Take a look at the report from Metro Vancouver, using real HH cost data. There are suburban communities here where transportation is the largest share or even with housing costs. In those places, better transit will be the quicker and cheaper path to reducing cost of living.

3) Paul Martin spent more or less an entire year preparing Canadians for the 1995 budget. One gets the impression that Carney thinks that he's done all he needs to do with that one nohingburger speech he gave earlier last week. Again, an unsual style of message control.

Check out this report from Metro Vancouver which paints the same picture in this region (Item E in this agenda): metrovancouver.org/boards/Regio...

In some communities, transportation is the largest line item, and in all others, it is the 2nd largest. Check out the recent Metro Van report, "Housing and Transportation Cost Burden Study Update." Better transit also improves affordability. Item E in this agenda: metrovancouver.org/boards/Regio...

Transit agencies do this a lot and the responses are pretty clear: a free bus that doesn't show up isn't useful. Of course, a fast, frequent, reliable AND free bus is better than one that isn't free, but lower income transit users mostly say that good bus service needs to come first.

To conclude, the reason I'm not a supporter of generalized free transit is because I think that other redistributive policies on housing and education are more important.

Especially in a country like the US, with no universal healthcare and a ludicrously expensive higher education system.

As you know, elevated metros aren't a huge issue in most of Metro Vancouver: it is the default (thank god). But there are still critics, so new defenses are always needed. Your point #2 is not one I have seen used here, and it is brilliant! (and similar to the rationale for bus lanes)

Speaking just to the comments on "why not amalgamate?!" I would suggest perusing the extensive academic research on this subject - led by UVic's Bob Bish (i.e. "Local Government Amalgamations: Discredited Nineteenth-century Ideals Alive in the Twenty-first"). No need to reinvent the wheel.

Great thread. So many gotchas out there right, but housing policy is complex and ever changing which you underline well here.

As we're finally witnessing in 2025, regional governments at the state level in the US or the Provincial level in Canada are taking region-wide action on housing supply because micro-regional changes do not significantly impact housing markets.