In what is widely seen as a strategic blunder, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pausing the carbon price on home heating oil has kicked off backlash from coast to coast, with new polling revealing collapsing support for his signature climate policy.
Did you move into your house before the road to it was built?
Or before the water, sewage, and electricity was built?
If we thought of transit the same way, we could have policies like developers need to consider transit connections on new developments just like they’d need to consider roads, sewers and electrcity. The longer we put off building transit, the longer its gonna take to have it working and reducing carbon emissions.
The carbon tax disincentive came first, and I think most reasonable people would agree it made sense whether it cost them personally or not. The problem is that for a lot of people the disincentive keeps growing while the alternatives haven’t improved at all.
The alternative to the status quo is the incentive to change. If you build the transit people will take it: millennials, gen z, and soon gen alpha aren’t driving at the rate of previous generations for many reasons, they want public transit but they are forced to drive. If cities actually start to prioritize public and active transit infrastructure improvements over those for single occupancy vehicles in a meaningful way people will take them. This is one of those candy for dinner scenarios where the public wants what they want without understanding why it’s not good for them and the gov’t needs to step up and do what’s right instead of caving to the pressure.
The alternative to the status quo is the incentive to change
That doesn’t even make sense because it assumes there’s already an alternative and public transit is not an alternative method of transportation for many if not most people.
It works for me, so I use public transportation daily but I know many people I work with drive in because they live far from work and public transit is a nightmare if you have to transfer between train/bus or bus/bus. Even then, my bus is often late, or doesn’t show up and there’s nothing I can do about it other than complain to the city, which they just ignore anyway.
Adding a cost to driving will force people to reconsider their habits and when enough people have to change, we can demand the city do better with transit. Right now, if you have money, you will not take public transit. It doesn’t make sense for people with money and poor people have no choice to take public transit.
Adding a cost to driving will force people to reconsider their habits and when enough people have to change, we can demand the city do better with transit. Right now, if you have money, you will not take public transit. It doesn’t make sense for people with money and poor people have no choice to take public transit.
And if there is no viable alternative for then to turn to they will not change their minds. We build the infrastructure first, and change the public’s mind second with improved commute time, more money in their pocket, etc. I’d rather not wait several years after the public has finally got it through their “me first mentality” to start the decades long process of expanding our pathetic transportation infrastructure to bring us to s21st century standard. We are a half a century behind countries in Europe and Asian in regards to our transit infrastructure, the best time to build it was 50 years ago, the second best is today not in 5 years when driving a car is no longer possible for the majority of people.
I could take the bus to work, but it turns my 2hrs of driving a day into 5 hours of commuting. I would never give up my car until that option is viable, and that’s not going to happen until we have the infrastructure to make it viable.
And if there is no viable alternative for then to turn to they will not change their minds.
Policy like this isn’t meant to impact everyone the same way.
If a city has public transit, they likely have coverage targets. Every city does this differently, but in most cities, the majority of people are targetted to be covered.
This means that if more people start using the system who are covered, it’s more likely the system itself will be expanded to cover more places.
But you’re all missing the 2nd incentive, this could also incentivise people to move to places near transit and could encourage higher density buildings near better transit.
Both of those are things you want, and both of them are things the carbon pricing helps do.
How do you build transit infrastructure when you don’t know where the demand is?
I encourage you to look into China’s bullet train network, they did what you’re suggesting. And the last I heard the system is struggling because the stations and lines weren’t built where people actually needed them so it’s heavily underutalized.
The most successful public transit systems were ones built up over time. It’s going to take decades to fix public transit in many of our cities, are there any cities that aren’t doing this?
Also remember that city policy falls under provincial jurisdiction. I was surprised this year to even see the feds start trying to throw money at that problem and incentivise cities to rethink zoning. But it takes time, and it also takes voting people who care into the right spots (city hall and provincial governments)
But what comes first? An incentive to change or an alternative to the status quo that’s been here for over 100 years?
Incentives are needed. Otherwise, as long as it’s free to pollute, people won’t do anything.
Public transit is public infrastructure.
Did you move into your house before the road to it was built? Or before the water, sewage, and electricity was built?
If we thought of transit the same way, we could have policies like developers need to consider transit connections on new developments just like they’d need to consider roads, sewers and electrcity. The longer we put off building transit, the longer its gonna take to have it working and reducing carbon emissions.
What does that have to do with a carbon tax or what I said? Seems you’re making an argument on my behalf and then arguing with yourself.
The carbon tax disincentive came first, and I think most reasonable people would agree it made sense whether it cost them personally or not. The problem is that for a lot of people the disincentive keeps growing while the alternatives haven’t improved at all.
The alternative to the status quo is the incentive to change. If you build the transit people will take it: millennials, gen z, and soon gen alpha aren’t driving at the rate of previous generations for many reasons, they want public transit but they are forced to drive. If cities actually start to prioritize public and active transit infrastructure improvements over those for single occupancy vehicles in a meaningful way people will take them. This is one of those candy for dinner scenarios where the public wants what they want without understanding why it’s not good for them and the gov’t needs to step up and do what’s right instead of caving to the pressure.
That doesn’t even make sense because it assumes there’s already an alternative and public transit is not an alternative method of transportation for many if not most people.
It works for me, so I use public transportation daily but I know many people I work with drive in because they live far from work and public transit is a nightmare if you have to transfer between train/bus or bus/bus. Even then, my bus is often late, or doesn’t show up and there’s nothing I can do about it other than complain to the city, which they just ignore anyway.
Adding a cost to driving will force people to reconsider their habits and when enough people have to change, we can demand the city do better with transit. Right now, if you have money, you will not take public transit. It doesn’t make sense for people with money and poor people have no choice to take public transit.
And if there is no viable alternative for then to turn to they will not change their minds. We build the infrastructure first, and change the public’s mind second with improved commute time, more money in their pocket, etc. I’d rather not wait several years after the public has finally got it through their “me first mentality” to start the decades long process of expanding our pathetic transportation infrastructure to bring us to s21st century standard. We are a half a century behind countries in Europe and Asian in regards to our transit infrastructure, the best time to build it was 50 years ago, the second best is today not in 5 years when driving a car is no longer possible for the majority of people.
I could take the bus to work, but it turns my 2hrs of driving a day into 5 hours of commuting. I would never give up my car until that option is viable, and that’s not going to happen until we have the infrastructure to make it viable.
Policy like this isn’t meant to impact everyone the same way.
If a city has public transit, they likely have coverage targets. Every city does this differently, but in most cities, the majority of people are targetted to be covered.
This means that if more people start using the system who are covered, it’s more likely the system itself will be expanded to cover more places.
But you’re all missing the 2nd incentive, this could also incentivise people to move to places near transit and could encourage higher density buildings near better transit.
Both of those are things you want, and both of them are things the carbon pricing helps do.
How do you build transit infrastructure when you don’t know where the demand is?
I encourage you to look into China’s bullet train network, they did what you’re suggesting. And the last I heard the system is struggling because the stations and lines weren’t built where people actually needed them so it’s heavily underutalized.
The most successful public transit systems were ones built up over time. It’s going to take decades to fix public transit in many of our cities, are there any cities that aren’t doing this?
Also remember that city policy falls under provincial jurisdiction. I was surprised this year to even see the feds start trying to throw money at that problem and incentivise cities to rethink zoning. But it takes time, and it also takes voting people who care into the right spots (city hall and provincial governments)