Calgary Roads Discussion Thread

[TorqueDog]

To add to that, I think the prohibitive cost of parking in the Calgary DCD versus transit is a far bigger incentive for transit than commute time. A monthly pass is $109, versus parking which the median rate in Calgary's downtown is something like $440 a month. And if you don't get a pass issued by work and have to pay daily rate, you might luck out depending on the building if you can snag early bird rates, but on the whole you're likely looking at more than that.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Nah. In fact since the improvements on Crowchild my commute has remained basically the same. I'll let you look up when those improvements were implemented.

You vastly, vastly overestimate commute times, and you vastly, vastly overestimate how much these upgrades actually lessen commute time.

Like how would you even know these things. You don't live in a "far flung" community.

I'm glad you know so much about me personally!

I lived at the city limits of Crowchild when there were lights at 32nd, 40th, Northland Drive, Shaganappi, 53rd, Sarcee, Nose Hill Drive, briefly Stoney Trail and Rocky Ridge Road.

Although it's tough to measure for that stretch, it took decades to build all of the interchanges in question and the city was changing at the same time, it's also not a great case study as growth is capped at Bearspaw/Church Ranches, and the LRT was significantly expanded along that route at the same time.

Luckily, smarter people than us have gone beyond anecdotal evidence when examining the topic:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...720?via%3Dihub

[Acey]

Is there a particular road project moving forward that shouldn't be moving forward because of the horrors of induced demand or are we just beating the induced demand horse to death like usual?

[fotze2]

I’ve never understood why we always have to “grow”. In everything. Companies, shareholders/cities/stocks. Why can’t we just maintain? My buds bro is the head lawyer at Zeiss. A family owned massive company and they aren’t beholden to growth. Just maintain and able to do world class research that makes everyone better.

Other than cooler cuisine in Calgary, I cannot think of anything in Calgary that hasn’t gotten significantly worse due to growth. Taxes and cost of living should go down due to economies of scale? Fata no. They are putting up that mini city at viscount bennet a few blocks away and we are getting the house ready to sell. Traffic is going to be a nightmare.

How about people stop humping their brains out reproducing their crappy genes.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Acey

Is there a particular road project moving forward that shouldn't be moving forward because of the horrors of induced demand or are we just beating the induced demand horse to death like usual?

This conversation was restarted by someone denying the concept of induced demand by quoting a year old post of mine, so maybe better to ask them what's up here.

That said, in my opinion, all of them that are coming at the expense of building competent transit. Roads and transit should be grown together, and in my opinion our transit is woefully behind. I don't think we should stop building and improving roads, I just don't think it should be the only thing we spend our tax dollars on.

If you're low income in Calgary, you likely need a car to work. Car ownership is a substantial financial burden on a low income family.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by fotze2

I’ve never understood why we always have to “grow”. In everything. Companies, shareholders/cities/stocks. Why can’t we just maintain? My buds bro is the head lawyer at Zeiss. A family owned massive company and they aren’t beholden to growth. Just maintain and able to do world class research that makes everyone better.

Other than cooler cuisine in Calgary, I cannot think of anything in Calgary that hasn’t gotten significantly worse due to growth. Taxes and cost of living should go down due to economies of scale? Fata no. They are putting up that mini city at viscount bennet a few blocks away and we are getting the house ready to sell. Traffic is going to be a nightmare.

How about people stop humping their brains out reproducing their crappy genes.

Are you willing to significantly increase taxation to pay for your old age? Are you willing to have a much flatter stock market as the population growth won’t underpin a portion of the growth?

If you can live with the consequences of a demographic square instead of a pyramid then growth could be eliminated.

It radically changes many things so likely takes a 100 years to implement.

I’d like to understand the real consequences of moving to end growth. For Canada it would be relatively simple as growth is just controlled by immigration rate as people have less than replacement levels of children.

[Fuzz]

Fotze is right.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by GGG

Are you willing to significantly increase taxation to pay for your old age? Are you willing to have a much flatter stock market as the population growth won’t underpin a portion of the growth?

If you can live with the consequences of a demographic square instead of a pyramid then growth could be eliminated.

It radically changes many things so likely takes a 100 years to implement.

I’d like to understand the real consequences of moving to end growth. For Canada it would be relatively simple as growth is just controlled by immigration rate as people have less than replacement levels of children.

Why can't that stay with a maintain? I don't get the math. I am probably wrong, I just don't get it. If we can just hump to maintain or just below and limit immigration to make up the gap. Just seems we are just shovelling humans into this city to benefit RNDSQR and Brookfield development companies and city councillors that all move to these companies after they got their pensions.

I just can't wrap my head around growth with no discernible benefit to most.

I've worked for so many oil companies and the pursuit to grow has cratered every single one of them. Worst investment ever, all of them. Apache, Pengrowth, Penn West, my current one and a few others. We are just pissing our money away on dumb crap to grow because people at the top want to get rich and let others hold the bag when they Bugs Bunny running away. All of them the same thing. Growth. Every company other than CNRL, Tourmaline, Mike Rose, ARC is a crap investment because of the pursuit for growth.

I'm just ranting doing work on a Saturday for a company I'd like to short.

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by fotze2

Why can't that stay with a maintain? I don't get the math. I am probably wrong, I just don't get it. If we can just hump to maintain or just below and limit immigration to make up the gap. Just seems we are just shovelling humans into this city to benefit RNDSQR and Brookfield development companies and city councillors that all move to these companies after they got their pensions.

I just can't wrap my head around growth with no discernible benefit to most.

I've worked for so many oil companies and the pursuit to grow has cratered every single one of them. Worst investment ever, all of them. Apache, Pengrowth, Penn West, my current one and a few others. We are just pissing our money away on dumb crap to grow because people at the top want to get rich and let others hold the bag when they Bugs Bunny running away. All of them the same thing. Growth. Every company other than CNRL, Tourmaline, Mike Rose, ARC is a crap investment because of the pursuit for growth.

I'm just ranting doing work on a Saturday for a company I'd like to short.

Do it, and maybe the timing coincides with a massive cyber security breach and you make millions.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

Do it, and maybe the timing coincides with a massive cyber security breach and you make millions.

Its private so 60,000 shares of magic beans worth negative.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by fotze2

Why can't that stay with a maintain? I don't get the math. I am probably wrong, I just don't get it. If we can just hump to maintain or just below and limit immigration to make up the gap. Just seems we are just shovelling humans into this city to benefit RNDSQR and Brookfield development companies and city councillors that all move to these companies after they got their pensions.

Is Calgary specifically "shoveling" people into itself, or is it just freedom of migration allowing people to move to places where housing is attainable?

[Nancy]

Originally Posted by GGG

Are you willing to significantly increase taxation to pay for your old age? Are you willing to have a much flatter stock market as the population growth won’t underpin a portion of the growth?

If you can live with the consequences of a demographic square instead of a pyramid then growth could be eliminated.

It radically changes many things so likely takes a 100 years to implement.

I’d like to understand the real consequences of moving to end growth. For Canada it would be relatively simple as growth is just controlled by immigration rate as people have less than replacement levels of children.

At some point, our immigration system switched from one where a growing economy required immigration, to one where growing the economy required immigration. This new system is a pyramid scheme, and it is destined to end in a spectacular fashion.

Layer on top of that the AI revolution and the obsoletion of human capital, and we really are at a point where we need a hard stop and reset. But, the focus for economic growth should always have been automation and productivity improvement, with countries like Sweden, Denmark, and Finland being good models.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by fotze2

Why can't that stay with a maintain? I don't get the math. I am probably wrong, I just don't get it. If we can just hump to maintain or just below and limit immigration to make up the gap. Just seems we are just shovelling humans into this city to benefit RNDSQR and Brookfield development companies and city councillors that all move to these companies after they got their pensions.

I just can't wrap my head around growth with no discernible benefit to most.

I've worked for so many oil companies and the pursuit to grow has cratered every single one of them. Worst investment ever, all of them. Apache, Pengrowth, Penn West, my current one and a few others. We are just pissing our money away on dumb crap to grow because people at the top want to get rich and let others hold the bag when they Bugs Bunny running away. All of them the same thing. Growth. Every company other than CNRL, Tourmaline, Mike Rose, ARC is a crap investment because of the pursuit for growth.

I'm just ranting doing work on a Saturday for a company I'd like to short.

It costs more because you are going increase the number of retired people for each working person so sustaining the same level of service costs more. I’ve wanted to try to Napkin out the relative impact of going from the current structure to even number of people born each year but have never got around to it.

But I tend to agree that flattening growth to replacement level probably on average improves quality of life

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by GGG

It costs more because you are going increase the number of retired people for each working person so sustaining the same level of service costs more. I’ve wanted to try to Napkin out the relative impact of going from the current structure to even number of people born each year but have never got around to it.

But I tend to agree that flattening growth to replacement level probably on average improves quality of life

Makes sense. I just used to not e able to imagine anywhere but here but now I seem to hate it and I don’t want to leave. Every walk to work is a walking dead gollum circus. So depressing. Retire to some crap beach and rent boogie boards and eat a pineapple a day and some bread. Die early who cares.

[Faust]

The Dilemma of Growth:

https://www.futurelearn.com/info/cou.../0/steps/33981

[Acey]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I just don't think it should be the only thing we spend our tax dollars on.

It obviously isn't, else we wouldn't be happily spending however many bilions of dollars on light rail and why it's therefore a perfectly reasonable question to ask which current road project should have its funds instead allocated to transit.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Is Calgary specifically "shoveling" people into itself, or is it just freedom of migration allowing people to move to places where housing is attainable?

Dude, take a drive to the city limits. They are literally loading people off trucks and onto shovels. Open your eyes.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Acey

It obviously isn't, else we wouldn't be happily spending however many bilions of dollars on light rail and why it's therefore a perfectly reasonable question to ask which current road project should have its funds instead allocated to transit.

But we aren't spending billions on light rail. It's completely on hold. If that changes, then I agree, we're in a good spot. If we don't have money for light rail, we should see road projects being scaled back across the board to keep some form of parallel investment in transit and roads going.

I don't know which road projects should be delayed. I leave that to the traffic engineers that understand the ROI/urgency of the candidate projects.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Nancy

At some point, our immigration system switched from one where a growing economy required immigration, to one where growing the economy required immigration.

That’s a good way to put it. However, our public spending on services like education, health care, and pensions have always been a pyramid scheme. Ever since these programs were introduced in the 50s, the typical Canadian has received more in benefits in their lifetime than they paid in taxes.

As lifespans have gotten longer, that gap has widened. Public spending on health care and pensions eat up a larger and larger share of the budget, while the ratio of tax-paying workers to tax-taking retirees gets smaller and smaller. We could have rationalized this decades ago with reforms to taxes and pensions (increasing income taxes on boomers, increasing age of eligibility for pensions, etc). But those sorts of measures are extremely unpopular with voters.

So we either keep the immigration train going, or impose even more painful and unpopular measures on voters.

I’m not a fan of this kind growth either - I don’t see how Calgary will be a better place for me to live at 2 million people than it was at 1 million. It will certainly be worse in a lot of ways. The part I struggle with is how almost all growth happens in a handful of major cities. I don’t think most people actually want to live in cities of 1million+. But for reasons I don’t really understand - especially with the technology we have - economic activity in the 21st century is extremely concentrated geographically.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

That’s a good way to put it. However, our public spending on services like education, health care, and pensions have always been a pyramid scheme. Ever since these programs were introduced in the 50s, the typical Canadian has received more in benefits in their lifetime than they paid in taxes.

As lifespans have gotten longer, that gap has widened. Public spending on health care and pensions eat up a larger and larger share of the budget, while the ratio of tax-paying workers to tax-taking retirees gets smaller and smaller. We could have rationalized this decades ago with reforms to taxes and pensions (increasing income taxes on boomers, increasing age of eligibility for pensions, etc). But those sorts of measures are extremely unpopular with voters.

So we either keep the immigration train going, or impose even more painful and unpopular measures on voters.

I’m not a fan of this kind growth either - I don’t see how Calgary will be a better place for me to live at 2 million people than it was at 1 million. It will certainly be worse in a lot of ways. The part I struggle with is how almost all growth happens in a handful of major cities. I don’t think most people actually want to live in cities of 1million+. But for reasons I don’t really understand - especially with the technology we have - economic activity in the 21st century is extremely concentrated geographically.

Isn't that expected due to Canada having other sources of income, like corporate taxes, tariffs, etc?