Comment 101264

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted May 12, 2014 at 12:23:43 in reply to Comment 101262

How do you justify the "most likely won't" .. your gut feeling that Hamilton is somehow different from the many other cities where it has? That's not what the Metrolinx BCA, City and McMaster studies found?

Hamilton is in one of the fast growing urban areas in North America, and there is a huge portion of vacant or under-used land within 400m of the line, which are two conditions that have lead to large net ROI in other cities. Why won't that work here?

In addition, there is the basic transit argument that the bus lines already carry more people than all the other traffic lanes combined, and the current bus system is way over capacity (especially during rush hour). Providing proper capacity would require investing in many new buses (with an average lifespan of about 8 years) and hiring many new drivers. As has been pointed out before, the operating costs of LRT are far lower than buses. This is one of the things that convinced Councillor Ferguson to support LRT: when he visited Calgary he discovered that their LRT costs about 25 cents per passenger in operating costs compared with $5 (half paid by the city half paid by passenger in Hamilton). Over the 40 to 50 year lifespan of the system that adds up!

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