Comment 108537

By AnjoMan (registered) | Posted January 29, 2015 at 11:51:57 in reply to Comment 108349

Subsidizing any form of transportation encourages inefficient city-building by incentivizing lower-density development. (Look at what GO Transit has enabled in the v905 belt.)

I think this is the wrong way to look at it. To me, inefficient city building is a product primarily of a bad approach to development. Cities incentivize bad development by under-charging for the cost of infrastructure, and if they had taken a more sustainable approach --- added up over many decades --- the region would look very different. Of course, they didn't, but does that mean the 905 would be better off without the Lakeshore West line? I don't think so. GO Transit on the Lakeshore corridor has transformed the economy of the GTA by vastly increasing access of workers to jobs and companies to talent. And that is the point of subsidizing transit --- we hope that by doing so we can get a net gain in terms of economic growth. The same thing is true of cars --- I benefit from public roads greatly even though I don't own a car. Treating the use of cars as 100% only benefiting their users is a distorted view that ignores how great it is for our economy as a whole that driving is possible. Its good for you that your neighbour has the option of driving to one job or taking the bus across town to another, or hopping on a train to go to a job in another city. Ergo, subsidy.

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