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Originally Posted by Corndogger
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.
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First... welcome to skyscraperpage.
Second.. your comments are very well stated. Calgary is witnessing its transit system grinding down ..while the bill to upgrade the current system is looking to exceed several hundred million dollars... replacing and adding cars .. and upgrading the older stations to handle 4 cars..
PLUS three quarters of a Billion to add new 6 stop line.
Roadways have proven to be vastly superior at handling trafic, no to mention it has much greater freedom for destination. Winnipeg is not the downtown centric city that Calgary is. In addition Winnipeg relies on its transportaion industry to a much higher degree than Calgary to support the economy.... I don't see large amounts of distribution of goods moving on the Sommerset Line ine Calgary.. and I don't think Winnipeg would either.
