🚀 go-pugleaf

jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison) writes:


>>
>>The Coquihalla itself cost 1 billion. 
>>

>hey, guess what? The Coquihalla is a *TOLL* road!!!

>The highway is actually ahead of schedule  in paying itself back, because
>it was so badly needed, that many people use it.

Yes, but where did the billion $ come from in the first place.
It certainly wasn't gas taxes.


>But they don't build billion dollar projects every single year

Not every year, but there has been in the last 5-6:
The Coquihalla  - 1 billion plus
The Alex Fraser - 250 mil 
Upgrades on the Squamish Highway - 125 mil
2 new super ferrries in construction - ??? part of the highway budget
Others I can't remeber off the top of my head.

>I thought it was whether or not it is fair for people who do not directly
>or indirectly use a service (public transport) to subsidize it for people
>who do use it.

Drivers directly benefit from public trnsportation,
because without it the roads would be clogged much worse and many more
bridges like the Alex Fraser would have to be built.

>People can sit here blowing smoke about how nice transit is, therefore it
>should be subsidized, but that does not tackle the fact that it would be
>fairer, more expedient, and more efficient to let the actions of the 
>competitive free market determine the optimum combination of buses, cars
>taxis etc. Subsidies make waste and misallocation of resources a virtual
>certainty.

Optimum? Free market?

The building of bridges and roads and ferries have *nothing* to do
with the free market. If they did there would be a toll on every road
and on every bridge.

And as for "waste of resources", thats what you do every time you use
a car instead of public transit. You waste gasoline and pollute the
air and take up space in parking lots and on roads that could be 
put to better use.

A better solution, and cheaper, would be to ban cars in the downtown
area of Vancouver and force people to use buses, skytrain and commuter
rail. That would be cheaper and cleaner and much less of a waste of
resources.
-- 
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"We've got to get bigger guns" -- Dick Durkin                  schuck@sfu.ca
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