COLUMN: Carillon Flashback: September 22, 1971 – Mayor Penner proposes a public transit system

Every conceivable mode of transportation, from horseback to bicycle and automobile to airplane, has been available to Steinbach residents, but there always has been major exception.

As impossible as it seems, Steinbach Mayor A.D. Penner thinks Steinbach’s Main Street is an ideal place to have a train. A.D. says he is thinking of the future, when parallel parking comes in and shoppers find themselves with a shortage of parking spaces, facing a long walk to downtown stores.

The “train” the mayor has in mind is not one that runs on tracks, but a rubber-tired model like the one people ride when they visit Disneyland. Or perhaps, it could be a more sophisticated model of the “Checkerboard Special” local entrepreneur Chuck Toews piloted down Main Street during the 1968 Pioneer Days parade.

The mayor proposed the train would provide public transit from the east end of Steinbach to the C.T. Loewen plant, west on Highway 52. This would provide free transportation to all the stores in downtown Steinbach for those who have to park a distance from their shopping destination.

The mayor sees his train idea as a less expensive alternative to supplying additional public parking lots downtown. A single paved and well-lit lot, sure to be necessary, would cost $200,000, without figuring in the additional cost of snow removal. The same amount of money would cover the cost of a train and provide an operating budget including two conductors for nearly 14 years, Penner said.

Mayor Penner said he expected people to call his plans for a train crazy, but felt it was a possible solution to a very serious problem.

“I am willing to listen to any other ideas members of the community may have.”

Penner said discussions with the police department and highways department have changed his mind about the introduction of parallel parking. He no longer thinks that parallel parking is the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard of, because of all the parking spaces lost.

“In the past few years, the damage to vehicles in Steinbach accidents on Main Street alone has risen drastically, from $12,000 in 1967 to double that two years later. These numbers don’t include the number of small dents that go unreported every year.”

Doug Struthers at the Highways Department noted that studies have shown, according to the number of accidents and amount of traffic per mile, that it is twice as dangerous to drive on Steinbach Main Street as on Portage Avenue in Winnipeg.

The mayor also expressed concern that if parallel parking and a safer Main Street did not become a reality in the near future, a large business concern might move into the area to offer an alternative to Steinbach shoppers. He cited other small towns, where a shopping centre was built between two towns with the inducement of ample free parking, doing untold damage to local merchants.

In the case of Steinbach, the mayor said, if free transportation were provided for customers, who could not find a parking space near a particular store, merchants would be ensured of business they might otherwise lose.