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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

Chinook Arch said:
Just because someone vents about traffic and driving doesn't mean they don't understand the concept or benefits of transit. I'm in a situation where I have to drive a fair bit, and it's a pain in the butt. I'd love to take transit, for everything, but it's not feasible right now, so I drive, and I vent about the traffic. I think many people people around the city are in the same boat - stuck having to drive. It doesn't make them evil polluters sitting in their climate controlled cars. It's the unfortunate reality of many north American cities. Yes, it's a choice not to take your kids on the train everywhere, but it's also not feasible to do so, and actually in many cases, not even possible. Until Calgary evolves into a denser city with better transit options, large numbers of people will rely on car.
For the record, I'm all for increasing and improving transit. I'm a strong believer in transit and cycle paths, etc... I'm not in love with driving, it's only something that makes life feasible at the moment. I'd love to work downtown and take the train, but unfortunately I don't work downtown, and in my line of business, that's not going to happen. I'd love to live downtown so that I could walk to more things, but it's hard trying to find a decent place for a family of four on my income. The suburbs are what works best.
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It just seems to me complaining about a choice someone made, full well knowing the consequences of that choice. "I chose to live in the suburbs, and I have to drive everywhere, but there is this traffic and it's frustrating." Guess what, if you choose to live in a place where you have to drive everywhere, that means so does everyone else. And if everyone is driving everywhere, those people will be in your way when you want to go somewhere, and you will be in their way. Will you experience traffic? Of course, that's part of living where you do. Can you walk or bike most places? No, but again, that was because of your choice. Did you drive to an event attended by 10,000 people and you drove there. Guess what, trying to leave by car is going to suck.

This would be like me going to a really popular restaurant on a busy Friday night and complaining that I have to wait in line.
 
It's not exactly the same as going to a crowded restaurant. Choices for travel are heavily tied to people's jobs, and the economy and livelihood of a city are heavily tied to those jobs.

I could take transit out to my job in Foothills industrial park and add 2 hours to my commute every day. Now that I'm taking transit I have the right to complain right? Technically it comes down once again to choices I've made. The choice of working at Foothills industrial park. But somebody has to work out there. So now I'm working out there because the city relies on those business and jobs, and now I'm and complaining about transit What's next? The city spends millions of extra dollars to accommodate my transit needs? or do they keep the existing road infrastructure and improve it when possible? Technically everyone could walk or take transit, but it's really not practical in all situations. It's the reason people still driver even in a city like New York. There's no harm in the city designing better infrastructure towards cars, they're part of the system and always will be.

For the record, I take transit whenever I can. I use it to go to a Flames game or concert. It works for me, and is the best solution. I've always been a supporter of transit and the belief the city should continue to invest in it.

retrofiturbanism said:
It just seems to me complaining about a choice someone made, full well knowing the consequences of that choice. "I chose to live in the suburbs, and I have to drive everywhere, but there is this traffic and it's frustrating." Guess what, if you choose to live in a place where you have to drive everywhere, that means so does everyone else. And if everyone is driving everywhere, those people will be in your way when you want to go somewhere, and you will be in their way. Will you experience traffic? Of course, that's part of living where you do. Can you walk or bike most places? No, but again, that was because of your choice. Did you drive to an event attended by 10,000 people and you drove there. Guess what, trying to leave by car is going to suck.

This would be like me going to a really popular restaurant on a busy Friday night and complaining that I have to wait in line.
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The best we can do as a city, is keeping proving transit. Vehicles and roads will never go away, because it’s impossible to get rid of roads. Roads are 100% needed when it comes to transporting anything basically, and if you build roads cars will use them.
The key is to make transit more convenient so that people change their choices organically. Not an easy task to do, but I think we are going in the right direction. Combine that with the fact that cars are going to get more expensive as time goes on, and transit will continually increase as a transportation option.
 
Chinook Arch said:
It's not exactly the same as going to a crowded restaurant. Choices for travel are heavily tied to people's jobs, and the economy and livelihood of a city are heavily tied to those jobs.

I could take transit out to my job in Foothills industrial park and add 2 hours to my commute every day. Now that I'm taking transit I have the right to complain right? Technically it comes down once again to choices I've made. The choice of working at Foothills industrial park. But somebody has to work out there. So now I'm working out there because the city relies on those business and jobs, and now I'm and complaining about transit What's next? The city spends millions of extra dollars to accommodate my transit needs? or do they keep the existing road infrastructure and improve it when possible? Technically everyone could walk or take transit, but it's really not practical in all situations. It's the reason people still driver even in a city like New York. There's no harm in the city designing better infrastructure towards cars, they're part of the system and always will be.

For the record, I take transit whenever I can. I use it to go to a Flames game or concert. It works for me, and is the best solution. I've always been a supporter of transit and the belief the city should continue to invest in it.
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You could choose to live in Ogden or Erin woods, or heck, even Douglasdale. Your commute would be shorter, and you could probably even bike or take transit to work. But you chose not to. Not saying that's a poor choice (there are many other factors that go into a housing location choice apart from commute time), but I am saying that there are ramifications for that choice. If you choose to live far away from your place of work, don't complain about it taking a long time to get there. That was your choice, and you have to live with it. With Miekkhaell's scenario, he was complaining that traffic leaving a sporting event was bad. Well, yeah, if 1000s of people drive to a single location and all try to leave at the same time, there are going to be delays. There are consequences for our choices and it isn't the municipalities job to ensure that each and every single one of us is prioritized in our needs. It has to balance the needs of everyone and try and provide infrastructure in the most efficient way possible. You don't do that by prioritizing the least efficient of modes of travel.
 
It feels like you're getting away from a good discussion by sticking to an ideal and not listening to both sides, and instead trying to win an argument on a technicality. Yes, everything comes down to a choice, so technically you are right and win the argument. Maybe people could move to Ogden and their commute would be shorter. Transit from Ogden or Erin Woods to Foothills is still shitty, same for cycling. Nowhere in that whole area is it set up well for pedestrians or cyclists. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to want to live in a nicer part of town than Ogden, and complain about a road design or intersection that's not well designed.

I'm guessing you're single and live and work downtown, and therefore very easy to make a choice to live near where you work. Couples make things more difficult as they might work at opposite ends of town. Then add children and things get more complicated. Yes those are choices, but at some point it becomes unrealistic to try and plan your life around being able to cycle or take transit. That's why everybody has a car. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, but that's the way it is. As Beltline mentioned, roads have to built anyway, and as Chinook mentioned, there's no harm in trying to design the roads for the best efficiency.


retrofiturbanism said:
You could choose to live in Ogden or Erin woods, or heck, even Douglasdale. Your commute would be shorter, and you could probably even bike or take transit to work. But you chose not to. Not saying that's a poor choice (there are many other factors that go into a housing location choice apart from commute time), but I am saying that there are ramifications for that choice. If you choose to live far away from your place of work, don't complain about it taking a long time to get there. That was your choice, and you have to live with it. With Miekkhaell's scenario, he was complaining that traffic leaving a sporting event was bad. Well, yeah, if 1000s of people drive to a single location and all try to leave at the same time, there are going to be delays. There are consequences for our choices and it isn't the municipalities job to ensure that each and every single one of us is prioritized in our needs. It has to balance the needs of everyone and try and provide infrastructure in the most efficient way possible. You don't do that by prioritizing the least efficient of modes of travel.
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I think people should be allowed the right to complain about traffic, even if transit is more efficient.I take the LRT daily, and I complain about it from time to time, and I always here people complaining about it. All the people taking it work downtown and live in the burbs. It's not practical to tell people they can't complain about roads or transit because they live in the burbs. I'd love to live downtown, but chose not to for various reasons and was what was best for my family. So yeah, it was my choice, but various factors went into it, not just me saying 'hey I want to live in the burbs'. It is the city's job to provide transit and roads for people as best they can.
 
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/condon-building-busy-corner-1.5151503#
Good read regarding Arlington's 14 st. and 17th ave project.
187882
 
Fair enough, I'm okay with drivers complaining about traffic.....I complain about traffic often enough myself. I do however believe drivers need to chip in more for the cost of roads in order to free up more funding for transit. Transit makes more sense from an efficiency point of view, but in my own experience it's developed enough to help people make the voluntary choice to use it....it's getting there, but it's not there yet. If driving became more expensive people would eventually use transit more, and in theory, a more used transit system would have more revenues from passengers and presumably more funding, which presumably would make the system better.

Patrick.1980 said:
It feels like you're getting away from a good discussion by sticking to an ideal and not listening to both sides, and instead trying to win an argument on a technicality. Yes, everything comes down to a choice, so technically you are right and win the argument. Maybe people could move to Ogden and their commute would be shorter. Transit from Ogden or Erin Woods to Foothills is still shitty, same for cycling. Nowhere in that whole area is it set up well for pedestrians or cyclists. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to want to live in a nicer part of town than Ogden, and complain about a road design or intersection that's not well designed.

I'm guessing you're single and live and work downtown, and therefore very easy to make a choice to live near where you work. Couples make things more difficult as they might work at opposite ends of town. Then add children and things get more complicated. Yes those are choices, but at some point it becomes unrealistic to try and plan your life around being able to cycle or take transit. That's why everybody has a car. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, but that's the way it is. As Beltline mentioned, roads have to built anyway, and as Chinook mentioned, there's no harm in trying to design the roads for the best efficiency.
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Patrick.1980 said:
It feels like you're getting away from a good discussion by sticking to an ideal and not listening to both sides, and instead trying to win an argument on a technicality. Yes, everything comes down to a choice, so technically you are right and win the argument. Maybe people could move to Ogden and their commute would be shorter. Transit from Ogden or Erin Woods to Foothills is still shitty, same for cycling. Nowhere in that whole area is it set up well for pedestrians or cyclists. I don't think it's unreasonable for people to want to live in a nicer part of town than Ogden, and complain about a road design or intersection that's not well designed.

I'm guessing you're single and live and work downtown, and therefore very easy to make a choice to live near where you work. Couples make things more difficult as they might work at opposite ends of town. Then add children and things get more complicated. Yes those are choices, but at some point it becomes unrealistic to try and plan your life around being able to cycle or take transit. That's why everybody has a car. I'm not saying this is the way it should be, but that's the way it is. As Beltline mentioned, roads have to built anyway, and as Chinook mentioned, there's no harm in trying to design the roads for the best efficiency.
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Not sticking to an ideal, just saying their are ramifications of decisions. Yes I am single and I live close to downtown. But I don't complain that my condo is too small (it's really damn small) or that it costs too much (the per square foot is much higher than in the burbs, by a significant amount). That was a consequence of my decision.

My entire point is that YOU CANNOT MAKE DRIVING EFFICIENT. It is by it's very geometry, an inefficient mode of travel. Cars take up just a ridiculous amount of space, and moving a lot of them is incredibly inefficient in terms of space (count how many cars can make a left during a light cycle versus how many people can cross a crosswalk in that same time- it's orders of magnitude difference). Where you are trying to move a lot of people through a limited amount of space, personal vehicles are the worst possible option. Nothing you can do can improve that. If you drive, and I am not faulting, judging or blaming you for doing so, as there are probably a lot of very good reasons why you choose to drive (ability to get from point A to point B directly, hauling kids, hauling equipment, having multiple destinations in a single trip, trip distances too long and dispersed to be served by transit, etc), BUT you just have to accept that there will be traffic and it will suck. I am not calling anyone bad or immoral or wrong for driving, I am simply saying if you drive, and especially if you drive to an event with thousands of thousands of other people, there is going to be congestion and delay. That is simply a property of the geometry of cars, and nothing you, nor the city, can do to change that. Just learn to live with it.

The only place that has made traffic not suck are those places that charge a lot for it: Singapore or Stockholm. So if you truly don't want congestion, you have to pay.
 
^^ I wish I knew how to express myself as clearly as that. Exactly.
 
Yep. Roads and vehicles are needed, and there isn't any way around it, and unfortunately there is a cost to building these necessary roads, but the costs can be a lot less if there was less traffic, and the roads were used primarily by vehicles that had to use roads - ie delivery trucks, work related vehicles, etc
A lot less traffic would mean we wouldn't need to widen roads or build so many interchanges. Making driving more expensive is something that needs to happen, and probably will anyway. It;s happening i other cities around the world, and is only going to go more in that direction. It's a win-win situation. Making it more expensive, will lower the amount of traffic, and be better for those who wish to drive, it would also mean more revenue can be freed up to improve public transit. I'm a driver and would welcome driving being more expensive <puts on flak jacket>
retrofiturbanism said:
The only place that has made traffic not suck are those places that charge a lot for it: Singapore or Stockholm. So if you truly don't want congestion, you have to pay.
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