Adanaccity Transportation Service

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                  MODULE 6, ASSIGNMENT 5

This case has been prepared for CMA Canada for use as an educational tool in its SLP and Executive programs. It illustrates some major issues potentially faced in operating a municipal transit service. The case is intended to serve as a basis for group discussion, and it does not necessarily reflect correct or incorrect handling of the issues raised in this case by municipal managers. Adanac City is a hypothetical city. Although the issues raised reflect some recent realistic events and situations encountered in some Canadian cities, they do not refer to any specific city or individuals, per se, and all information related to Adanac City is hypothetical or disguised.

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Adanac City Transportation Services: “Catch-22”

Destiny is a good thing to accept when it’s going your way. When it isn’t, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck (Joseph Heller, Catch-22, 1961).

With the forthcoming municipal elections in approximately six months, the Adanac City Council is debating approaches for upgrading the City’s transit services at its regularly scheduled Council meeting—many of which have been marred by controversy. The City transit services have been identified as the top priority issue by the citizens in public consultations. Transportation was also heavily debated and became a heated issue in the previous municipal elections with the incumbent Mayor losing the election to a “newcomer,” who promised financial prudence and a comprehensive transportation strategy.

Examples of comments at recent council and community meetings (refer to Appendix A), demonstrate the tone and complexity of the issues in question and the idiomatic “Catch-22” nature of public service provision in general. They pit the conflicting political interests of elected municipal councillors and federal and provincial politicians against the administrative responsibilities of municipal administrators to provide efficient and effective public services. Before the next Council meeting, at which the transit issues are the major agenda item, the Mayor is pondering: “What are we to do? We can never make all stakeholders happy—there are bound to be winners and losers! Like in Catch-22, we are ‘doomed’ if we take action and doomed if we don’t!”