cost the city about $400 000 by the time they were shipped to Canada and had heaters installed. I spoke to a Quebec City council member on Sunday and he confirmed that the price was about that. They have tested them in the winter and didn't see any problems.

After a little sleuthing on the web I found the Italian manufacturer's website . They suggest that the bus can handle up to 31 passengers at a time (some standing and some sitting).

During a conference break I had a chance to sit down with Jeremy and Ted from Medicine Hat. They were pretty interested in the ecolobus too so maybe there's an opportunity for GP and Med Hat (and others in the province) to get together and make a bulk purchase. I would like to see our transit department contact the other mid-sized cities in Alberta and see if we can get something going.

The smaller size even makes good sense for growing communities like GP. One of the challenges we face with Transit is that we have new neighbourhoods where the road network isn't fully built, making it tough to find a good route for a big bus. We also have areas where there isn't quite the density to demand a large bus, yet. Smaller buses (no matter what they run on) might be the answer.

So, what do you think; should GP invest in some, money saving, clean running buses?

A Complete Street

It's funny, ever since the Sustainable Transportation wrokshop I've been looking at streets differently - regular readers will have seen my posts (here & here) looking at some of the worst examples of "incomplete streets" in Grande Prairie. Well, even at a convention I couldn't stop looking at how the streets and sidewalks were laid out.

Throughout Quebec City the sidewalks are busy with tourists and locals walking everywhere. In the old section the streets are as narrow as they would be any historic European city, very charming but not a lot of room for bikes let alone say a wheelchair for example. But, on the walk from our hotel to the convention centre I realized I was on one of the best examples of a complete street I had ever seen! I snapped the picture below...



This was taken early on Sunday morning so the traffic is pretty light but as you can see the road is four or six lanes wide. Some of the things that makes this a very "complete" street:

• Very wide sidewalk
• Trees make a great separation from the road
• Crosswalks are wide, well marked and very obvious
• Countdown lights to let pedestrians know how much time there is to cross
• Bike lanes marked on the sidewalk

With great streets like this, it's no wonder there are so many people walking here!

FCM 2008, Day Two

Well, it's a rainy day here in Québéc City and I haven't been able to take in any of the convention today.

Unfortunately, my girlfriend has had to make use of the Québéc healthcare system and is in surgery right now as I write this. Thankfully it's a relatively common surgery which they can do without having to be too invasive. She made a trip to emergency early yesterday morning and had to go back later on in the day when things got worse.

On the downside; she's spent at least ten (very painful) hours waiting in the emergency room between the two trips. On the upside; of course the nurses and doctors are great.

What's really, really, unfortunate is that this all could have been avoided. She had booked four weeks in advance for the same surgery at the QEII back in GP ... only to have it cancelled on the day, after waiting at the hospital for 4 hours. So, rather than doing it in a planned manor where it was elective and she could have been back home in bed afterwards - it's now an emergency situation halfway across the country.

Well, hopefully everything will be fine... she'll end up with the surgery she needed (which is really good) and the worst that happens is that we may have to stay here a little longer than we thought.

FCM 2008, Day One - Trade Show Floor

One of the parts of the FCM conference that can be either; 'Really Good' or 'Really Bad' is the Municipal Expo trade show. I should say that it's always "neat" but it seems like some years you walk around seeing the same (big) consulting firms, government agencies and providers of fine street lights and playground equipment.

Other times you'll see something on the floor that really tweaks your interest and has obvious uses back home that are immediately apparent. This year there were at least three that fell in to that later category.

Here's some various pics from the trade show floor. Some show the variety of displays and products while a couple are the ones I found really useful that I hope I can bring back to apply to our city.....


The entrance to the Municipal Expo


This gigantic mower is probably of more interest to rural municipalities who have to maintain a lot of ditches.


Here's a company that is at every conference; Waste Management...



... and right across the isle from WM is a company that manufactures bins. What a coincidence!



I thought this was really cool. This is the booth for mtsAllstream and you might recognize the image on the screen. They are using Grande Prairie's very own Muniportal.ca site as a promotional tool. They were only promoting three different "case studies", each in different areas of their business so obviously if Muniportal is good enough to put in the booth we must have something cutting edge.


In a previous post I mentioned Edmonton's Co2RE team, here's their booth.


This was really cool... LED street lights. You probably know that LED lights last a lot longer and consume less energy than traditional lights. That's a big deal when you taxes go to pay for the electricity bill those lights generate. GP has already converted most of the traffic lights (Red, Yellow & Green) around the city to LED. The next thing is these LED streetlights that Curtis Cartmill with LED Roadway Lighting is showing off. I want to see us move our system to these kind of lights to save some money.


Here's some guys selling decorative hardware for the plain old street lights.


I thought this was a really in interesting booth... the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. I kept my distance.

This was a sight that warmed my heart ... our City Clerk, Janette Furgeson talking with the folks from Intelivote Systems. If you've read this blog you know I'm a big proponent of moving towards internet voting as other cites have done. Well Janette is in charge of all the municipal elections for the city so she needs to know this stuff. I'm going to do more of a post on this topic and some of the stuff I learned at the booth later.

These next two are of something that immediately piqued my interest and made me think of at least one area where we need to use the product. This company (MCM Structures) sells a product that looks like a decorative bottom to a streetlights, only it's not.


It's called the MCM Base and when you open it up it is actually a junction box that can hold phone, cable and electricity connections for up to six homes.


This is another view of the open junction box that the streetlight actually sits on top of but they make actually make another product that is for retrofits to existing street lights. It's called, not surprisingly, the "Retrofit". When I get home I'll take a picture of a spot in our city where these need to be used.

FCM 2008, Day One - Making Transit Work in Smaller Communities

I think Lorne Radbourne and I were the only ones from GP to sit in on this session. Other GP delegates may have taken in another one on a different topic but considering the City is working on a Transit Master Plan review I thought this was pretty timely.

From the conference program:

Making Transit Work in Smaller Communities
Room: 200 A

Moderator: Councillor Louise Poirier, City of Gatineau, Que., board and executive member of Canadian Urban Transit Association

Speakers: Huguette Dallaire, Director General, Société de transport de Sherbrooke; Dennis Fletcher, Director,Transit Solutions, ENTRA Consultants; Steve New, Senior Vice President, BC Transit.

FCM’s National Transit Strategy, released in March 2007, called on all three orders of government to develop a coordinated
approach to funding and supporting public transit. Part of this strategy called on provinces and territories, working with municipalities and supported by the federal government, to develop separate and appropriately designed and targeted policies
and programs to fund and support transit systems in smaller communities.What are the unique challenges facing transit in smaller communities?What is required from planners, transit operators, funding providers, and residents and businesses? This seminar will explore these questions, guided by municipal practitioners and public transit experts.



Huguette Dallaire the Director General of Society de Transport de Sherbrooke (STS) presented on the Sherbrooke experience.

Sherbrooke has a population of 150 000 residents, 25 000 of whom are students! (wow, that's a lot but in terms of transit that's a plum user group to target) The STS has a $26M budget per year with a mixed fleet including 79 buses and 10 adapted mini buses. The city is relatively low density, there is lots of parking and public had a low perception of transit, and high car useage.

When they conducted a survey looking at transit they found that bus routes were too long, schedules didn't seem to bare any relation to people's work or school schedules and so it was no surprise that there was a 11% decrease in ridership between 1991 and 2003.

Since then Sherbrooke STS worked to become an "Urban Mobility Manager". They have an integrated school transportation system. (We are just now working with the school boards to do the same thing in Grande Prairie) STS identified that it's service must be; Accessible, Speedy, Reliable, Frequent and Comfortable.

They then looked to develop specific "target client groups" using both B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) approaches and then focusing their efforts on the largest target groups with in those sectors. (Hmmmm, maybe those 25, 000 students?)

Speaking of students, the University of Sherbrooke stepped up and committed to paying the full transit costs for it's 14 000 students at a cost of $1.2m yearly. This led to a 125% increase in ridership for that target group in a single year. The local colleges also came on board but there the students paid for transit directly through registration fees at a cost of $50/term.

As for major employers, the STS worked with the hospital which now pays 40% of the transit costs for their 4000 employees.

And finally STS developed "Communal Bus" lines specifically targeted at seniors. The communal lines are served by mini-buses focused on stops that have special interest to seniors and provide shorter walking distance to stops (100m vs 400m).

For their efforts between 2003 to 2007 Sherbrooke saw a 16% increase in ridership.


Dennis Fletcher from Transit Solutions, provided some great examples of ideas that are working in smaller communities...

Rimouski, Quebéc has a "Taxibus" service which is a demand/response or zone bus systems that operates on a fixed schedule but not fixed route. It's operated through a partnership with local taxi companies. You call the number and a dispatcher arranges your ride which you share may share with other people who can be picked up and dropped off during your ride. in 2004 the municipal contribution to this service was $180 000.

PEI, is developing a Commuter Connector system that acts as a trunk line between municipalities with Community Connectors in small municipalities that operate off the trunk system.

Halifax has instituted a rural express service and developed a Community Planning guide for small communities within the regional municipality. The guide enables the smaller communities to plan their development to integrate with the larger system.

Dennis suggests that the keys to effective transit systems are; Imaginative Ideas, a Local Champion, Community Support and finally Stamina.

FCM 2008, Day One - GMF & Sustainability Session

The first session I attended was on FCM's Green Municipal Fund and Sustainable Community Plans. This is obviously a hot topic as it was a packed room!



Other GP delegates attending the session were; Gladys Blackmore, Elroy Diemert, Dan Wong, Yad Minhas, Lorne Radbourne and Greg Scerbak (Director of Community Development)

Some of the key points I was able to catch from the presentations:

Green Municipal Fund (GMF) is a $500 million pot of funds provided by the Federal Government and administered through FCM.

GMF Grants are available for financing up to 50% (up to a maximum of $350 000!) of the cost of a project like developing a municipal Sustainability Plan. Some other examples of how municipalities have use the GMF grants:

• Sherbrook used a grant to help optimize their transit system.
• Laval, received $40 000 to develop an inventory of their Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.

Mayor, Alan DeSousa from Saint-Laurent Borough, Montréal
spoke on the experience of developing a MSP of the island of Monteal....

"Many plans have been developed over the past 10 years but there have been little action." Key is to actually implement the plan. Doing a MSP is like building a house, you must; "Build a foundation before you can put the walls and the roof over."Community engagement was key in the development of the plan.

In first phase of the plan (2005 - 06) there were 24 specific actions that were identified in the plan and then in the second phase (2007 - 09) they have an additional 36 actions.

Asked community partners to publicly endorse the plan and commit to implementing at least 5 of the actions identified in the plan.

They first started with 49 community partners and are now up to 120 who have endorsed the plan and committed to meeting at least 5 of the 24 or 36 actions identified in the plan.


Councillor, Karen Leibovici, City of Edmonton

Edmonton council developed a City Vision looking forward 30 Years and then the work was in "back-casting" the actions that would lead to the realization of the vision.

Emdonton, like Grande Prairie, has a variety of "Master Plans" that govern how specific service are delivered or how the municipality develops. One of the outcomes of their work and visioning is that Plans like Transit Master Plan and Municipal Development Plan are being done in unison to ensure that they are integrated and both leading towards the vision.

In addition to the traditional Master Plans Edmonton also has a "Enviomental Strategic Plan" which I think is a great way to ensure that environmental initiates have a home and are approached in a coordinated manner.

First off the City of Edmonton committed to leading the way through their municipal operations. For example they; demanded a LEEDs Silver standard for all new municipal buildings, are testing 6 new hybrid buses, have converted 900+ traffic signal lights to LEDs, are working on a Sustainable Fleet Strategy and have funded a$30 million Energy Management Revolving Fund. ( ? - I'll need to do a little research on exactly what that is... )

They also developed what they call the " CO2RE Team" with community partners. Once again; "Partnerships were developed at the front end of the process."

The CO2RE team developed GHG reduction targets of 6% by 2010 and 20% 2020. Karen acknowledged that the recent growth in Edmonton is forcing them to review these targets to see how they can still be met.

A couple other initiates that have come from the CO2RE team;
• Home$avers how-to booklets, that are available in hard copy and on the web
• Home Depot partnership to promoting sales of energy efficient items
• Epcor $50 rebate on 6L low-flow toilets

FCM 2008, Day One

Wow, the red-eye flight was a killer, we arrived in Quebec at eight in the morning after what seemed to be the world's longest flight. Luckily we've had a day to adjust and get ourselves on to E.S.T.

I had hoped to do lots of blogging from the convention floor but unfortunately Videotron is charging $225.00 for access. That would let me get on the system for the whole conference from anywhere .... but, that's a little steep. Luckily I found the "Internet Lounge" where you can get access for $9.99 for 5 hours. So, posts won't come as rapidly as I'd have liked but they will come....

Quickly, some pictures from the opening before I go in to a session...


The entrance to the Convention Centre, with some great public art



Whoa!!! What was that...?! I didn't even hear it come up!



Some of the 2000 registered delegates still signing in. I ran in to Jack O'Toole from the County of GP as I walked in.


Delegates start getting seated for the opening ceremonies.


I think most of council is going to the session I'm heading into now:

FCM’s Green Municipal Fund and Sustainable Community Plans

Moderator:Mayor Jean Perrault, FCM First Vice-President

Speakers:Mayor Alan DeSousa, Saint-Laurent Borough, Montréal, Que.; Councillor Karen Leibovici, City of Edmonton, Alta.; Mayor Marcel Robert, City of Sorel-Tracy, Que.

FCM’s Green Municipal Fund (GMF) offers funding and other resources to help municipal governments meet their sustainable development goals. A key focus of FCM’s Green Municipal Fund is providing grants to assist municipal governments with the development of sustainable community plans. More and more municipalities are adopting sustainable community plans.
In many provinces, they are a prerequisite for federal gas tax transfers; in others, they are mandated by the provincial government, such as through Québec’s Sustainable Development Act.

This session will provide best practice examples of sustainable community plans. Panelists will discuss the challenges and
opportunities they encountered when developing their sustainable community plans.The session will also highlight funding opportunities available through the GMF.

FCM Conference 2008

So, I'm sitting in the GP airport waiting to board Air Canada for an overnight flight to Quebec City.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities annual conference is this week from the 28th to the 2nd. Most of councils is going except for Mayor Logan and Ald. Gustafson.

Over the next few days I'll try to do some mobile blogging from the convention to let you know what's going on. I brought my camera too so I might post a few pics here and there.

Boarding time!