Hello Buzzer readers. The speaker series Rethinking Transportation: New Voices, New Ideas continues this month with a lecture by Andrew Coyne on February 25, 2014. Coyne is the weekly columnist for the National Post, member of the CBC, The Nathional’s At Issue Panel, and the former national editor of Maclean’s magazine known for his insightful and provocative commentary on political and economic issues.

Coyne’s lecture, Easing Congestion in Metro Vancouver: Prices without Subsidies, will address pricing of roads and transit – a timely issue in Metro Vancouver and other metropolitan areas grappling with the effects of growing congestion. He has written extensively about road pricing as a possible answer to congestion including MacLean’s Magazine.

Coyne takes an approach that pricing road use is the only effective way to induce people to drive less. As road use is at present rationed by time rather than money, other methods such as wider roads, carpooling, synchronized lights, etc. end up inducing people to drive more, since they reduce the time-price of using the roads.

The lecture will take place on February 25 at 7 pm at Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (at SFU Woodwards), 149 West Hastings, Vancouver. The admission for the lecture is free, but reservations are required. RSVP or sign up for the webcast here.

This is the second lecture in the series Rethinking Transportation: New Voices, New Ideas. The first lecture featured Anne Golden, Chair of the Ontario Transit Investment Strategy Advisory Panel, who spoke about her work with the Transit Panel on making recommendations on transit funding for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area. If you missed the lecture, you can still check out the video here.

With nearly 45,000 people moving to Metro Vancouver every year, the conversation about how we travel in our region becomes increasingly important. The lectures will continue throughout 2014 and the idea is to explore new perspectives on the movement of people and goods in cities, with thought leaders, decision makers, and experts from across North America.

What do you think are the most important, transportation-related, topics we should talk about? Let us know in the comments below.

Do you know someone who would be interested in attending this lecture? Feel free to share this post with your colleagues and friends. For Twitter mentions, the hashtag for the lecture is #movingthefuture.

Author: Borjana Slipicevic