Regional and Intercity Bus\Rail Transportation

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

I may live downtown but i don't work downtown. I Work at Trainyards mall which is an easy 30 min bus ride. My post is aimed at people who live in the suburbs and work downtown that contribute to the traffic messes the city faces. If people would work close to where they live like many people do then the city would face less problems. My point is guys like me shouldn't subsidize long distance commuters who chose to live far from where they work.

Exactly.

And while I get that this may be impractical for most families, what I see a lot of in Ottawa, is people using that excuse to justify sprawl.

"What if one person has to get a new job?"

Sure. But that doesn't explain why you bought a house in Stittsville when both of you work downtown. What does explain your decision is that you wanted a McMansion on your $90k combined. And now you think the government owes it to you, to bring transit to your hood and widen the highways till your exit.

Originally Posted by acottawa

I agree that most middle class people in this city don’t want to live in high rise buildings over the longer term.

I think part of the problem is that infill development is so expensive. Knocking down a 50s bungalow and building a duplex can involve tens of thousands in drawings, legal fees, permits, etc. Therefore developers tend to target affluent buyers. It would be nice if the city took steps to make these projects more affordable.

It's not like infill is much cheaper in cities around the world. What's different is that developers have no choice but to eat the higher costs, accept lower profits and move on redevelopment because open land is not easily available to them.

Here in North America, not only is open land easy to come by. But development charges don't even come close to covering all the capital costs involved in new developments, since they only take into account immediate needs (school, road in front, water service to home, etc.). And property taxes aren't really differentiated on geography and density either. Since it's all based on value, the person with a $300 000 condo in the core and the person with a $300 000 house in the burbs pay almost the same in taxes (give or take a few special charges). All that practically incentivizes sprawl.