DavidJamesTO
Active Member
Conestoga Mall is an existing bus junction, which is one of the main reasons for its use as a terminal. It could easily be extended to go to the St Jacob's market area and beyond.
Really interesting read in today's Post somewhat related to this.
"Cost-benefit analysis, whatever its flaws, remains the only reliable means of comparing real costs and benefits and uncovering the best option for taxpayers."
For Peter Shawn Taylor, the only thing that's real apparently is money. I'm glad that Waterloo Region does not agree that monetary considerations are the only ones that should matter for public projects.
A cost benefit analysis may have its own biases (all assessment methods do), but it's good to have an independent judgment that is not made by people who have a vested interest in a project. At least it uses a procedure for evaluation that is relatively transparent, well known and universally applicable. An MAE, on the other hand, can be fudged by just about anyone to get the results you want. It's subjective junk science.
To put it another way, A CBA is analogous to a "blind judge" and jury - people who don't know the defendant, and haven't made up their minds about whether the accused should go to jail or not. An MAE is like sending in a jury that's made up of the victim's family members; you know what the outcome is going to be, so why waste time and money with a show trial?
A cost benefit analysis may have its own biases (all assessment methods do), but it's good to have an independent judgment that is not made by people who have a vested interest in a project. At least it uses a procedure for evaluation that is relatively transparent, well known and universally applicable.
"According to the MAE, the region's approved train plan has a net present value of negative $237-million. That is, the plan will cost $237-million more than all identified, monetized benefits, including those in the social and environmental accounts."
Precisely. If LRT is desirable for non-quantifiable reasons then say so. Have the guts to say "it is not as fiscally prudent but we still think it is the right thing to do" .....don't cloud it in a bunch of made up things, knowing it is not the most economically viable option, and then say something like " both "are economically viable rapid transit options" ".
Cost-benefit analysis by nature is independent and not made by people who have a vested interest in a project? Not sure I buy that. I certainly don't buy the idea that there is nothing arbitrary about which costs and which benefits get included in the calculations.
This is why I think that a transparent CBA based on the "basics" of transportation planning is still the gold standard for assessment. I know it sounds old fashioned, but a transit agency should care about capital costs, operating costs, ridership and capacity. These are metrics that a transit agency actually has control over and which affects their bottom line.
Indicators that are external to this, like "land development potential" and "health benefits" are much more difficult to attribute to a transport system. Is the land valuable because it's beside a rail station, or because it's in a good school district? Are people less obese because they walk to the train station, or because they tend to belong to an ethnic group that eats less fatty foods? You can do statistical correlations, but you can't really integrate this into true cost benefit accounting, because it's impossible to discern to what degree these really are costs or benefits of the project at hand.
This is a very limited view of transit, as something of little consequence to a transportation system and city-building. I do, however, agree that this view is old-fashioned.
If I'm following your logic, because it is difficult to pin down exactly what the influence of a transport system on particular development or public health aspect is, municipalities should dismiss such impacts when considering how to plan for future growth?
It's looking like there are tens of millions of dollars in LRT-influenced development already (some making the connection explicit), and that's years before any tracks are laid. One way to judge whether LRT is having its intended effect of attracting compact infill development will be to compare Waterloo Region's reurbanization over the next few years to other Ontario municipalities that are not building new transit infrastructure.
How is the cost of building and operating a transit line inconsequential to running a transit system? It is arguably the most important consideration that any transportation planner will have to make.
Similar to the quantification of health benefits, can you provide an exact number of the value of real estate development spurred by the LRT? Would you not consider that things such as global economic forces, regional job growth, the growth in university enrollment in Waterloo, or the desirability of existing neighbourhoods due to things like good schools or nice looking houses might be driving development and land price increases to some degree?
I'm not against the LRT. I actually want LRT for the region, and I would prefer it over a bus rapid transit system. What I have a problem with is using some half-baked assessment tool to "justify" its construction. Like TOareaFan said, just admit your bias and say that you want it because you think it's a cool city-building tool, or because it's politically more sexy, and defend the fact that you will end up paying more for it. After all, the price tag for the system is one of the few things you actually can quantify.
The irony is that there may well be more passengers passing through the King/Victoria streetcar stops (either boarding or already on a streetcar) than the entire combination of bus, streetcar, GO and VIA combined at the Kitchener terminal!Probably should have included "Kitchener" in the thread title. There's a King/Victoria in Toronto as well.