View Single Post
  #992  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2015, 1:20 PM
Drybrain Drybrain is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 4,115
Quote:
Originally Posted by ILoveHalifax View Post
I thought I read on here that a study confirmed that rail transit was not cost effective. Yet we have new posts about it every day and all kinds of fantasies of it being done. So nobody believes the study?
City staff concluded that it wasn't cost-effective, but many on council and elsewhere beg to differ.

Here's Tim Bousquet's take, which I think is pretty apt from this link):

I’m starting to come around on the commuter rail proposal. Oh, to be sure, the cost per-passenger when the line opens will be ridiculously high, but only if you ignore the future costs of the Bayers Road/BiHi widening project, which I estimate at a billion dollars — that’s billion, with a B. If we’re to move forward with commuter rail, however, it has to be with the understanding that the Bayers Road/BiHi project won’t go forward — it should be removed from the regional plan and provincial highway network plans before council commits to commuter rail.

I know that people just love road widening, and I have no idea whether Bousquet's cost estimate is accurate, but over and over and over again, road widening has been shown to provide only temporary relief of traffic congestion. Those extra lanes just fill right up within a short period of time as more people decide to drive. There is a possibility that a well-done commuter rail system could move more people, more cheaply. But yes, people would have to leave their car behind before coming downtown. Which some people might have a hard time with, but you know, it's part of our urban maturation.
Reply With Quote