Comment 118933

By Gregory (registered) | Posted May 30, 2016 at 18:38:04

Help me to understand. Must the city be designed in a fashion that requires residents to travel "long distances" (farther than it is comfortable for a human to walk or cycle) in order to ensure that an LRT solution is the optimal choice? Putting transit at the center of design makes no sense, human needs come first.

If we plan to intensify and build new infrastructure, could we design a village within a city that supported most local resident needs (employment, services, groceries, education and leisure)? This way, most transit needs would be satisfied by low carbon emission walking or perhaps short cycling trips. Infrequent longer trips could be satisfied by car share and taxi/uber like services (maybe self-driving vehicles in the future). With a good design, traffic congestion would be greatly reduced, even with a significant increase in population.

Design drives transit need. Given the dramatic evolution of work that often makes worker location irrelevant, why not take advantage of this new opportunity by designing our future city to minimize transit needs? Arguing about per kilometre transit costs and suggesting that mis-priced property taxes are a new source of revenue contribution is really missing the point.

We are building for the future, not the past. Please consider what has changed, and stop proposing solutions based on outdated constraints. I know that change is difficult, but it is necessary for success. My parents always challenged me to consider the following statement, "If someone jumps into a lake, should you follow?". The correct answer is, "Make your own decision based on the latest available facts".

Thanks for your attention.

Gregory Ciupka

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