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Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
So you’re essentially surmising that if we had top-notch transit that people would still rather sit in a traffic jam, and struggle to find expensive parking, leaving transit underused? Then why bother with transit at all since people will still consider the car to be a superior way to get around?
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Perhaps the city should just be designed with business centres spread around to the suburbs so everybody isn’t travelling to the same place at the same time? [/QUOTE]
It isn't that "people" (which implies everyone, or at least the majority) would prefer it. It's that there would always be enough people trying to use the roads that the roads would be congested. Many times more people would travel by rail, but car travel requires so much more space per person that there will always be more people wanting to use that space in a major, successful city than there is space available even if that's only say, 5 or 10% of the total number of people entering the city centre.
As to the question of "why bother with transit?" that's pretty simple. Regardless of what anyone wants or prefers, there just isn't enough road space to transport everyone by car without some people being excluded by congestion. And creating a multi-polar city does nothing to address the problems. LA for instance is very multi-polar and suburban with a downtown much smaller than one would expect for the metro area size. But it still has horrible congestion and it makes it harder to provide transit as an alternative since you need lines going to a lot more places with each line serving fewer people. The only solutions are to create options that allow people to bypass congestion or to price road use at a level to prevent congestion. Or both.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
Regardless, I didn’t mean to trigger you on the downtown entry fee thing. My viewpoint has always been that a city becomes a better place to live by improving things vs restrictions to force people into doing things a certain way dictated by “those who know better than you”. The vision of the future being pushed by some is starting to feel a little dystopian to me, and I’m not sure that’s what I want for my city. But then maybe I’m just an old fart, as suggested by another member of the forum already… ![Ha ha](images/smilies/haha.gif)
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I'm not sure why someone disagreeing with what part of what someone said would be referred to as being triggered. Regardless, my only point is that restrictions exist whether we like them or not. The restriction is either that an extra charge dissuades some people from traveling by road, or severe congestion dissuades some people instead. This isn't something anyone is "imposing". It's just a matter of physics roads can only hold so much traffic at once and if people are taking up far more space per person than is needed, the road will carry fewer people which excludes many others who would like to use it. It's just a matter of deciding which policy is the best response to that reality.