Comment 88931

By Rational Optimist (anonymous) | Posted May 24, 2013 at 10:49:35 in reply to Comment 88923

I don't know what made it clear to you that he had no interest in an honest discussion. Seems to me as though he was wanting to discuss…

I know Strasbourg best of the French cities used as comparison above. It is both a bigger and denser city than Hamilton (according to the information above, but not much more dense than Hamilton), and anchors an urban area that is both bigger and denser than Hamilton's (again, not much more dense).

Strasbourg receives many tourists a year, and is the parliamentary capital of the European Union. Its economy is much larger than Hamilton's. Its transit ridership is something like five times that of Hamilton (300,000 versus 65,000).

By the density numbers (which is what the post was originally about), there is not much reason Hamilton would not be able to support an LRT (and definitely SOME kind of higher-order transit!). I think that the bigger barriers are cultural and political. He's not wrong in saying that there are buses in this city that run at times with almost nobody, and he's not wrong in saying that some routes are subsidized to a degree that would make most people cringe, were they to find out. These are the real barriers to Hamilton getting an LRT.

I really do wonder whether the best way to convince people that LRT is worth spending their money on is to accuse them of being closed-minded or unwilling to have honest conversations. I wonder whether alienation is the best way to sign people aboard a risky and costly project, instead of appealing to their self-interest.

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