this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2023
4 points (100.0% liked)

Victoria, BC

381 readers
1 users here now

A Lemmy community for the City of Victoria and the Greater Victoria Region.

Visitor & Tourism Information

Local Weather

Municipalities

Related Communities

Lemmy.ca Rules

Community Rules

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Polendri@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think that makes sense from a purely financial view, but that it's not viable overall because it won't sufficiently incentivize transit.

Buses are ultimately stuck in car traffic, because it's politically difficult to put dedicated bus lanes everywhere given that the reason buses get chosen is usually to minimize the cost and the impact to cars. Given that transit is inherently less flexible that a car, and that this cuts out yet another potential advantage over cars... this kinda cements transit as the "inferior option for poor people" like it's already viewed today.

I really think you need to overinvest in transit with something like LRT, both because it's high-capacity for the long-term future and because it makes people feel like transit is a comfortable, efficient and classy way to travel, thereby increasing ridership. My hometown of Kitchener-Waterloo did it recently and quite successfully, at a similar population and size to Victoria.

As far as "the density isn't there yet", there's also the angle that building high-capacity transit will create it there by skyrocketing the property values near it.

[โ€“] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

the angle that building high-capacity transit will create it there by skyrocketing the property values

.. as has been shown ... everywhere.