Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
It's like an ice cream stand that offers vanilla ice cream immediately and chocolate with 10 minute wait. They complain about the cost of upgrading the chocolate machine to make it as fast as the vanilla because 80% of the customers order vanilla which is proof that it's their favourite. A saner person would conclude that it's necessary to upgrade the chocolate machine so that customers will have an equal opportunity to enjoy something other than vanilla.
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The risk of that business model is that even if 50% of the current vanilla customers say they will switch to chocolate if the upgrades are done, there is no guarantee that they will actually buy chocolate when it's done, or continue to buy chocolate after the novelty of being able to get it has worn off. If the cost of upgrading the chocolate machine is insanely high, this could be a major hit for the business. The real key point is that there is no guarantee that the ability to get faster chocolate ice cream will bring in extra or more frequent customers to offset the cost of the upgrades. If you only convert a portion of your existing vanilla customers to chocolate without bringing in additional business, then you've just decreased your profit margin for the sake of making only a moderate percentage of your customers happier, unless you increase the cost of the chocolate which again puts it at a disadvantage to the vanilla.
Not that it applies to transit, as it is more based on need rather than a fickle flavour preference, but just stating that there is a bit of risk involved in the "build it and they will come" philosophy.
Personally, I would like to see some substantial change in our transit system to include rail, and that may come yet with the potential of using the existing rail cut. How we move people from there is still up for grabs, but I think it's quite probable that a revamped bus system would be adequate, after some of the load is taken off the existing bus system by a new rail system.
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