General Road and Highway Discussion

[danbrotherston]

I honestly can't tell if you're being serious lol...but just in case you aren't:

Then we will quickly be not building another LRT because the cost is unreasonable.

In any case, there are many surface routes that would be fine for LRT, or even rerouting + traffic calming and just make it a shared section.

Fortunately we don't even have to worry about this for a few decades given the situation in Cambridge.

Edit: I am just reading the rest of the replies and I am astonished at the denial of induced demand. Removing capacity could make traffic better....removing car capacity to add 10x the transit capacity will make traffic better with near certainty. I expect this from our transit planners (which is a shocking indictment of their field), I didn't expect it from folks here lol.

Only half-joking. You'd think that people in the residential areas would prefer a tunnelled LRT instead of an elevated one with all the noise and visual clutter, but it totally is more expensive. (Also I just really like the metro, and kind of wish we had one, even though I know that nobody would approve that expense).

I would personally never want any portion of the LRT to be shared with vehicle traffic, though. The beauty of our system is that it ALWAYS arrives on time, and putting 1km of shared road in the middle would wreak havoc on scheduling reliability. I think you'd be more likely to see the region buy up the properties on one side of Victoria St to create the necessary space to route the trains/cars separately, much like the Weber St houses between Wellington and Guelph were torn down to make space for 2 extra lanes back in 2014.

I mean, metros are cool, but I generally think LRTs are better in most of our less dense cities...we have the space so our density (even optimistically what we can achieve) doesn't justify tunnelling. And plus, LRTs are lower friction for riders than metros are, and as long as they come frequently enough, equally comfortable.

As for sharing with cars...you're right and wrong at the same time. Politically and institutionally sharing traffic with cars in Canada would be a problem....but technically there is no reason that it cannot work. The problem is in our unwillingness to restrict cars. Making Victoria St. open to cars, but only for local traffic would work fine. The local traffic wouldn't delay the trains a meaningful amount, and it would allow the residents to maintain access to their properties.

The problem comes from our unwillingness to enforce those rules (I'd say we've made progress in that we're willing to make those rules now, which we weren't before). Like, it's not complicated, use a trap, or an automated bollard, or a camera system anything to heavily punish drivers who drive straight through a clearly marked no straight intersection, and it wouldn't be an issue. But we're just not willing to do that...because the idea of punishing bad driving is uncomfortable for politicians and the general public...hmmm.

But it is a shame because this would be the best/most cost effective way to achieve these goals...of course, somehow our "fiscal conservatives" are entirely unwilling to entertain solutions like this....but I digress.

Realistically, I don't think it matters anyway....any LRT along that corridor is at least 25 years in the future...a lot changes in a quarter century. And even if it doesn't, there are alternatives, like running through the greenway between Victoria and Highland or running up Victoria to West and then down to Highland.