(12-20-2023, 11:38 AM)bravado Wrote: Despite Doug’s unique personality and set of skills, …

(12-20-2023, 01:55 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:

(12-20-2023, 11:38 AM)bravado Wrote: Despite Doug’s unique personality and set of skills, …

I need to remember that. What a great, understated, way of describing him!

(12-20-2023, 04:55 PM)ac3r Wrote: The inability of politicians to invest in transit has very little to do with classism and prejudice. That's a naive and uninformed view. Most politicians aren't thinking "ew the poors" when they speak out against large investments in things like transit. They're thinking "damn, my voter base isn't going to like this".

(12-20-2023, 06:24 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: But why won't their constituents like it? In "economic" terms, it usually comes down to "I don't want you spending my tax money on a class of people I'm not part of". I think the price tag in absolute terms rarely matters, only if the money spent directly serves their selfish interests vs some other group's interests.

(12-20-2023, 06:24 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: But why won't their constituents like it? In "economic" terms, it usually comes down to "I don't want you spending my tax money on a class of people I'm not part of". I think the price tag in absolute terms rarely matters, only if the money spent directly serves their selfish interests vs some other group's interests.

(12-20-2023, 07:59 PM)ac3r Wrote:

(12-20-2023, 06:24 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: But why won't their constituents like it? In "economic" terms, it usually comes down to "I don't want you spending my tax money on a class of people I'm not part of". I think the price tag in absolute terms rarely matters, only if the money spent directly serves their selfish interests vs some other group's interests.

I think it would be more apt to say "I don't want you spending my tax dollars". I think the near 5 billion dollar price tag for the Cambridge LRT is absolutely absurd and I will not support it, but I'm not doing so out of classism...I take the LRT myself after all. It's that I don't think it's a good use of money. A heck of a lot of other people who are pro-transit feel the same. A lot of people probably do actually think in the way you framed it, that they don't want their tax dollars spent on things they don't actually use, but I don't think that's classism or prejudice and more selfishness. Are they considering that maybe even their own family relies on transit? Or perhaps they're a business owner - are they considering a bus route with better frequency would actually be a good thing for their business if employees have a reliable way to work? Unlikely, they're just seeing the price of things.

But that's what I mean about us needing to put a lot of focus on informing people why things are a good idea. A lot of people don't because that's just human nature and time is also very valuable. I am sure most of us here - at least those who may sit on the left - don't go out of their way to educate themselves on conservative political philosophy, conservative economics, conservative culture and so on. How many of us here could actually go into the nuances of conservative Canadian politics? These days it has basically boiled down to "DoFo Bad". We tend to have our own preconceived notions and as a result will lump all of those who think the way we do as being all the same, which is a terrible thing to do, but it's easy to understand why it happens. I generalize all the time (at least online where I'm shitposting...in my actual academic work in teaching and writing, I definitely don't do this heh). But if we did, then we might understand why conservatives vote for and seek the things they do.

The same goes for things like transit. Most people aren't going to go out of their way to read up on why a transit line they'll never use to somewhere they'll never go is actually a benefit to all of us. But if they had more information that could easily be accessed, then they might take a moment to read a bit and then may actually conclude that oh yeah maybe it's actually a good thing, I'll support this. The politicians are likely going to vote in a way that is safe for them. They know their voter base best, so they're offering platitudes. But if their voter base started saying to them actually, upon further consideration, we do want you to support the vote for investing in this thing then things might change. But that will only happen if the voters are informed. How we inform them in a good way that is neutral and offers more info than a lame infographic on Instagram or a TikTok, but doesn't require reading six 30 page *.pdf files and watching a 3 hour recording of a Zoom meeting on why double tracking a transit line is a great thing to do for all of us.

(12-20-2023, 08:12 PM)bravado Wrote: Then we're stuck with the status quo, because the latest City of Cambridge meeting agenda was 1206 pages and that essentially guarantees inaction and paralysis. It makes you wonder why we choose to vote on the things we do and not on other things. If the only way we can get an LRT built is for a significant part of the population to become both engineers, accountants, and urban planners, then we'll never get the LRT. 

Also you keep mentioning the $5B price tag and I think it's really disingenuous. You know that all North American transit is inflated and wasteful and that nobody in government procurement is incentivized to actually do any better. If Ion Phase 2 has 5x'd in price since COVID, then that means that schools and hospitals and highways have also likely 5x'd and yet again I don't see why transit is unique as some kind of pork barrel target.

We have made a system where people get to vote on what their neighbours can do with their property and it's paralyzing us because of course people are only in it for their own interests.

I shouldn't have to give a speech and convince my neighbour that an obvious public good is a public good. It should be just built by people we empower to build public goods.

(12-20-2023, 08:58 PM)nms Wrote: Thinking back 100+ years (eg pre-CN and TTC), were any transit or transportation systems started as public projects?  The railways were all private companies, and city transportation was largely contracted out to private operators who took the risks to build their systems.  Yes, things then largely contracted from 1920 to 1945 with the companies and assets becoming public property.  Unless there is some spectacular moonshot I think we're stuck with incremental improvements for most of our lifetimes.  It won't win any races, but any step forward is a good step to take.

(12-20-2023, 09:47 PM)KevinL Wrote:

(12-20-2023, 08:58 PM)nms Wrote: Thinking back 100+ years (eg pre-CN and TTC), were any transit or transportation systems started as public projects?  The railways were all private companies, and city transportation was largely contracted out to private operators who took the risks to build their systems.  Yes, things then largely contracted from 1920 to 1945 with the companies and assets becoming public property.  Unless there is some spectacular moonshot I think we're stuck with incremental improvements for most of our lifetimes.  It won't win any races, but any step forward is a good step to take.

Back before the rise of the private car, most people relied on these mass transit systems and as such they could operate at a profit. It's only once cars became affordable to the masses, and governments chose to subsidize the roads they would run on, that the bottom fell out of that market.

(12-20-2023, 09:47 PM)KevinL Wrote:

(12-20-2023, 08:58 PM)nms Wrote: Thinking back 100+ years (eg pre-CN and TTC), were any transit or transportation systems started as public projects?  The railways were all private companies, and city transportation was largely contracted out to private operators who took the risks to build their systems.  Yes, things then largely contracted from 1920 to 1945 with the companies and assets becoming public property.  Unless there is some spectacular moonshot I think we're stuck with incremental improvements for most of our lifetimes.  It won't win any races, but any step forward is a good step to take.

Back before the rise of the private car, most people relied on these mass transit systems and as such they could operate at a profit. It's only once cars became affordable to the masses, and governments chose to subsidize the roads they would run on, that the bottom fell out of that market.

(12-20-2023, 07:59 PM)ac3r Wrote:

(12-20-2023, 06:24 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: But why won't their constituents like it? In "economic" terms, it usually comes down to "I don't want you spending my tax money on a class of people I'm not part of". I think the price tag in absolute terms rarely matters, only if the money spent directly serves their selfish interests vs some other group's interests.

I think it would be more apt to say "I don't want you spending my tax dollars". I think the near 5 billion dollar price tag for the Cambridge LRT is absolutely absurd and I will not support it, but I'm not doing so out of classism...I take the LRT myself after all. It's that I don't think it's a good use of money. A heck of a lot of other people who are pro-transit feel the same. A lot of people probably do actually think in the way you framed it, that they don't want their tax dollars spent on things they don't actually use, but I don't think that's classism or prejudice and more selfishness. Are they considering that maybe even their own family relies on transit? Or perhaps they're a business owner - are they considering a bus route with better frequency would actually be a good thing for their business if employees have a reliable way to work? Unlikely, they're just seeing the price of things.

But that's what I mean about us needing to put a lot of focus on informing people why things are a good idea. A lot of people don't because that's just human nature and time is also very valuable. I am sure most of us here - at least those who may sit on the left - don't go out of their way to educate themselves on conservative political philosophy, conservative economics, conservative culture and so on. How many of us here could actually go into the nuances of conservative Canadian politics? These days it has basically boiled down to "DoFo Bad". We tend to have our own preconceived notions and as a result will lump all of those who think the way we do as being all the same, which is a terrible thing to do, but it's easy to understand why it happens. I generalize all the time (at least online where I'm shitposting...in my actual academic work in teaching and writing, I definitely don't do this heh). But if we did, then we might understand why conservatives vote for and seek the things they do.

The same goes for things like transit. Most people aren't going to go out of their way to read up on why a transit line they'll never use to somewhere they'll never go is actually a benefit to all of us. But if they had more information that could easily be accessed, then they might take a moment to read a bit and then may actually conclude that oh yeah maybe it's actually a good thing, I'll support this. The politicians are likely going to vote in a way that is safe for them. They know their voter base best, so they're offering platitudes. But if their voter base started saying to them actually, upon further consideration, we do want you to support the vote for investing in this thing then things might change. But that will only happen if the voters are informed. How we inform them in a good way that is neutral and offers more info than a lame infographic on Instagram or a TikTok, but doesn't require reading six 30 page *.pdf files and watching a 3 hour recording of a Zoom meeting on why double tracking a transit line is a great thing to do for all of us.

(12-22-2023, 04:40 PM)coriander Wrote:

(12-20-2023, 07:59 PM)ac3r Wrote: I think it would be more apt to say "I don't want you spending my tax dollars". I think the near 5 billion dollar price tag for the Cambridge LRT is absolutely absurd and I will not support it, but I'm not doing so out of classism...I take the LRT myself after all. It's that I don't think it's a good use of money. A heck of a lot of other people who are pro-transit feel the same. A lot of people probably do actually think in the way you framed it, that they don't want their tax dollars spent on things they don't actually use, but I don't think that's classism or prejudice and more selfishness. Are they considering that maybe even their own family relies on transit? Or perhaps they're a business owner - are they considering a bus route with better frequency would actually be a good thing for their business if employees have a reliable way to work? Unlikely, they're just seeing the price of things.

But that's what I mean about us needing to put a lot of focus on informing people why things are a good idea. A lot of people don't because that's just human nature and time is also very valuable. I am sure most of us here - at least those who may sit on the left - don't go out of their way to educate themselves on conservative political philosophy, conservative economics, conservative culture and so on. How many of us here could actually go into the nuances of conservative Canadian politics? These days it has basically boiled down to "DoFo Bad". We tend to have our own preconceived notions and as a result will lump all of those who think the way we do as being all the same, which is a terrible thing to do, but it's easy to understand why it happens. I generalize all the time (at least online where I'm shitposting...in my actual academic work in teaching and writing, I definitely don't do this heh). But if we did, then we might understand why conservatives vote for and seek the things they do.

The same goes for things like transit. Most people aren't going to go out of their way to read up on why a transit line they'll never use to somewhere they'll never go is actually a benefit to all of us. But if they had more information that could easily be accessed, then they might take a moment to read a bit and then may actually conclude that oh yeah maybe it's actually a good thing, I'll support this. The politicians are likely going to vote in a way that is safe for them. They know their voter base best, so they're offering platitudes. But if their voter base started saying to them actually, upon further consideration, we do want you to support the vote for investing in this thing then things might change. But that will only happen if the voters are informed. How we inform them in a good way that is neutral and offers more info than a lame infographic on Instagram or a TikTok, but doesn't require reading six 30 page *.pdf files and watching a 3 hour recording of a Zoom meeting on why double tracking a transit line is a great thing to do for all of us.

The thing is, conservative politics, especially at the provincial level right now, are remarkable pro-transit. If not for that fact, the Conservative government wouldn't be spending tens of billions on massive transit expansions like GO RER, the Ontario Line, the Scarborough subway, new LRT in Hamilton and Mississauga and Toronto. Maybe they aren't so enthusiastic on improving bus services, but their purview is capital projects.

You're right that the voters have to be reached - the voters, after all, elect the local politicians who block transit projects. But in local elections the incumbency bias is often insurmountably strong. Brampton in 2015 rejected a downtown extension for the provincially-funded Hurontario LRT, despite massive transit ridership growth. Perhaps Cambridge will do the same before long. But the councillors who vote against these things often run basically without opposition, and when opposed, can capitalise on rent-seeking tendencies to win again and again. It's messy.