GO Transit

[tomh009]

Greyhound only served the small towns because their licence required them to do so. The business case for serving those towns is no better for private enterprise than it is for the government.

[danbrotherston]

Greyhound only served the small towns because their licence required them to do so. The business case for serving those towns is no better for private enterprise than it is for the government.

I'm suspect you're replying to some insane thing ac3r said...but this is the whole reason we have government...and why it shouldn't rely on "business cases" to decide what to do.

[cherrypark]

Fun exercise: do a business case for vehicle users paying the full value per kilometer of their road use and expansion.

Imagine the furor if Doug said the 413 was doing to be tolled to pay for upkeep. The OPC have removed "free market" pay fors from their existing highways but paying to run buses into places that could grow with connectivity isn't worth it? Come on.

[ijmorlan]

Fun exercise: do a business case for vehicle users paying the full value per kilometer of their road use and expansion.

Imagine the furor if Doug said the 413 was doing to be tolled to pay for upkeep. The OPC have removed "free market" pay fors from their existing highways but paying to run buses into places that could grow with connectivity isn't worth it? Come on.

Right, exactly. Transportation used to be strictly for-hire, run by the private sector. The railways were businesses, operated to make profit for their owners. Later, the street railways and interurbans ran the same way. Yet now almost no passenger railway makes money. Why? Because they are competing with beautiful paved roads available for free (or almost free, if you count the gas tax as a usage fee — but even that is questionable because the gas tax probably doesn’t even cover the climate change externality of burning the fuel). The first railways were competing with horsecarts mostly running on what would barely qualify as a laneway today.

(I know this is hugely simplified; I didn’t even mention the Roman roads, for example)

What we really should be doing is making all superhighways be toll roads, completely funded out of the tolls and with congestion managed by congestion charges. That would take a huge expense off the books and remove a lot of low-value travel from the highways, especially at the busiest times. The only downside is it might become too easy to fund new superhighways, since they would be paid for by their eventual users rather than by increasing the debt.

[danbrotherston]

Fun exercise: do a business case for vehicle users paying the full value per kilometer of their road use and expansion.

Imagine the furor if Doug said the 413 was doing to be tolled to pay for upkeep. The OPC have removed "free market" pay fors from their existing highways but paying to run buses into places that could grow with connectivity isn't worth it? Come on.

The problem with this...is that you basically can do it...the fundamental problem with business cases is that they are fake...a pseudo science. You decide what you want, then you design a business plan that will give you that result.

So, basically you say stuff like "buses going to a city will provide rides for x people at y cost", oh look that's way too high. But then you don't consider things like how you can grow the service, or how valuable those rides are...do they provide options to lower income people who can now survive much better, etc. etc.

It's the same thing that council did regarding hybrid buses 10 years ago. I remember the presentation to council. GRT said "the hybrid buses save y in fuel over their lifetime, and they cost x more in maintenance and purchase price, and since y < x we won't buy them...oh...you mean they also are more pleasant, less polluting in noise and emissions....well, we don't care, because y is still < x..."

But then you come to building a road, oh, well, it's going to cost y billion dollars and generate x trillion dollars in economic growth, that clearly wouldn't have happened in the "do nothing" scenario where you you instead burn y billion dollars in a bon fire, a totally realistic scenario...and x is much bigger than y so clearly we're going to build the road.

Businesses cases do nothing than provide the veneer of objectivity on an inherently subjective decision. They are a lie we tell ourselves to justify the things we want without admitting that we are making real choices. Neoliberalism at it's finest.

So yeah, I can write a business case for the 413 that looks bad, and I can write one for transit that looks good, but it doesn't change the fact that they'll be filled with just as much opinion as the ones the government already writes. I'll give them credit...when it comes to roads, we don't even pretend to lie to ourselves...

[Bytor]

Right, exactly. Transportation used to be strictly for-hire, run by the private sector. The railways were businesses, operated to make profit for their owners. Later, the street railways and interurbans ran the same way. Yet now almost no passenger railway makes money. Why? Because they are competing with beautiful paved roads available for free (or almost free, if you count the gas tax as a usage fee — but even that is questionable because the gas tax probably doesn’t even cover the climate change externality of burning the fuel). The first railways were competing with horsecarts mostly running on what would barely qualify as a laneway today.

In Ontario, gas taxes only pay for provincial highways and even then for only about 60% to 70% of the yearly spending on them. The AGO's office showed that driver and vehicle licensing fees in Ontario doesn't;t even cover what's necessary to run and administer that system.

I haven't seen figures since before the pandemic, but for Waterloo Region, federal gas tax grants totalled less than 4% of the total aggregate roads budget for the Regional and all lower tiers. The provincial gas tax transfer was less than 5%.

Most road mileage we drive on is paid for by municipal property taxes.

[ac3r]

I'm suspect you're replying to some insane thing ac3r said...but this is the whole reason we have government...and why it shouldn't rely on "business cases" to decide what to do.

It's cute when you pretend you don't click Show Post and read my comments despite blocking me. You even admitted to doing it. <3

When you spend 10 years to earn a Doctor of Philosophy and have a long list of accomplishments across a wide spectrum relating to all this stuff, well...it's because I actually know what I'm talking about.

Well, most of the time. :'>

[danbrotherston]

Right, exactly. Transportation used to be strictly for-hire, run by the private sector. The railways were businesses, operated to make profit for their owners. Later, the street railways and interurbans ran the same way. Yet now almost no passenger railway makes money. Why? Because they are competing with beautiful paved roads available for free (or almost free, if you count the gas tax as a usage fee — but even that is questionable because the gas tax probably doesn’t even cover the climate change externality of burning the fuel). The first railways were competing with horsecarts mostly running on what would barely qualify as a laneway today.

In Ontario, gas taxes only pay for provincial highways and even then for only about 60% to 70% of the yearly spending on them. The AGO's office showed that driver and vehicle licensing fees in Ontario doesn't;t even cover what's necessary to run and administer that system.

I haven't seen figures since before the pandemic, but for Waterloo Region, federal gas tax grants totalled less than 4% of the total aggregate roads budget for the Regional and all lower tiers. The provincial gas tax transfer was less than 5%.

Most road mileage we drive on is paid for by municipal property taxes.

And they removed even the limited vehicle registration fees at that.

[plam]

What we really should be doing is making all superhighways be toll roads, completely funded out of the tolls and with congestion managed by congestion charges. That would take a huge expense off the books and remove a lot of low-value travel from the highways, especially at the busiest times. The only downside is it might become too easy to fund new superhighways, since they would be paid for by their eventual users rather than by increasing the debt.

I think that's Japan. It's actually expensive to get around Japan (both by road and by train, which is also not public, though paid for by e.g. real estate development in addition to fares).

[danbrotherston]

What we really should be doing is making all superhighways be toll roads, completely funded out of the tolls and with congestion managed by congestion charges. That would take a huge expense off the books and remove a lot of low-value travel from the highways, especially at the busiest times. The only downside is it might become too easy to fund new superhighways, since they would be paid for by their eventual users rather than by increasing the debt.

I think that's Japan. It's actually expensive to get around Japan (both by road and by train, which is also not public, though paid for by e.g. real estate development in addition to fares).

And I don't actually think charging for mobility is a good thing (although funding it through realestate makes some sense). Mobility is a huge public good, it should be subsidized by the gov, but we should also make intentional and good choices about WHAT mobility we fund. (I.e., make highways expensive and regulated, and trains/buses cheap or even free). It is also the case that mobility is a huge factor in social mobility, so failing to subsidize it means we harm social mobility.

[KevinL]

My main beef is that this whole plan seems to be based on the thought that the Milton line will never extend to Galt, which is just such a lack of ambition and more mediocrity for the area.

It seems the Milton line may be back on the table, if a recent announcement means what Reece thinks it does. 

[danbrotherston]

My main beef is that this whole plan seems to be based on the thought that the Milton line will never extend to Galt, which is just such a lack of ambition and more mediocrity for the area.

It seems the Milton line may be back on the table, if a recent announcement means what Reece thinks it does. 

FWIW, we should/could support both trains...it would enable even more trips (especially if extensions to the south existed). The city I'm living in now is about 250k combining all nearby/incorporated surrounding towns, and yet supports four different branches of train service.

That being said, I don't really see it happening, I'd be impressed if either route ever exists...doubly so given that we won't even try creating a bus service as a proof of concept...or in the case of the Milton line, they did create a (very bad) bus service, and it failed.

[tomh009]

And they removed even the limited vehicle registration fees at that.

The silver lining in this otherwise dumb decision is that it benefits low-income people (proportionally) much more: for them, a savings of $100/year is much more meaningful than for the middle class and up.

[bravado]

And they removed even the limited vehicle registration fees at that.

The silver lining in this otherwise dumb decision is that it benefits low-income people (proportionally) much more: for them, a savings of $100/year is much more meaningful than for the middle class and up.

But low income people are obviously less likely to drive? Yet another subsidy from the poor to the less-poor and often rich.

[tomh009]

The silver lining in this otherwise dumb decision is that it benefits low-income people (proportionally) much more: for them, a savings of $100/year is much more meaningful than for the middle class and up.

But low income people are obviously less likely to drive? Yet another subsidy from the poor to the less-poor and often rich.

Less likely, yes. But many do drive, given the logistics of getting from their housing to their employment. And, for those people, it is a help. (I'd prefer to support them in other ways, but at least this dumb decision has some upside.