Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowboy89
^ The better the transit system the less people on the roads. That money at best buys 4-5 interchanges, but could move a whole lot more people more reliably with a couple of busways. That said I don't support anything that rips out existing roads and puts busways or bike lanes in it's place.
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Why wouldn't you? Bike and transit investment is basically net-positive in public wealth generation. For every car taken off the road you save $thousands for other drivers of the life of the infrastructure. I really dislike this siloed/tribal thinking that investments in transit are zero-sum, either they're for vehicles or they're against vehicles. For the most part investments in alternative transit or even the removal of vehicle infrastructure can be beneficial to motorists.
edit: This is a good summary of the public good case to encourage alternative transport options, check out page 58 for a summary monetizing the benefits.
http://www.vtpi.org/nmt-tdm.pdf
The problem is that there is limited space in urban centres and that you will run into use conflicts between vehicles and other modes. It's nice to build bike lanes where there's an existing unused right of way but for the most part you're talking about taking out lanes. That's fine if it leads to lower congestion. Best example I have is the Burrard Street Bridge in Vancouver. Converted a whole lane to bikes on a 6 lane bridge, drivers were initially irate but traffic effects are negligible and there's 26% more cycling trips over the bridge and certain to rise further.
http://www.openalex.ca/2009/11/vanco...e-success.html