Raise the Hammer

What will be the impact on bus service?

Why would LRT have a negative impact on bus service? an LRT on the King-Main corridor would make it much easier to create reliable bus connections that cross the entire city. It would also free up some of the city's newer and high-capacity buses for other routes, as well as increasing the effective size of the HSR's bus fleet, which would no longer have to cover the area immediately around the LRT line. King/Main is probably the most bus-dense corridor in Hamilton, and all those buses and drivers would be available to serve other parts of the city.

We also know that the HSR makes a profit on its lower-city operations and that LRT is cheaper to operate than comparable bus service, which is what is currently running on this corridor (albeit with less frequent service and several routes that don't all end up at the same place or make all the stops). That means running an LRT could actually improve the HSR's bottom line, allowing them to increase their level of bus service throught the city.

who benefits in the long-run as transit infrastructure alters land rent and puts pressure on affordable housing supply?

I have a hard time seeing this as a valid argument against LRT. The answer for how to maintain affordable housing in the city is not to intentionally avoid infrastructure investments. Keeping the core of the city economically depressed does not address the issues of gentrification and affordable housing. Essentially you are arguing that the downtown should remain a crappy place to live so that people with low income can afford to live there. The problem with this approach is that the real reason rents are low is not because 'there is no LRT' but because its a crappy place to live. Are we really going to say that we can't build good infrastructure or invest in improving the economic core of the city until we completely solve affordable housing?

A better answer is to implement good policies for making affordable housing an economically viable option in Hamilton. We need to make it so that developers don't have to choose between building affordable housing and making a reasonable return on their money. That has to happen whether or not we build LRT in order for affordable housing to be a thing.

Comment edited by AnjoMan on 2014-04-16 16:23:12