The good folks over at Pundits' Guide have used recently released numbers from Statistics Canada's 2006 Census to put together a fancy list of the Top 10 Canadian ridings where people cycle or walk to work. I've taken a look at the StatsCan data and have put together a list for Alberta's two largest urban areas (but in a dramatic turn of events, I have included public transit, as well as walking or cycling):
Ridings having the highest percentages of walking, cycling, or using public transit to the person's usual place of work:
Riding-Number-Percentage
Calgary Centre - 29,305 - 24.4%
Edmonton Centre - 20,490 - 16.5%
Calgary Centre-North - 20,715 - 16.2%
Calgary-Nose Hill - 12,595 - 12.7%
Edmonton-Strathcona - 16,430 - 12.5%
Calgary Northeast - 13,125 - 11.6%
Calgary West - 14,560 - 11.5%
Edmonton East - 12,930 - 11.3%
Calgary Southwest - 14,370 - 11.1%
Calgary East - 12,080 - 10.3%
Calgary Southeast - 11,180 - 9.5%
Edmonton-Sherwood Park - 7,670 - 6.1%
Edmonton-Leduc - 6,550 - 5.9%
Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont - 7,320 - 5.7%
Edmonton-St. Albert - 7,350 - 5.6%
Edmonton-Spruce Grove - 6,365 - 5.3%
It's no surprise that people living in the urban cores are more likely to walk, cycle, or use public transit to travel to work, but keep in mind that the numbers are probably a little skewed because 1) five of Edmonton ridings include rural and surrounding communities (which suffer from a lack of regional transit service), and 2) Calgary gets points for having an arguably more effective transit and LRT system, but it's an interesting look none-the-less.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
who's walking, cycling, or using public transit?
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8 comments:
Interesting list dave. With the U-Pass (!!) and South LRT expansion these numbers are likely up in Edmonton from 2006.
Anon: While I do think that McKeen raises a lot of valid points (and I do agree that the municipal level is where the real action is, and is the level of government that has had to be the most innovative in the face of downloading and cutbacks from the prov and fed governments), I disagree with name calling.
Smith, Chretien, Martin, and Klein may have been short-sighted in their fiscal decision making (especially when it came to cut backs in public infrastructure maintenance), but I don't believe that they were "dumb."
And I'm certain that spending $156 million to build a 650 car parkade underneath the Legislature grounds and the Federal building will do wonders to increase these numbers.
The CWF report outlines the ramifications of the short-sighted fiscal policies of the 1990s. The age of Dinning and Martin cutbacks are direct results of what we were asking for in the 1990s and they showed this by who they voted for. Did they make mistakes? Yes. People and politicians wanted balanced budgets and cutbacks immediately at whatever the cost. Did people think about what this would mean in 2008? Absolutely not.
The costs we are paying now are the costs of not properly maintaining public infrastructure. It fell apart and now we have to pay triple, quad, or quintuple to replace roads, schools, colleges, universities, and hospitals that we weren't taking responsible care of. Financial projections became more important than community, rather than a balance.
We have an opportunity to regain what we had responsibly. Our cities are doing it and they should get the support they need to bring our infrastructure back to par.
Nunavut is number 1?
Towns in Nunavut is smaller and people can walk.
The main editorial in today's Edmonton Journal:
Cities must benefit from transit plan
Let's take a closer look at the $2 billion that Premier Ed Stelmach designated for public transit projects last week.
Edmonton and Calgary are both getting their hopes up for a share of the cash for badly needed expansions to their LRT systems -- as well they should. Both cities have waited a long time for some signal that the cash-rich province is willing to support expensive LRT lines that are crucial to managing the rapid growth of recent years.
Neat. I live in the 24% riding! Go Calgary Centre!
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