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I approve of measures like this provided they actually follow through and support mass transit initiatives. We've had ~100 years of bad ideas that we need to u

I approve of measures like this provided they actually follow through and support mass transit initiatives. We've had ~100 years of bad ideas that we need to undo. (specifically related to this issue) This feels similar to the decision to eliminate the penny. "A lot of people won't like this change, but it's the right thing to do and about time we did it." I know of few G8 countries that take those kinds of steps. Now if they could only work on serious day-to-day emergencies that are crippling this country.

asoneth 3y ago
I agree that most regions have underinvested in mass transit, but even if the Federal Government does not step in to fund transit I think it still makes sense for them to stop subsidizing large highway projects. Rather than citizens sending tax money to Ottowa so that the Federal Government can choose large projects in each province, it seems fairer and more cost effective to let each province decide what kind of transportation infrastructure makes the most sense for them. Some will choose to widen highways, others will choose to invest in mass transit, and others might decide to lower taxes. But with a couple exceptions like the Trans-Canada Highway, many of the projects that receive funding seem more like local projects that don't need to involve the Federal Government. Also see https://www.strongtowns.org/highways https://www.strongtowns.org/highways
skeeter2020 3y ago
not sure if you're in Canada but federal road projects are typically trans-provincial highways and there's really no other way to get around our giant country. Mass transit is an inappropriate non-starter in this scenario. Doesn't feel at all look eliminating the penny. Maybe eliminating cash?
- wk_end 3y ago
  High-speed rail (300+ km/h across the prairies!), buses, even air travel are mass transit options that would work as well or better than personal cars for addressing the vast majority of travel across Canada.
  - tharmas 3y ago
    High Speed Rail is EXTREMELY expensive to build and maintain. It's one of the most impractical ideas to come along. Please put this to rest. Don't believe me? Read up on how it worked out for the Chinese.
    - wk_end 3y ago
      Read up on how it worked for the Japanese, the Germans, the French, ... Actually, I'm curious - I don't know a lot about China (although I know that they're maybe not the ideal comparison for Canada for any number of reasons). What should I read? Wikipedia says... The improved mobility and interconnectivity created by these new high-speed rail lines has generated a whole new high-speed commuter market around some urban areas. Commutes via high-speed rail to and from surrounding Hebei and Tianjin into Beijing have become increasingly common, likewise are between the cities surrounding Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.[144][145][146] Sounds pretty good TBH.
    - maxglute 3y ago
      It worked extremely well for the Chinese. A bunch of motivated premature analysis kept insisting it was a failure pre mass adoption - HSR takes decades to reach full utilization - now few years later it's hitting positive net returns when considering society wide multiplier effects. Also bonus of developing secondary cities along routes, which is actually perfect for Quebec-Windsor corridor that contains half Canadian population along 1200km line. It's almost a no brainer if Canada wants to keep immigration flowing and decongest new comers settling in a few cities. Extra bonus it's electrified, Canada can build trains, and it's more comfy than aviation. Primary problem is Canada/US can't build large scale infra anymore, especially not proper HSR that needs to be elevated, more so to have it route/link to networks that connect urban centres.
  - scabbycakes 3y ago
    Mass transit sounds utopian but is mostly nonsensical to Canadians who live outside of the few big cities and understand how goofy it would be to put thought into it. Toronto and Ottawa and Montreal don't represent the rest of the country, but unfortunately their voices steer policy in ways that don't serve the rest of the country very well. Buses are a thing of the past in Canada, they're far too slow and the countryside is too spread out to make feasible routes. They also used to cost almost as much as a plane ticket and take 10x the time. When intercity lines outside dense population centers DID exist they were pretty much empty all the time, hence their extinction. High speed rail could only serve major centers across the country. Other than the Toronto to Montreal corridor, population centers along the rail lines are too far apart. For example the distance between Toronto Ontario and Kenora Ontario is roughly 1500+km, so a high speed rail trip would still take 6-8 hours between them at best. The train would be mostly empty too because there's just not a lot of people going between non-major cities. It's not like just because a rail line appears between places people are going to start going between those places all that much more. There's just no way the operation costs for high speed rail would be covered by fares from a handful of people. Air transportation is only good for longer trips between two major centers in Canada. If you're going to/from smaller regional centers for most of Canada the commercial airports don't even exist, and if they do the flights are infrequent and the costs to fly in/out of them are absurd and the flights might even take far longer than just driving. For example to fly between Kelowna BC and Kamloops BC, a 150km drive, costs $300-$500+ for the ticket and takes about 5 hours (not including travel to/from the airport, check-in time + waiting at the gate + waiting for luggage) due to a stop in distant Vancouver. It's just not feasible to airlines to have short direct routes, so they don't. But again you're not going to find airports with commercial flights for about 90% of the towns in the country because the towns are small and don't have airports (except if they don't have roads to connect them like in the north). To summarize, unless you don't go anywhere or you're only going between Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal by train or flying between distant cities or in a remote village, you're likely going to want to use a car otherwise the alternatives can be absurd.
kkfx 3y ago
Mass transit for goods as well? Mass transit for not-so-dense area where it's untenable? Mass transit is a great idea to make money on the customers (meaning slaves) and the government from subsides. Definitively not good for the environment since the infra needed to be dense enough to justify mass transit is by large far more polluting then living in spread areas despite the actual propaganda, made for dollar-green, not grass-green reasons. Definitively not good for the people as well since it's not possible to make efficient and effective mass transit allowing anyone to move anywhere at any time. The point is another: large roads with melting permafrost, over the Canadian shield are simply untenable in the long term. The answer is going by air and water, air is everywhere, water not much so, but that's is.

asoneth 3y ago

I agree that most regions have underinvested in mass transit, but even if the Federal Government does not step in to fund transit I think it still makes sense for them to stop subsidizing large highway projects. Rather than citizens sending tax money to Ottowa so that the Federal Government can choose large projects in each province, it seems fairer and more cost effective to let each province decide what kind of transportation infrastructure makes the most sense for them. Some will choose to widen highways, others will choose to invest in mass transit, and others might decide to lower taxes. But with a couple exceptions like the Trans-Canada Highway, many of the projects that receive funding seem more like local projects that don't need to involve the Federal Government. Also see https://www.strongtowns.org/highways https://www.strongtowns.org/highways

skeeter2020 3y ago

not sure if you're in Canada but federal road projects are typically trans-provincial highways and there's really no other way to get around our giant country. Mass transit is an inappropriate non-starter in this scenario. Doesn't feel at all look eliminating the penny. Maybe eliminating cash?

wk_end 3y ago
High-speed rail (300+ km/h across the prairies!), buses, even air travel are mass transit options that would work as well or better than personal cars for addressing the vast majority of travel across Canada.
- tharmas 3y ago
  High Speed Rail is EXTREMELY expensive to build and maintain. It's one of the most impractical ideas to come along. Please put this to rest. Don't believe me? Read up on how it worked out for the Chinese.
  - wk_end 3y ago
    Read up on how it worked for the Japanese, the Germans, the French, ... Actually, I'm curious - I don't know a lot about China (although I know that they're maybe not the ideal comparison for Canada for any number of reasons). What should I read? Wikipedia says... The improved mobility and interconnectivity created by these new high-speed rail lines has generated a whole new high-speed commuter market around some urban areas. Commutes via high-speed rail to and from surrounding Hebei and Tianjin into Beijing have become increasingly common, likewise are between the cities surrounding Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.[144][145][146] Sounds pretty good TBH.
  - maxglute 3y ago
    It worked extremely well for the Chinese. A bunch of motivated premature analysis kept insisting it was a failure pre mass adoption - HSR takes decades to reach full utilization - now few years later it's hitting positive net returns when considering society wide multiplier effects. Also bonus of developing secondary cities along routes, which is actually perfect for Quebec-Windsor corridor that contains half Canadian population along 1200km line. It's almost a no brainer if Canada wants to keep immigration flowing and decongest new comers settling in a few cities. Extra bonus it's electrified, Canada can build trains, and it's more comfy than aviation. Primary problem is Canada/US can't build large scale infra anymore, especially not proper HSR that needs to be elevated, more so to have it route/link to networks that connect urban centres.
- scabbycakes 3y ago
  Mass transit sounds utopian but is mostly nonsensical to Canadians who live outside of the few big cities and understand how goofy it would be to put thought into it. Toronto and Ottawa and Montreal don't represent the rest of the country, but unfortunately their voices steer policy in ways that don't serve the rest of the country very well. Buses are a thing of the past in Canada, they're far too slow and the countryside is too spread out to make feasible routes. They also used to cost almost as much as a plane ticket and take 10x the time. When intercity lines outside dense population centers DID exist they were pretty much empty all the time, hence their extinction. High speed rail could only serve major centers across the country. Other than the Toronto to Montreal corridor, population centers along the rail lines are too far apart. For example the distance between Toronto Ontario and Kenora Ontario is roughly 1500+km, so a high speed rail trip would still take 6-8 hours between them at best. The train would be mostly empty too because there's just not a lot of people going between non-major cities. It's not like just because a rail line appears between places people are going to start going between those places all that much more. There's just no way the operation costs for high speed rail would be covered by fares from a handful of people. Air transportation is only good for longer trips between two major centers in Canada. If you're going to/from smaller regional centers for most of Canada the commercial airports don't even exist, and if they do the flights are infrequent and the costs to fly in/out of them are absurd and the flights might even take far longer than just driving. For example to fly between Kelowna BC and Kamloops BC, a 150km drive, costs $300-$500+ for the ticket and takes about 5 hours (not including travel to/from the airport, check-in time + waiting at the gate + waiting for luggage) due to a stop in distant Vancouver. It's just not feasible to airlines to have short direct routes, so they don't. But again you're not going to find airports with commercial flights for about 90% of the towns in the country because the towns are small and don't have airports (except if they don't have roads to connect them like in the north). To summarize, unless you don't go anywhere or you're only going between Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal by train or flying between distant cities or in a remote village, you're likely going to want to use a car otherwise the alternatives can be absurd.

kkfx 3y ago

Mass transit for goods as well? Mass transit for not-so-dense area where it's untenable? Mass transit is a great idea to make money on the customers (meaning slaves) and the government from subsides. Definitively not good for the environment since the infra needed to be dense enough to justify mass transit is by large far more polluting then living in spread areas despite the actual propaganda, made for dollar-green, not grass-green reasons. Definitively not good for the people as well since it's not possible to make efficient and effective mass transit allowing anyone to move anywhere at any time. The point is another: large roads with melting permafrost, over the Canadian shield are simply untenable in the long term. The answer is going by air and water, air is everywhere, water not much so, but that's is.