Digital Copyright and Bill C-32: My Ignite! Waterloo Presentation

A few weeks ago, I gave a shortened version of my C-32 and You presentation at Ignite! Waterloo. It was a great experience, and really challenged me as a speaker. Although I do quite a bit of public speaking, the format of this particular presentation required me to know my presentation cold, and to cut down on the rambling that usually gets me by when I inevitably forget everything shortly after taking the stage.

If you’ve never been out to an Ignite! event, I highly suggest that you check one out. It’s kind of like a TED talk, but each presentation is only 5 minutes long, and consists of 20 slides that auto advance every 15 seconds. Since the event had a videographer, you can choose to either watch my presentation or to scroll down to see my slides and notes. I won’t fault you for either.

Talking Pictures

For all you ADD-riddled folks with no patience, here’s the video version:

In Words

For those of you who like to read stuff, here are my slides and associated text. Keep in mind that the text below the slides is what I was supposed to say, and is not necessarily the same as what I actually said.

Good evening everybody, my name is Jonathan Fritz. Tonight I’d like to speak to you about intellectual property. Before I begin though, I should stress the fact that I’m not a lawyer. I’m just a computer programmer who has spent way too much time reading way too much legalese. To save you from a similar fate, I’ll try to quickly brief you on everything that I’ve learned about copyright.

Intellectual property is a fancy name that lawyers have given to the ownership of ideas. Since ideas are non-physical, intangible, and infinite things, a new set of laws had to be developed so that they could be owned in the same sense as the physical objects that we’re all used to. This lead to the three primary types of intellectual property and their associated bodies of law.

The first type of intellectual property that I’d like to address is called a Trademark. This is a distinctive sign or indicator that is used by a business to identify itself, its products, and services to customers. Common trademarks include slogans, catch-phrases, jingles, and logos.

The second type of intellectual property is called a Patent. This is a set of legal rights that can be issued to the inventor or discoverer of some method or process. Once a patent has been granted, its holder retains the sole right to benefit from any implementation of their invention or idea for a finite period of time.

The third type of intellectual property, and the on that I want to focus on this evening, is called Copyright. Once granted, it gives the author of a recorded work the exclusive right to distribute copies of that work for a finite period of time. Throughout most of the world, whenever you commit something to record, you are immediately granted copyright to that work.

Now the differences between these bodies of law are key. Both trademarks and patents protect ideas and concepts – abstract stuff that isn’t tangible. Copyright on the other hand, protects the expression of those ideas, like a book or a compact disc. When a work is copyrighted, the copyright holder can control who makes and distributes copies of the work, but not the ideas or themes that the work deals with.

The idea behind copyright is to provide an incentive for authors to make more stuff. We all enjoy the stuff that they make, and so we agree to give up some of our personal rights to ensure that they can afford to continue to make it. This requires that we strike a careful balance; we don’t want to give up too many rights, but we do want authors and artists to be able to make a living.

Copyright is a poorly named body of law. The truth is, the rights that it provides aren’t natural rights as the name implies. They are awarded by governments and courts. This means that we all have to agree on the rights that copyright provides to both the author and the user of her work. This fact is often lost in the rhetoric surrounding debates about the subject.

The idea of copyright only works because of the temporary monopoly that it provides. When that monopoly expires, the works that copyright protects go into the creative commons. This means that anybody can use them in any way, shape, or form. As copyright terms lengthen, works enter the commons with less regularity, and we chance losing access to our history and culture.

Note: This slide should read public domain in place of creative commons. The two are distinct and equally important concepts that shouldn’t be confused. Sorry. – Jonathan

In order for this temporary monopoly to work out, it has to be just that: Temporary. When copyright was original proposed, the term lasted for only fourteen years. In present-day Canada, copyright terms last for fifty years past the death of their original owner. In the USA and the UK, terms last for seventy years past the death of their original owner.

Artists are inspired by the works of others. “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” That’s a Pablo Picasso quote that was stolen by Steve Jobs. Because artists don’t create in a bubble, they need access to past works in order to create inspiring and relevant art. If our works of art stop being distributed just as soon as they are no longer profitable to their owners, we as a society lose access to them.

Back in June, the Conservative Federal Government introduced Bill C-32. The goal of the bill is to modernize copyright law in Canada. This is a great idea, because our current laws date back to 1997.

If you’ve been on the internet since 1997, you’ll know that a lot has changed. The rise of digital cloud-based media like Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, Last.FM, and Pandora have really challenged our conception of traditional copyright. We don’t really have anything in our existing laws to handle these technologies.

In addition, common activities like ripping a CD or DVD to your computer, or taping a television show on your VCR or PVR to play back later are technically illegal under current Canadian law. The proposed bill includes lots of positive clauses that correct these problems with our current laws.

In recent years, file-sharing has kind of broken down traditional media economies. Today, it is possible to make an unlimited number of perfect copies of a movie or a song and send them to friends via the internet for next to nothing. This poses a serious challenge to traditional media companies who made their money by controlling the distribution of physical media.

To counter this trend, media companies started to encrypt their content and began selling licenses to unlock it. This practice is called DRM, or Digital Rights Management. It generally stops people from making copies of their media, and is currently used to protect video games, movies, television broadcasts, and other media. Bill C-32 aims to make it illegal to break this protection once it has been placed on your media.

The problem with this approach is that it has already been tried, and has failed miserably. In 1998, the USA passed the DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act. It resulted in thousands of people being sued by record and movie companies, and yet piracy rates have only increased since its introduction.

In 1999, Napster was introduced, and file-sharing became a household phenomenon. In 2001, BitTorrent improved on the technology, and file sharers started to move entire movies around the internet in addition to smaller music files. By 2005, YouTube had made a business model out of sharing largely copyrighted music and video clips that were all ripped from protected sources.

So get in touch with your government and make your voice heard. Anti-circumvention laws like those proposed in C-32 don’t work, and just result in people getting sued by entertainment companies who are cannibalizing their own consumer base instead of modernizing their business practices. I’ve only managed to touch on the tip of the iceberg during this presentation, so please check out my various online presences or come and talk to me after the show if you’d like to discuss copyright and Bill C-32 farther.

In Closing

That’s about it. Be sure to check out all of the videos from this and past Ignite! Waterloo events on their YouTube page, and to take a look at the reviews that my colleagues Tyler Burton and Phil Downey posted earlier this week.

C-32 and You: My #kwdm Presentation

This past Thursday, I did a presentation about the dangers of Bill C-32 for the Kitchener Web Design Meetup (KWDM). It went really well, and the audience had a lot of questions and provided some great feedback. Unfortunately, since I didn’t think to record the audio from the presentation, you’ll have to make do with my slides and notes. Enjoy.

1. Introduction
   
   • Good evening, my name is Jonathan Fritz. Tonight I’m going to attempt the nearly impossible: I’d like to discuss copyright law, while not putting you to sleep
2. Not a Lawyer
   
   • Copyright law is something that I’ve taken an interest in during my spare time. I’d like to make it clear from the outset that I am not a lawyer.
3. I am a Programmer
   
   • During the day, I’m a programmer for a small company called Skybound Software, and the co-owner of another small company called inScope Software and Solutions
   • The only reason that I mention these is because I want to make it clear that everything that I talk about this evening is 100% my opinion, and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employers or business partners
4. The Crowd
   
   • Now that the boring legal crap is out of the way, let’s jump into some more boring legal crap
   • Ok, so I’d like to see what kind of people we have in the audience tonight. Show of hands if you’re a:
     • Web developer
     • Web or print designer
     • Artist, photographer, or musician
     • Programmer or engineer
   • You may not realize it, but copyright law affects each and every one of you every single day
5. Copyright
   
   • Any time you commit something to record, be it a computer program, a photograph, a piece of music or art, it is covered in Canada by copyright.
6. What is Copyright?
   
   • Copyright is a poorly named body of law that gives people who make stuff a monopoly on the distribution of that stuff for a finite period of time
   • This is an effort to ensure that they make a decent living off of their stuff, and thus have an incentive to make even more stuff.
   • As a society, we enjoy the use of the stuff that they create, and so we give up some of our personal rights and freedoms to ensure that the people that create stuff can afford to continue to do so.
7. Poorly Named
   
   • I say that copyright is poorly named because it isn’t actually a right
   • It’s a privilege awarded by law, and thus by society as a whole.
   • In order for this to work, we have to all agree that the terms set out in copyright law are an appropriate balance between personal freedoms, and creators’ ability to make a decent living.
8. Lord Macaulay
   
   • During an 1841 debate in the British house of commons, one Lord Macaulay did a great job outlining this dilemma:
9. Evil Quote
   
   • “[Copyright] is a tax on readers for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers. The tax is an exceedingly bad one… It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good”
10. Inspiration
    
    • So here’s the thing: In order for the temporary monopoly to work out as planned, it has to end within a reasonable period of time.
    • Society has to get their rights back at some point, or else they aren’t getting a fair deal.
    • Artists’ work is informed and influenced by the work of their contemporaries.
    • Without the ability to access, borrow from, or outright steal inspiration from other pieces of art, most artists wouldn’t be able to create with any kind of regularity.
    • Pablo Picasso by way of Steve Jobs: “Good artists borrow, great artists steal”
    • Imagine taking a photo haven never seen another persons’ work with lighting and composition.
    • Writing a song without ever nicking a particularly nice chord or melody?
    • Artists don’t create in a bubble – they filter and combine all kinds of different influences into works of their own.
11. Ghosts
    
    • Way back in ancient history, the monopoly awarded by copyright only lasted 14 years.
    • After that period, it was assumed that the rights’ holder had made his money (and it was always his money), and the work moved into the creative commons, meaning that anybody could use it however they saw fit.
    • Today in Canada, copyright lasts 50 years past the death of the rights’ holder.
    • Some countries have pushed that up to 70 years past death
12. Afoul of the Law
    
    • This means that far less media ends up in the creative commons while it is still relevant to society, which makes it increasingly hard for artists to create without running afoul of the law
13. Preservation of Culture, intro to C-32
    
    • More importantly, when reinforced by something called digital rights management, copyright laws make it very possible that our culture will not be preserved in the same way that past cultures were – but more on that later
    • Back in early June, the conservative government released Bill C-32, “The Copyright Modernization Act.”
    • It has been sponsored by the Honourable James Moore, Minister of Heritage and Official Languages, and the Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry.
    • Just like the title says, this bill aims to modernize Canadian copyright law. This is a really good idea, because our current laws were haven’t been revised since 1997
14. 1997 Websites:
    
    • In 1997, the top five websites on the internet were:
      • Geocities
      • Yahoo (including services called yahooligans, yahoo sports, and my yahoo)
      • Starwave corporation “where more people click”
      • Excite, Magellan, and City.net
      • PathFinder, and the family of Time/Warner and CNN sites
15. 2010 Websites:
    
    • In March of 2010, the to five websites were: (15)
      • Google
      • Facebook
      • Yahoo
      • YouTube
      • MSN
16. You are a criminal
    
    • As you’ve probably noticed, a few things have changed.
    • Old folk may also remember that the infamous Napster, the first file-sharing service, wasn’t invented until 1999.
    • And BitTorrent, the American entertainment industry’s nefarious arch-enemy wasn’t invented until 2001.
    • Similarly, YouTube, harbinger of all things evil, didn’t hit the tubes until 2005.
    • Simply put, our existing laws don’t cover any of these massive shifts in technology, and many of the things that Canadians do on a daily basis are actually considered illegal under current laws.
17. The Good
    
    • Some important sections of proposed law that aims to fix these problems:
      • Network Services section:
        • a safe harbour clause for Internet service providers and other network operators.
        • Provides legal protection for hosting service operators whose customers may have uploaded copyrighted works to their servers
      • Copyright Infringement section:
        • sets maximum monetary awards for copyright owners who successfully charge an individual with infringement of works for personal or commercial use.
        • Given the astronomical awards granted by American courts in both the Capitol vs. Thomas (2007) and RIAA vs. Tenenbaum (2009) cases, this is an extremely important clause
      • Non-commercial User-generated Content section:
        • Makes it totally legal for you to sample copyrighted works for the purposes of creating a non-commercial mashup.
        • Now you can legally use whatever music you like as the soundtrack to your cute kitten and dancing baby videos.
      • Reproduction for Private Purposes section:
        • Allows for time and format shifting practices, thus making TiVo and iPods legal technologies in Canada, which sounds like something out of that old Rick Mercer bit, Talking to Americans.
18. The Bad
    
    • Technological Protection Measures and Rights Management Information section: counteracts every positive aspect of the proposed bill
    • Bans any technology or device capable of circumventing any technological protection measure (TPM) or called digital rights management (DRM) schemes that have been placed on the digital content by its distributor
    • The bill is written in such a way that this clause takes precedence over every one of those really cool sounding amendments that I just mentioned.
    • Basically, should C-32 pass, you’ll get a whole bunch of rights. But if the distributor of some media decides to put DRM on their products, they don’t matter, and you become a criminal if you attempt to exercise any of them.
    • At this very moment, DVDs, BluRay discs, video games, Cable television, Netflix digital downloads, eBooks, computer software of all sorts, online television services, and an uncountable number of other current and future consumer media products are all protected by some form of DRM.
    • Under the proposed law, none of this digital content can be backed up, moved to a different device, transcoded to a different format, or otherwise tampered with, because to do so would require that its owner break the DRM that has been placed on it, thus making that person a criminal in the eyes of Canadian courts.
    • So why do manufacturers use DRM anyway? Well, they seem to have gotten this idea that it somehow prevents people from pirating their media. Unfortunately, this belief could not be further from the truth.
19. Passive Systems
    
    • To demonstrate this problem, I’ll give you a bit of background on how DRM technologies generally work, demonstrate why they often fail, etc
    • There are basically three kinds of DRM
    • Passive Systems: The distributor of a file encrypts that file with a secret key that’s so big that it is theoretically impossible to guess.
    • She then makes a deal with the manufacturer of the device that is used to play back that file, and embeds the secret key into that device.
    • When a user attempts to play back the media file, the device is able to unlock it, and everything is cool. This is how DVDs work
    • Why they Suck: These systems tend to be very insecure, because they’re susceptible to what cryptographers call a class break.
    • Because all copies of the media file are encrypted with one of a finite number of keys, if somebody figures out a way to break through one copy of the protected media, he can usually manage to break through any piece of media that is protected with the same scheme.
    • Further, all of those keys are stored inside of some piece of software or some device in your living room that you have access to. It is only a matter of time before one is broken into, and the scheme is broken.
20. Active Systems
    
    • Just like before, the distributor of a file encrypts it with a massive secret key.
    • This time, however, she buys some servers, and makes a different deal with the people who distribute playback devices.
    • Now, when a user tries to play a file, the player connects to the server and asks for permission to play the file.
    • The server checks if the user is legitimate, and if so, gives the encryption key to the device. The media is then unlocked, and you can hear your tunes.
    • This is how video game DRM from services like Steam and Electronic Arts work.
    • Because these types of protection call home for permission to start playback, they require that the user has an always-active internet connection.
    • For those with dial up or using mobile devices, this is not always possible, so the scheme has to allow a certain number of plays without speaking to the home server.
    • By definition, this means that they can be attacked, because they can be fooled into thinking that they are always in this limbo state
    • Hybrid Systems: As the name implies, these present some combination of the previous two. In general, the media is encrypted, but in order to unlock it, the playback device executes some program that is embedded in the media that performs the authorization step.
    • This program can usually be easily updated, so that if the scheme is broken, it can be fixed in the field. This is how BluRay discs are protected.
    • These are far more complex than their simple cousins, but also quite a bit more resilient to attack.
    • Unfortunately, in the past, programmers have included malicious code in these types of systems that do some nasty low-level stuff to the users’ computer, potentially leaving it open for attack.
    • This is what happened in the Sony Rootkit case of 2005, in which Sony BMG released 52 CD titles that altered the way that Microsoft Windows functions in an attempt to block users from copying their contents
21. Consumer Suck
    
    • From a consumer perspective, all DRM systems suck.
    • By design, they intentionally limit what users can do with their digital media (see Defective by Design). This means that using digital media that is protected by a DRM scheme is more like licensing it than like purchasing it
    • Additionally, all types of DRM can result in property loss.
    • In the case of passive systems, this can happen if the devices used to play back the media are no longer produced.
    • In active systems, this can happen if the servers that are used for authentication are shut down. This often happens when a digital store ceases to be profitable, or if the company that operates it goes out of business
22. Getting in the Way
    
    • DRM systems that are designed to prevent people from pirating media also tend to get in the way of legitimate customers who are attempting to use their media in perfectly legal and acceptable ways
23. Smart Cows
    
    • Perhaps the most compelling evidence against the legislation of DRM systems is that they simply do not prevent people from pirating media.
    • In general, if you can open a legitimately purchased file, its contents can be copied out to a non-protected format, which can then be distributed.
    • If you can’t said file, but happen to be a hacker or encryption expert, you can usually figure out how to do so in short order
    • As soon as the DRM scheme is broken by one person, they can distribute it all other interested parties by way of the internet.
    • This is called the Smart Cow Problem (it takes only one cow to learn how to open a latch, and then a method can be developed that allows others to follow), and is the biggest issue facing companies relying on DRM to protect their products.
    • Combine this with the fact that every DRM system that I have ever heard of has been broken, often within weeks of release, and that the cost of creating and maintaining a DRM infrastructure can easily run into the billions, and you can see that it isn’t really a great technology to rely on to protect your digital media.
24. Ineffective Laws
    
    • If anti-circumvention laws were truly effective, piracy should never have become the problem that media companies claim that it is today
    • In the United States, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) put anti-circumvention laws like the ones proposed in Bill C-32 in place a full year before the invention of Napster and three years before the introduction of the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol
    • Although laws don’t translate directly into persecutions, they give authorities the tools to stop piracy.
    • In the United States, the MPAA and RIAA have used these tools to bring lawsuits against more than 20,000 of their own customers – and yet, piracy is still a major problem for their member organizations.
25. Locks
    
    • DRM schemes are no more than the digital counterparts of real-world mechanical locks. There has never been, and will never be, a lock that cannot be broken by any determined party with time, knowledge, and resources on their side.
    • Because of these reasons, it is my opinion that the anti-circumvention clause in Bill C-32 makes its current form unacceptable to the Canadian people.
26. What We Can Do
    
    • I’ve been trying to get the word out about this issue in my own way. Obviously, I’m here speaking to you tonight. I’ve also tweeted about the issue, written blog posts on my website and others, written letters to various members of parliament, and spoken personally with Peter Braid, my member of parliament up in Waterloo
27. Contact Me
    
    • If you’re interested in getting involved, in telling me that I’m wrong, or just in talking more about this issue, please don’t hesitate to contact me

More Public Transit Talk

I spent my morning enjoying a coffee while reading through the Region of Waterloo’s Moving Forward 2031 Transportation Master Plan (pdf). It contains some very interesting information related to last week’s post on the feasibility of light rail transit here in the Region of Waterloo.

The report reviews the justification for some sort of rapid transit system, discusses three alternative plans for the building of such a system, the tax burden imposed by each, and the justification for settling on a north-south light rail line supported by a series of east-west iXpress-like bus routes. One of the most interesting pieces of information in the document concerns the current rate of rapid transit growth, as reported by the GRT:

Since 1999, annual transit ridership has increased from 9.5 million rides in 2000 to 16.5 million rides in 2009; a 75 per cent increase or 6.3 per cent annually. This increase is significant compared with the population increase of 1.85 per cent per year in the region. The commitment to funding increased service levels and new initiatives such as the iXpress has played a key role in ridership increases.

It also contains a map of the region upon which the proposed upgrades to our public transit system have been superimposed:

A map of proposed improvements to the transit system here in Waterloo Region (Click to Enlarge)

Finally, the document announces three public consultations to be held this month in Cambridge, Kitchener, and Waterloo. The meetings will present current plan for the future of transit in our region, and accept public feedback on the proposed improvements. The meetings are as follows:

Thursday, April 8, 2010
United Kingdom Club
35 International Village Dr.,
Cambridge

Tuesday, April 13, 2010
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church
54 Queen St. N.,
Kitchener

Thursday, April 15, 2010
First United Church
16 William St. W.,
Waterloo

Check out the to the TriTAG Blog for related information on the future of transit in the Region of Waterloo.

Light Rail Transit?

Earlier this week, I stumbled across the third episode of a new podcast called The 100 that was all about issues local to Waterloo Region, politics included. One of the primary issues that was discussed in the episode was the state of public transit here in Waterloo Region, which naturally led into a discussion about the proposed Light Rail Transit system (LRT). Listening to the piece, I realized just how uninformed I am about the proposal. Since the LRT has been a divisive issue since its introduction, and since there are so many misconceptions surrounding the project, I decided to try and learn as much about it as I could. In the process, I will try to dispel some of the myths surrounding the proposal.

A little bit of background

The proposed route of the LRT (Click to Enlarge)

According to the Region of Waterloo’s Rapid Transit website, the LRT will be a system of public transportation that forms a backbone for attractive, inexpensive public transit that runs through our city centre. It will be constructed in two phases: in the first, a light rail system will be built between Conestoga Mall in Waterloo and the Fairview Park Mall in Kitchener, with a bus route running from Fairview Park mall to the Ainslie Street terminal in Cambridge. In the second phase, the bus line to Cambridge will be replaced with a continuation of the light rail transit line.

The entire project will cost the region an estimated $790 million to build, with an additional $1 million per year set aside to help build transit ridership in Cambridge for the first ten years of the project. The operating cost overhead added to our existing public transit system will result in a property tax increase of about $40 per year per household. The region is currently seeking funding for the project from the federal and provincial governments, who have promised up to 2/3 of the required monies in past budgets and announcements. Construction of the first phase of the LRT is expected to begin in 2012, with the line slated to open in late 2014.

Why the focus on the city centre?
When many people hear about the plans for the LRT, their first reaction is that we shouldn’t pour such a massive amount of money into a transit system that will ‘really only benefit those who live or work near the city centre.’ The planned line runs north to south along King Street for the majority of its distance, and many see it as a system that will benefit only a minority of our population. So why the focus on the city centre?

Basically, the region is landlocked. According to the regulations of the province of Ontario’s Places to Grow initiative, by 2015, at least 40% of all annual residential development within the urban areas of Waterloo Region must take place in the urban centres of our existing cities. The regulations further stipulate that we must intensify these core areas so that our cities demonstrate a minimum of 200 people and jobs per hectare of land. This means an end to the sprawling suburbs that we’ve been building to accommodate our expanding population for the past 50 years. The new focus is on building upward instead of outward.

The Region estimates that when our census data is combined with these new provincial stipulations, we can expect an influx of around 100,000 people to our city centre over the course of the next two decades; likely more once the LRT and other urban renewal projects are completed. This growth will exacerbate the traffic problem that is already present in the area, and we will need to come up with some way to relieve that congestion, lest the city grind to a halt.

So what about building more roads or increasing the number of buses?
Unfortunately, due to the less than ideal urban planning of years past, there really isn’t any more room for roads in the downtown areas of Kitchener and Waterloo, unless we demolish existing commercial and residential buildings in order to accommodate road widening. While this alone is an undesirable solution, wider roads also tend to reduce the desirability of a neighbourhood, as they increase noise and traffic, and present a physical barrier to pedestrian travel. Since the overall goal of this project is to increase the density of our downtown core, more or wider roads are not the answer. Another consideration is parking availability. Many people currently avoid our downtown areas because parking is at a premium. A fast, cost-effective transit system would allow both consumers and employees to reach downtown shops and workplaces without having to bring their cars with them.

A GRT Bus

All right, so we need public transit for the downtown core. How about buses? According to Grand River Transit, bus service alone cannot continue to provide enough capacity for the projected increases in regional population and transit ridership. The existing iXpress system runs a route very similar to that of the proposed LRT system, and is already running at near capacity. Simply increasing the number of buses on the road will lead only to further congestion of our busy roadways, as buses share a lane with other traffic, and are constantly stopping and starting. Traffic congestion already makes our bus system unreliable, and thus undesirable to the vast majority of our population. A transit system like the LRT that travels within a dedicated lane can avoid this problem.

Finally, unlike widened lanes or increased bus frequency, a permanent LRT installation is a quiet, efficient, and attractive public transit solution that tends to increase property values and standard of living along its route. Should this claim seem incredulous, I urge you to read about an example case study from the City of Portland, Oregon.

Will this thing actually be used?
According to the Region, transit models developed in association with the Universities of Waterloo and Toronto show that ridership throughout the downtown core can be expected to nearly triple with an LRT system in place. The same model predicted a ridership of 27,000 passengers per day on opening (about three times as many as the iXpress route currently services), with an expected increase to 56,000 passengers per day by 2031. Although the estimated growth in ridership may seem large, one must keep in mind the estimated population influx of over 100,000 residents to the area over the same period of time.

Those who live outside of the area directly surrounding the installation will also be able to use it. The region has proposed three park and ride facilities, and a number of cross-city bus routes similar to the current iXpress system that will run east to west, ferrying passengers to and from the LRT backbone. Ideally, the combination of high speed bus service and the high speed LRT installation will create exactly the kind of desirable public transit system that solves the congestion problems that we face while urging the inner city growth that is required by provincial law.

However, some people aren’t happy with the plan…

The T4ST is a group opposed to the plan

As is to be expected on any large infrastructure project, some members of our community are unhappy with the proposed plan. Unfortunately, many of the fears on which they are basing their assessment of the plan are simply unfounded, and the dissidents show a lack of willing to educate themselves on the issues at hand before commenting. For instance, a petition organized by the Taxpayers for Sensible Transit (T4ST) claims that

“The LRT will turn King Street and other streets into rail corridors. For much of the route, King will be reduced to one lane of car traffic each way. There will be no parallel parking, and left-turns will be impossible. This will reduce accessibility and have a negative impact on many businesses.”

In point of fact, the vast majority of King Street is already one lane of car traffic in each direction, a situation that will not change. While it is true that parallel parking is likely to be removed along much of the route, larger parking structures like the one built across from The Shops at Waterloo Town Square can easily handle the displaced vehicles, and many people will use the LRT to get downtown instead of bringing their cars at all. Left turns will be no harder to make than they are now, as LRT trains will always be given the right of way at intersections, allowing them to move through quickly without disrupting traffic. While the construction process may temporarily reduce accessibility to many businesses along the route, the Region feels that its effects will be more than offset by the increased levels of pedestrian traffic that the LRT system will bring to the downtown core, and the increased population density that the project will encourage along its route.

Although the wording of their petition may be a little bit off base, the Technical Studies page of the T4ST’s website is a little bit better written, and is also worth addressing. In particular, it points out that the estimates of initial ridership and eventual rider growth increased wildly between two studies commissioned by the Region, one from 2005, and the other from 2009. Unfortunately, the claim of the T4ST does not take into account the actual conclusions of the 2005 study (*.pdf), as expressed in the following excerpt:

As points of comparison, the Edmonton LRT system, which is similar in size to the proposed Region of Waterloo system, reports 36,000 daily boardings (track length 12.5 km and 10 stations) with a transit service population of 660,000. By 2041, the Regional transit system and service population assumptions would be similar to Edmonton today. The Portland LRT system (serving a much larger 1.25 M. population) reports 80,000 daily boardings or 1,300 boards per km and 1,500 boards per station. For the Region of Waterloo LRT line, boards per km are estimated at between 900 and 1,900 (2011 to 2041), while boards per station are estimated at between 1,300 and 2,800 (2011 to 2041).

This paragraph rather clearly shows that even with the lower estimates of the 2005 study, the projected ridership of the proposed system was still found to eventually be comparable to similar systems in both Edmonton, Alberta and Portland, Oregon. On the same page, the T4ST also points out that the 2005 study showed that an expanded bus system would cost far less than a light rail system, and thus made much more economic sense for the Region. However, the group discounts the additional benefits of the LRT that the study also revealed. Quoting again from the 2005 study:

The TransDec model is typically used to evaluate traditional transportation projects and is not well suited to evaluate a complex initiative such as the Region’s [rapid  public transit] initiative… The results indicate that although costs of LRT are higher than [bus rapid transit systems] BRT, the benefits associated with LRT are also much greater than BRT and that LRT is much more likely to achieve the benefits associated with the Regional Growth Management Strategy than BRT.

Unfortunately, careful reading of both the T4ST’s website and the studies in question reveal the formers’ tendency towards misinformation. Because the Region’s 2005 study addresses most of the concerns raised by the T4ST, those who agree with their concerns are urged to read it for themselves. The Tri-Cities Transit Action Group (triTAG) also runs an excellent page dedicated to dispelling the myths around the proposed light rail system.

Well, I’m Convinced
Everything that I’ve been able to find about the proposed system makes it seem like a great idea, and one that will finally make our public transportation system attractive to the vast majority of our citizens. It’s no secret that urban sprawl of the kind that we’ve witnessed throughout south-western Ontario increases living costs, raises health concerns, and leads to more time spent commuting than with family. It’s also no secret that while Grand River Transit tries its best to provide timely and reliable bus service, it falls short at times. By avoiding congestion and helping to construct dense communities centred around the service, the light rail transit line will allow us to conform to the demands of the province’s Places to Grow initiative, and will ultimately result in a community that is more attractive and easier to navigate for all of our citizens.