04-25-2020, 11:01 AM
(04-25-2020, 12:37 AM)jeffster Wrote:(04-24-2020, 08:21 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: And what if you factor in the environmental costs of the road and the sprawl that it will generate? It won’t improve traffic, it will simply induce more traffic. Still a bargain? What else could we have spent that 8 million on?
You can also expect more and more businesses to open in that area as well.
And people will get to those businesses using whatever facilities the City and Region have built.
If we build roads, people will drive.
If we build transit lanes and LRT, people will take transit.
Of course I’ve expressed this in a simplistic way, as if we would build only roads or only transit, and as if either everybody would use roads or everybody would use transit, but in the real world these alternatives co-exist in various proportions and people’s choices follow what is available in different places.
As a matter of efficiency, we should be building transit, not roads, in most places. Exceptions for odd bottlenecks or missing turn lanes, where a small investment can improve the value of existing infrastructure or make it more consistent. If people want more roads maybe they should form a joint-stock corporation and build them privately. Free government services should start with necessities and move on to luxuries only as they become affordable. Uncongested toll-free roads during rush hour are definitely a luxury.