Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
The whole point of the project is that people will move to exurban exurban subdivisions and use property value increases to pay for the service. Sprawl isn’t a side effect of this plan, it is the entire objective of this plan.
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There is also another side effect this plan will bring. If, as Moose hopes, that having commuter rail in the communities it serves increases property values, it could have the opposite effect of pushing people away from those towns. A lot of people move to places that far away because they want the biggest house they can get for their budget. People can be very price sensitive over home purchases (understandably). And there will be lots of towns without a rail connection that they can go to instead.
The only way it could truly be effective is if the whole entire region, not just the NCR and beyond, was under a single planning body. But with Moose serving so many local municipalities that are independent of each other, they can adapt and compete with others. Within the City of Ottawa they can properly plan for transit oriented development. Beyond the city limits, there will some local council ready to sell itself to perspective buyers as soon as those Moose linked towns start to see an increase in real estate values.
Edit: And thinking about that made also made me think that there is another reason why the economy of scale argument for needing to build it all at once is kind of nonsense. If you consider the price sensitivity of people moving to the exurbs, there is likely only a limited market for those kind of home buyers that want to be in an exurb 50, 60, 80 km away from where they work, but don't mind paying higher prices, or buying something smaller, so that they could have a commuter rail station to take a 60 - 90 minute trip into work everyday. If you have just one or two lines, then your potential market is limited to perhaps 8 or 10 locations as possible choices, as opposed to 30, which would give a higher population to those locations, and perhaps make Moose less of a losing proposition.
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