Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee_Haber8
Misplaced Theory? It has been shown again and again that you cannot build yourself out of congestion. The only true way to reduce congestion is to implement road pricing. Building better public transit and planning in a way that encourages walking and cycling can help replace car passenger traffic with goods traffic - like it was back in the early twentieth century. Advances in society happen when we use resources more efficiently and effectively and the private automobile is an incredibly inefficient and expensive way of moving large numbers of people. Think about the capital cost of a car, along with maintenance and the cost of repairing the roads they use. Think about how a light-rail line moves the same number of people as eight-lanes of freeway traffic using far less land, money and without ruining the area it goes through. So by moving away from cars and automobile infrastructure we are in effect improving the environment, the economy and society.
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I've never posted before so hopefully I'm doing this right!
I can't get over how many people in this forum buy into the notion that you can't build your way out of congestion and that roads create traffic etc. It has been proven that roads do not create more traffic by themselves which really isn't surprising when you think about it. It is economic prosperity that helps people buy cars and social engineering and inept road planners that cause congestion.
As for your point about light rail being so efficient in moving people I have to disagree with your notions despite the fact that they keep getting mentioned over and over by the anti-car lobby. I'll take Calgary, where I live, as an example. Our Mayor during the current election campaign has said he wants the city to build a new LRT line that will cost about $700 or $750 million. The line is going to have 5 stations I believe and be about 6.5 km. long. In other words, nothing special. This line is supposed to handle the equivalent of two lanes of free flowing traffic--at least that's what I read and it makes more sense than the eight lane figure you mention. LRT might handle massive amounts of people but it only does so at certain times and if you happen to being going where it goes. Which in Calgary usually means downtown during rushhour or home at the end of the day.
As a counter example, the province in a P3 deal is building a 21 km. stretch of freeway that will be totally freeflow with a number of interchanges and flyovers and be setup to handle expansion in the future. The cost is something like $930 million but this includes all of the maintenance work for 30 years. The LRT figure of $750 million doesn't include any extra costs.
Which brings up another point. Transit isn't nearly as cost effective as some people want us to believe. Last year or two years ago Calgary bought 32 LRT cars for $128 million or $4 million/car. I believe we got a deal because we piggybacked on to the order another city had placed. In the next year or so the city needs to spend a considerable amount of money replacing old cars. And once the system grinds to complete a halt downtown they'll be forced to build a tunnel. But before that happens they'll waste between $150 and $200 million redesign the current stations. I know someone else from Calgary will dispute that last point but having lived here my entire life I'll go with my experience over what should be common sense.
Any city in Western Canada with decent planners and given all of the gas tax money that drivers pay should easily be able to build a road system that efficiently and effectively moves drivers around the city. Not to mention that it would be fully paid for unlike transit where fares only pay for about 35% of operating costs in Calgary and none of the capital costs.