Quote:
Originally Posted by Procrastinational
As long as no one is made worse off, why would it matter? For that condition to be met, the toll lanes would simply have to be created by adding capacity, rather than converting existing lanes.
Working class people wouldn't be affected negatively. They'd actually benefit on the odd occasion they really need to get somewhere in a timely matter. Even if you don't use the tolls lanes and prefer to sit in traffic 99% of the time, it's nice to have the option. It would also be beneficial for high priority business deliveries.
Then there's the question of where the toll revenue goes. If it goes towards improving highways for everyone, or even better, towards improving transit, then even people who can't afford to use the lanes benefit. It's a win-win. If the rich are willing to pay a significant amount of money to bypass traffic, all the more power to them. Especially if it means they are effectively subsidizing transit users.
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Nope nope nope. That is not how "two-tier" systems work.
Two-tier systems work by "let's let those who can pay more, go first" in effect giving them a subsidy in the form of time, and benefiting nobody in line, since they get pushed back.
If you really want to be fair, for every ONE person who gets to jump to the front of line, has to pay for the next 3 people in that line and let them go first, so all 4 of them get their access at once, and thus reducing the line by more than had they simply were allowed to pay to get to the front of the line.
Like the medical system is constrained by the number of doctors, but that is only one factor that increases lineups. The lack of modern equipment and space is the second factor. We should not need these millionaire/children's lottery type of gimmicks to raise money for what the government should be paying for to begin with. In a sense the health care system is backwards, and the poor are paying more in lottery nonsense to fund a broke healthcare system that the rich would only benefit from if they could go to the front of the line.
Now take that analogy to the transit/transportation system. How you get ahead in line is made abundantly clear, pick up some carpool people and take them down the HOV lane if you want to get ahead. This of course only works if the Transit system (eg the bus) continues to have it's own lane. If the HOV lane gets clogged up with 2-people carpools, then the carpool rules have to change to let the transit system continue functioning.
It never makes sense to invoke "let those who can afford it, have it", which is why the real estate/housing problem exists. Nobody can reasonably afford a place to live in Metro Vancouver unless they are stretching themselves too thin, and that means all it takes is a interest rate hike and the subsequent 3 years later you will see a sellers market as everyone who is stretched too thing is forced to sell, leading to a real estate price crash.
As for the GMT replacement. Any project bridge without rapid transit lanes is a bad idea, I don't care if it's BRT/HOV or LRT/RRT lanes, but they need to exist otherwise you're not increasing mobility at all.
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