07-10-2023, 02:02 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-10-2023, 02:03 PM by danbrotherston.)
(07-10-2023, 06:42 AM)nms Wrote: So was part of the LRT sales pitch a bait-and-switch and road construction wasn't going to slow down at all? Or did Waterloo Region's growth accelerate? Or was the staff figure actually "we'll not need 500 km/lanes of traffic [once we build out the next 1000 km/lanes on the books]"?
North American transportation practice is like an ocean freighter, it's not going to pivot overnight. But it's slowly turning and shifting.
I mean, the 500 lane-km wasn't a specific "we'll not build these three roads" or something specific like that...
It has to do with building traffic models and estimating mode shift and that kind of thing.
Frankly, it's all bullshit...Donald Shoup could have written a book eviscerating traffic forecasting instead of parking minimums. They're equally comprised of snake oil.
So, in a way, take it with a grain of salt...but on the other hand, what traffic forecasting *IS* is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We decided we wanted something different from more cars (i.e., transit), and so we built transit. And it's successful, we are growing transit ridership.
However, we're also addicted to cars...despite wanting to build something different, the regional staff are unwilling to plan for something different, so when they "model" the traffic to justify road investment, they use the same growth in cars that they've always used.
So if you want to go through the transportation plans and try to dissect it and compare with the population growth. But there's about a billion different variables so...there isn't going to be a clear answer. What I do know is that the region continues to plan for increased VMT and also VMT/capita.
And yeah, a big ship is slow to turn...but they continue to practice voodoo where they "forecast" transportation, build what they forecast they need, then earn awards and such when people magically use the infrastructure that engineers divined they would need. And the continue to plan for failure in terms of changing our transportation mode split...i.e., they expect us to drive more.
The ship won't turn till these things change.
(FWIW I'm being slightly unfair with the "still" part here...AFAIK they haven't done a new transportation master plan...so until that happens they won't have another chance to change their broken policies).