Quote:
Originally Posted by cornholio
You can solve congestion by building more roads. You just need to be able to keep up or slow growth, or both.
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The problem is that when you build a bigger road to relieve the congestion, it makes land on the other side more valuable and attracts new development. If no transit has been built into the area, then it has to be built to accommodate cars instead. People who move into the area are then car dependent, and as a result you get more congestion.
This is exactly why Surrey is such a transit wasteland. All of the major shopping and business developments are ensconced in the middle of vast parking lots. Housing is a mess of cul de sacs which discourage walking and make convenient and efficient transit impossible. Once that stuff is built it's almost impossible to change.
You can't slow growth without building a Trump-style fence, which is impossible under Canadian law. This area is too desirable to live in. Even if foreigners weren't buying up property there's a while generation of baby boomers about to retire across Canada, many of whom would like to come here. The only viable solution is to manage growth through good planning, and to do that you have to recognize that transit is just as important as roads.
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