03-10-2022, 10:20 AM
(03-10-2022, 09:40 AM)jamincan Wrote:(03-10-2022, 09:01 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Guelph to KW has some merit because of the size and density of each city, but given we have an existing rail line, it probably makes sense to utilize that. But New Hamburg and Baden are small and extremely sprawling (I know, I lived there) you aren't going to get many people on transit.
It's a chicken and egg situation. I'm not saying investing in something like that is necessarily the best use of resources, but when all we have servicing those places is a highway, we shouldn't be surprised that everyone drives and the built form is conducive to it. My main point is that New Hamburg/Baden isn't really any worse than most suburban parts of KW, but it has the added benefit of having traditional town centres that could provide the bones for more pedestrian/transit-centred built forms.
The chicken/egg framing implies that we are talking about natural systems. But the fact is, when it comes to planning AND transit, both are done in a centrally planned, top down manner. Our city/region decides BOTH what transit to build AND what housing to build.
Therefore, deciding to build high order transit, and NOT to build high order housing is self defeating
If, for example, we eliminated all zoning restrictions in Elmira, and told developers to build whatever they please, and were willing to take the heat from NIMBYs and tell them to just STFU and let developers run roughshod (free market rules), then the building transit would make sense, because at least it is possible to respond to the investment in transit. But it is literally illegal to do so now, and will be so for the foreseeable future to make good on the chicken, if we invest in the egg.
And how do I know such a thing to be true? We build the LRT in the city without first changing zoning. We are now retroactively fixing zoning in a lot of places. That's true, but look at what the priorities were. The LRT was placed in locations where zoning was already conducive (downtown) or where there were wide swaths of undeveloped land that could be developed without NIMBY opposition. Even then, we still see NIMBY opposition and compromises downtown. Worse, when we look at the rezoning plans, they are almost without fail protecting low density neighbourhoods around transit stations. Victoria Park, Uptown CORE, Even MHBP-midtown area is restricted. Even the current development plan we're looking at for Fairway seems to be protecting the low density areas there.
So even in the case where we DO reconsider development, we still refuse to actually redevelop against NIMBYs. It's just the case that in the city, the small amount of land we are willing to develop, plus the existing high density areas are sufficient to justify the LRT, but until we get serious about actually redeveloping low density areas, or we get serious about forcing new communities to be complete and walkable, there is no point in investing in higher order transit in these areas.
This was a big epiphany for me, housing policy matters just as much as transit policy, without fixing housing policy, there is no fixing transit.