10-31-2019, 11:13 PM
(10-31-2019, 09:43 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I love trains as much as the next guy, but do you guys not believe that implementing a bus first (1-2 million total) to prove the route is worth investing in before investing tens of millions in a train is preferable? I would also think there is a time advantage, there could probably be a bus tomorrow, if we wanted, a train would take years even for a quick and dirty implementation.
The only reason we don't have a bus, AFAIK is that Guelph is not in the Region of Waterloo and there are jurisdictional issues.
Of course, we've also had a failed attempt at a KW<->Guelph service, although read into that as you will.
(There's also Greyhound, but frankly, I read even less into their cut-rate service than the other).
All good points.
However, I’m thinking of this as a strategic decision, which of course is probably foolish given the nature of our politics.
Right now, it’s taken as a given that if a highway is congested, it needs to be widened to handle the traffic (although sometimes on a slow schedule, e.g. Highway 7 to Guelph). But how many highways are congested because of goods shipments and other trips that can’t be done on public transit? Usually highways are primarily congested because of commuting, which is the easiest demand to meet with public transit. So if we take the attitude that the way we handle transportation demand is by building public transit, things change. Long ago the decision was made that we handle transportation demand by building roads. Not long after, the existing for-profit transit companies mostly died, leaving use of the roads as the only option for most trips. We can, at least in principle, make a strategic choice to switch back to more efficient transportation.