The Obliviously Obvious

Stephen Rees has a nice post on how Gateway will generate and induce traffic. Here’s a key point:

Land use starts to change in response to the new capacity. Freeeways have this effect even in their planning stages and speculators have already started to buy land in the valley in the expectation of the new freeway capacity.
The province argues that this development would have happened anyway. But this ignores the impact that new freeway capacity has on perceptions of travel time. It changes the pattern of development in terms of its location and density. This induces more travel. The pattern of development is not transit or pedestrian oriented, but freeway oriented.
The pattern of driving to every destination is reinforced and the “no alternative” reason for car use spreads ever wider.

Yup, I know this is obvious stuff, often repeated among those of us interested in transportation in general and Gateway in particular. But it isn’t to many of those in leadership positions. To many in the media, it’s arcane; they don’t have an easy way to say it even if they do understand it.
The Province counts on this. It allows them to say things which are simply absurd, but to do it with authority. Namely: doubling the major traffic arterial in this region will have help solve congestion, produce no more greenhouse gases, and have no effect on growth patterns.
Where are the professionals? – the people who know better, and yet hold their tongues. In particular, the transportation engineering consultants.