Raise the Hammer

@By Talking Down, if you consider this being talked down to then sorry, you desperately need to be talked down too. Under normal conditions advice from people who are consultants like me cost money, here is some free advice. @By Talking down, a properly designed BRT system doesn't operate at all like LRT, it might have superficially similar layouts but that's it. Everything else is different, if you want your BRT system to work well, anyway. It only appears to operate like a rail service. Ottawa's BRT issues mainly come from the concept of starting the Transitway system from outside the core, then moving towards the core as the system progressed. This made certain sections of Transitway cheaper but ultimately lead to the crowding downtown because it raised the cost dramatically of fixing anything in the core of the city. The suburbanites on the Regional Council in Ottawa liked this type of system development on the Transitway Network because it worked for them politically. After having several conversations with your Councilor Whitehead a year or so ago, I could immediately tell he was in favor of this kind of Busway development and only if the province paid for it. Believe me, has no intention of ever voting to spend more City of Hamilton money on transit, if he can get away with it! He doesn't support it at all! He is not anti-LRT he just anti-transit, period!

"The majority want peace and quiet, like the status quo for the most part and remain annoyed and quiet until those pesky nosey neighbours start pushing too hard".

@By Talking Down, our municipal system works best when people do advocate for a position. More things get done that way. Yes, they are loud and those advocates are annoying sometimes. But they function as the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Yes, the majority do want peace and quiet and the status quo, right up until the system starts to fall apart! Well that is happening right now, we can't afford to continue the current way we build communities, via suburban sprawl development. They just don't generate enough taxes to pay for themselves. We can't afford to keep taking away commercial taxes away to prop up suburbs like we have been doing in just about every North American city. Suburbs just don't pay there way, with the taxes they are supposedly generating which is most of them unfortunately. Although some do, most do not even ever come close to paying or themselves!. Its not a theory, its a fact! There are 45+ years of provincial data on the subject, its publically available but its a hard long read. Those first generation post war suburbs, which are now all 50-60 year old inner city suburbs need most if not all of their infrastructure completely replaced. We can't do that if we have to continually prop up suburban neighbourhoods, that don't generate the taxes to pay for their own existence. We can't afford to have kilometer after kilometer of empty suburban roads that, only see moderately heavy use for 1-2 hours a day, at the best of times! All while you hollow out the higher density core of your city

The 4-6, sometimes, 8 lane road system we have built in cities here in Ontario has become unaffordable to maintain, unless 33-50% of the road space (depends on the road width and number of lanes) is diverted to more efficient transport uses like bicycles, LRT or BRT. I we continue to build roads like this, will have to have a lot more user fees for roads (tolls). Even most of the new expressways we build don't pay for themselves either, even when they are full. The reasons for changing have been staring us for years now, every time we look at our property tax bills. The answer is less not more lanes and more transport options other than cars. For reasons of just general efficiency, there will be fewer lane-km's for cars and preference of those remaining travel lanes will be given over to commercial and emergency traffic not personal automobile transport trips. Focusing more money on LRT and better transit in general is part of that fundamental change we are going through! Get use to it, the world has changed and a city that bases 90-95% of its transport system on personal, private, low capacity vehicles, is in serious trouble, developmentally and financially! Just ask Dallas, the city with the continent's biggest LRT network (104 Miles and expanding), businesses have given up suburban business parks and now want to be located by LRT stations and major transit facilities. They found it is a lot cheaper to build and operate their commercial building developments there! Its also cheaper for the city as well.