Cochrane town council is moving ahead with examining how local transit can be established but they are doing so cautiously and even the 'P' word--plebiscite--was tossed around.

At its Nov. 27 meeting, council OKed the hiring of an expert to analyze options for local transit and to oversee public engagement. Council added a public task force to aid in examining how or if transit should be established. Even with these two tools, some councillors didn't shut the door on holding a public vote before implementing any service.

It was Councillor Morgan Nagel who proposed a task force be added to the makeup of the transit deliberations and it was greeted with open arms by fellow councilors and fits particularly well into the philosophy of Mayor Jeff Genung.

Nagel also gave notice that he would favour a plebiscite before establishing the service, if the proposed operational costs were high or if it would add to congestion in the downtown core.

Nagel says he wouldn't even be opened to examining transit if not for the provincial GreenTRIP capital funding allotted to the town.

If the town can’t produce a cost effective transit system then he believes the money would be better spent addressing the community’s number one priority of improving transportation infrastructure.

“I’m concerned there may be a spending conflict. If it arises that we are going to have to spend a lot of money to implement transit, then maybe we should be spending that money on other projects.”

He is also concerned establishing a transit hub in the downtown core will be detrimental to local businesses because it will add further congestion and massive parking issues.

“If we have 500 or 1,000 people driving downtown everyday to commute into Calgary for the C train, it's going to create crazy traffic congestion in the downtown core. We have nowhere for those vehicles to park, we have no comprehensive downtown parking strategy. I think it will be terrible for local businesses.”

He says there is no cut and dry consensus on what shape transit should take, even within the ranks of town councillor, and believes if the recommended system is costly it should be taken to a plebiscite.

“I don't believe there is support for an ineffective and wasteful transit program.”

Councillor Alex Reed expressed support for the plebiscite should the price tag be high.

“If it’s quite a large amount of money, as it might appear to be, I think definitely a public vote is required.”

He was also supportive of adding the task force to enhance public engagement.

Councillor Marni Fedeyko stressed the need to closely examine the on-demand options available and Suzanne Gaida, assistant chief administrative officer, assured they would be.

It was Councillor Susan Flowers who put the motion on the floor to proceed with hiring the expert to a term position, believing it was the only way for council to get the answers they sought. She was also receptive to the friendly amendment of establishing a task force.

It’s too early to say whether the issue will result in a plebiscite, says Mayor Genung and he believes the creation of a task force is an exciting step forward in allowing the community to deliberate over transit.

“Having a community voice, a business voice, all of that, to help will be tremendous for moving transit forward. Whether that means we end up with a bus system or an on-demand system or no system at all, I don’t know, but I'm excited to go out to the public with the task force.”

Administration will be returning to council with a report on what shape that task force should take and Genung doesn’t foresee having more than two councillors involved, with the balance coming from the community.

Even if it is determined a plebiscite should take place he sees the task force providing input.

“I'll wait to argue that at the time when it comes back to us, but regardless of that, this (administrative) position and task force we've asked for will help in setting what question we go to the community with if we do go to a plebiscite.”

Nagel is impressed with how council was able to take an idea and run with it at the meeting and says it rarely happened with the last council.

“I thought it was great to see our council do that. In my experience there hasn't been a lot of times that council just comes up with an idea on the spot that everybody agrees with and then they pass a motion to make it happened. It was just nice to see our council functioning healthily.”

The same transit presentation was made to the previous council at their last meeting but was deferred to allow the newly-elected council to take ownership of the issue. A 15-page report outlining the next steps in examining the feasibility of transit was prepared by Calgary Transit for the town and discusses issues like timelines, required resources, fares and type of service.

During budget deliberations, council reduced funding for transit until it had a clearer picture of what model, if anything, will be adopted.

In the last budget, the town spent $2 million of the $9 million in GreenTRIP funding to purchase land for a transit hub on Railway St. and begin designing the facility. The initial 2018 budget called for utilizing the remaining $7 million to purchase buses/create bus stops ($2.53 million) and build the transit hub ($4.47 million). Of the $9 million, the province contributed $6 million and the town, $3 million. That has been removed thus far and transit operational spending has been reduced to $115,880 from $327,000.