Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
I think you'll find though that transit usage is strongly affected by the ease in which people can get around by automobile. When there is little incentive to use alternatives, transit usage remains low. But when car usage becomes either too expensive or less convenient due to either congestion or lack of parking, then transit usage increases. Mode share should not be viewed as a variable independent of and unchangeable by planning.
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I have never understood the desire by some to cause congestion and delay as an incentive to make people use transit. That seems extremely wrong-headed. Especially in HRM with the bus-only mindset of MT, causing congestion by refusing to upgrade our obsolete road infrastructure is self-defeating since buses get trapped in that congestion and become even less attractive to users.
It is a complex problem and no single answer will solve it. Part of it comes from offering other modes of transit other than buses on our existing roads, such as rail. Some of the answer comes from rethinking the existing bus route structure to remove the endless parade of buses along Barrington St and the poorly designed routings that many routes have. And part of it comes from fixing our road infrastructure to accommodate the growth we have had since the 1950s when our current roads were largely built. Saying that it will all be OK if only we had bike lanes and trails for people to walk 10km to work, as some do, instead of a practical and workable solution involving all of the moving parts of the equation is just silly.