Quote:
Originally Posted by Taeolas
Good luck to them. I'm sure some may see it as being ambitious, but it's probably a good time to start the studies and planning and securing right of ways and such, as well as priming future development and growth. Waiting too long and you are threading through much heavier developed communities which costs a lot more.
Sydney feels spread out enough that a Light rail feels like it would be a good fit. Halifax should probably have one as well, but they've obviously helld off on the planning until its too late and much more difficult to do.
Moncton and Saint John could probably be doing some LRT studies at least to start planning some routes (especially Moncton to thread it through downtown while its being revitalized).
Freddy would be difficult to do one, since the core is so compact and at the bottom of the valley and split by the river. We'd need a rail crossing at a minimum that could be used which would probably delay any LRT plans up here for decades.
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I think I agree. If we don't make the infrastructure now to build around later, then we'll have to build the infrastructure later around what we build now.. much more difficult, and costly, and less effective, and we'd be cussing out the people that let a Sobey's be built on the perfect right-of-way.
I would love to see the plans for places like the ones you mentioned. Making amassing linear ROW in the routes you think will be beneficial a longer-term goal, even (in the form of trails in the meantime, probably), would pay big dividends later when you don't have to make wasteful detours or some nasty eminent domain.. even in the case where you don't end up using it, you have a nice linear trail, basic non-motorized connectivity, and can sell it to adjacent properties if really need be. I have no sweet clue what Saint John's would look like.. would it just run along the current railway ROW? Fredericton's would more than likely just run on the current trail and make a big C. And I'm nowhere near familiar enough with Moncton to know where they'd find a line handy.
(And of course, best of luck to CBU with their study, I hope it goes well – it would feed back positively into many, many things!)