03-10-2022, 01:44 PM
(03-10-2022, 01:13 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:(03-10-2022, 09:01 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: "all interurban transport to road-based vehicles"...yeah, I'm not doing that at all obviously there should be a train to Toronto, in fact, we already have an (admittedly poor and underinvested in) train doing that already.
The problem is not the mode, but our development patterns. Students aren't going to live in Elmira without a car not just because they can't get to campus, but because they cannot get to a hundred other services, and because few communities are even built walkable. Just building a train isn't going to change any of that.
I'm all for developing transit focused walkable communities. I'd love to see the planned Breslau station be surrounded by a dense complete urban community rather than a sea of parking. But given that we won't even do that in a greenfield situation, we are not going to change our development patterns sufficiently in a situation faced by NIMBYs to justify it.
I just see other options as more realistic.
Sorry, you’re right, I shouldn’t have suggested you (of all people) were ceding all interurban transport to roads.
I think I agree with all your points above. In this particular case I think maybe I chose to express a more idealistic viewpoint than what you were saying. Still hoping for a world where some of the ideas we discuss in this forum are more politically realistic.
Lol...fair point...and I want idealism... I swerve wildly between idealism and cynicism on weekly basis.
But I also think that a dose of realism can help idealism.
Like if driving became 3-4 times as expensive, and we also invested in excellent cycling infra (including parking) and a frequent bus from Elmira to Northfield station (maybe even with some BRT light features) how much ridership could we drive there. I see that as a fairly realistic prospect.
But I'm still pulled back by the reality that even such an investment as that is down the list from a hundred other investments in and around the city that we can do.
I also see a risk in an Elmira investment in that we encourage additional sprawl in the suburban towns because we haven't fixed our development patterns.
FWIW...I think the most meaningful interregional transit connection that we should make right now is Guelph<->KW. It is something we could do literally next week with buses, and then use it as an argument for improving rail connections sooner than later. But it's absolutely less transformative and aspirational than any of the Elmira ideas we've discussed...I mean, its the most meaningful in part because it would be an immediate success with almost zero changes to anything else.