Quote:
Originally Posted by alps
No, people aren't going to walk from Kingswood, but Kingwood shouldn't have been given permission in the first place if the infrastructure was inadequate and everyone would be driving in. The people that moved there knew what the commute would be like before they did. Why should people on Bayers have their apartments destroyed or their land expropriated, and where does it end?
|
Devil's advocate:
1) It's built now. The city is responsible for people who live there.
2) People knew they'd live farther out but didn't necessarily sign up for antagonistic policies towards off-peninsula residents and commuters!
3) Expropriating a few houses (most of the land is empty and the widening was planned for -- we are not talking about destroying a neighbourhood) is not a big deal if people are properly compensated. I bet people would be in favour of it if they each got a cheque for $30k on top of their house value. The project would still be worth it with that added cost.
Quote:
Given the inaction of this city on actual plans to restrict sprawl, bad traffic is the only hope I have that things will actually begin to turn around naturally -- that people will seek to live closer to work so that they aren't stuck in gridlock every day.
|
Unfortunately at this point most people live in the suburbs. The failure to provide good transportation around the core has simply encouraged more jobs to move out to the suburbs for the past 20 years.
I am all for investing in transit but there also needs to be an emphasis on cutting commuting times and on weighing costs and benefits. In the case of Bayers Road we're talking about carrying out a planned widening of what's already an artery in order to handle way more traffic.
People also need to accept that the city is growing. Since not all new traffic can be accommodated with transit, and since most HRM transit also needs roads, more roads must be built in order to maintain service levels.
The best thing to lobby for would be dedicated bus lanes. Torpedoing the widening is not necessarily going to help the peninsula.