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.
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TOareaFan
Superstar
Really interesting read in today's Post somewhat related to this.
http://www.financialpost.com/news/Slapping+lipstick+money+losing/5685313/story.html
http://www.financialpost.com/news/Slapping+lipstick+money+losing/5685313/story.html
mpd618
Active Member
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.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
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?
TOareaFan
Superstar
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" ".
It is not ALL about economics (and I don't think that is what Taylor is saying at all) but contriving a different measurment method to mask economics just acknowledges that economics are important....important enough to lie about apparantly.
mpd618
Active Member
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.
The rapid transit site has all kinds of reports, including the summary MAE report. In particular, you can see that this claim of Peter Shawn Taylor's is false:
mpd618
Active Member
Fiscally prudent and economically viable all depend on what the purpose of a project is.
The Waterloo Region government has been abundantly clear that this project is first and foremost about shaping land use patterns. This is something which perhaps the MAE could have quantified: the cost of "business as usual" road and infrastructure building to accommodate growth as sprawl.
The second purpose is as a transportation spine along the region's main transit corridor. None of the bus options, including BRT and business-as-usual, are projected to handle the travel demand in Waterloo Region's main corridor beyond a 15-20 year horizon, given the reurbanization mandate from Places to Grow. Portions of the central corridor in Kitchener-Waterloo already have buses every 4 minutes even off-peak.
They have not been shy about saying what the purpose of the LRT project is. The several-year-long community conversation already happened, and there were few claims being made by supporters about how this is a cheap option.
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Hipster Duck
Senior Member
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.
An MAE just seems like some method that appears to be rigorous but can be manipulated by whoever wants a project to go a certain direction. Of course the region wanted to build an LRT, so they used an "accounting" method that tells them what they want to hear.
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mpd618
Active Member
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.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
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.
It's not just difficult, I would argue that it's impossible. How can you quantify the health benefits, in dollars and cents, of the construction of a light rail line to society? Might the complexities of the physical environment, an individual's social class, level of education, family history of disease, diet, work-related stress, etc. muddle with your measurement?
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.
mpd618
Active Member
It's certainly very important. My point is that a transportation system also can (and pretty much always has) shaped the city around it, and that is a worthy aspect of consideration.
If I had a ton of data, I could try to control for a bunch of other factors and come up with an answer for you. I'm not claiming that it is possible to tell exactly how much LRT contributed to a specific development, or any other thing that happens in a city. Cities are dynamic and lots of factors are at play, and interact with one another. That's kind of the point. Nevertheless, you can find controls to get a handle on the impact of LRT -- these can be the same cities earlier in time, other cities with a similar economic situation but without LRT plans, portions of the same neighbourhoods that are slightly further away from stations, etc. I think this kind of research has been done by people who do have such data on the impacts of LRT and other transportation infrastructure. It's not easy, though.
All of the things you mention were explicitly discussed by the people making the decision. It's not like Regional Council was justifying their decision solely with the MAE, despite what Peter Shawn Taylor would have one believe.
howl
Active Member
Engineers and accountants prefer to work with known quantities. Planners have to work with a lot of future unknowns. They are trying to push the community in a certain direction that they think will result in a better future, but this can’t be easily quantified. Engineers and accountants can design a transit plan that meets the needs of today’s community (retrofitting to solve existing problems) but they have a have a hard time getting their heads around designing transit plans that are intended to help change the structure of the community.
In theory one should be able to quantify ALL the social and environmental costs and benefits, but the complexity of such an analysis is mind boggling. If you have to run a line through a forest how much is each tree worth to the community? If you take one car off the road what are the saving to the car’s owner (e.g. what if he didn’t buy that car)? What are the economic benefits of attracting new urban residents to your city compared with attracting new suburban residents? There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of small inputs that individually would not make a difference but together they could add up to affect the final decision. Planners attempt to consolidate these ideas into a general vision that they suspect will make a better community, but they don’t have the time, computing power or funding to do a complete detailed study tailored specifically for each project. By the time you completed such a study a lot of the parameters might have changed. As a result the vision that planners use is always open to attacks from people who only want to use hard data to make their decisions. Decision-making like that is what lead to the suburban sprawl we have today. A limited and short-sighted view would say that sprawl is good. A through and far-sighted view tells us it is bad.
In theory one should be able to quantify ALL the social and environmental costs and benefits, but the complexity of such an analysis is mind boggling. If you have to run a line through a forest how much is each tree worth to the community? If you take one car off the road what are the saving to the car’s owner (e.g. what if he didn’t buy that car)? What are the economic benefits of attracting new urban residents to your city compared with attracting new suburban residents? There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of small inputs that individually would not make a difference but together they could add up to affect the final decision. Planners attempt to consolidate these ideas into a general vision that they suspect will make a better community, but they don’t have the time, computing power or funding to do a complete detailed study tailored specifically for each project. By the time you completed such a study a lot of the parameters might have changed. As a result the vision that planners use is always open to attacks from people who only want to use hard data to make their decisions. Decision-making like that is what lead to the suburban sprawl we have today. A limited and short-sighted view would say that sprawl is good. A through and far-sighted view tells us it is bad.
DKsan
Active Member
In terms of development, the King and Victoria Terminal development in Kitchener, is massive, compared to surrounding areas.
Much of it should be built by 2017, when KW's light rail system opens. The KV project is one of the "side" projects associated with the Region of Waterloo Rapid Transit project, which also includes the Weber Street and King Street underpasses.
Here's a link to the most recent public information boards (will include some images from it below): HERE
Transit Hub Main Page
Timeline:
Market Scope and feasibility Study:
Status: Underway
expected Completion: early 2013
Environmental Assessment –
Proposed Transit facility
Status: Underway
expected Completion early 2013
Context:
Future Context and New GRT alignment:
King Street Underpass:
Waterloo Street Closure:
Cycling Access:
Renderings:
Travel times between modes:
Much of it should be built by 2017, when KW's light rail system opens. The KV project is one of the "side" projects associated with the Region of Waterloo Rapid Transit project, which also includes the Weber Street and King Street underpasses.
Here's a link to the most recent public information boards (will include some images from it below): HERE
Transit Hub Main Page
Timeline:
Market Scope and feasibility Study:
Status: Underway
expected Completion: early 2013
Environmental Assessment –
Proposed Transit facility
Status: Underway
expected Completion early 2013
Context:
Future Context and New GRT alignment:
King Street Underpass:
Waterloo Street Closure:
Cycling Access:
Renderings:
Travel times between modes:
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Markster
Senior Member
Probably should have included "Kitchener" in the thread title. There's a King/Victoria in Toronto as well.
The image you've posted for the underpass isn't what's in the document. The one in the PDF features more elevation differences, and bike lanes (sandwiched between the LRT and vehicular lane... yuck)
As for completion, they expect to be finished the transit-focused sections by 2017. That would be the train platforms and middle block bus depot.
The other phases, the office/residential components, would be completed as the market allows.
The image you've posted for the underpass isn't what's in the document. The one in the PDF features more elevation differences, and bike lanes (sandwiched between the LRT and vehicular lane... yuck)
As for completion, they expect to be finished the transit-focused sections by 2017. That would be the train platforms and middle block bus depot.
The other phases, the office/residential components, would be completed as the market allows.
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nfitz
Superstar
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!
I'm certainly looking forward to the new terminal in Kitchener. But with only 2 LRT platforms, 2 rail platforms, and 6 bus platforms, I'd hardly call it one of the bigger transit terminals built.