Well, it's a great question, and I wish I could give you a perfectly formed answer. It's actually something I've been thinking about for a while but haven't come to a resolution on. I think I would suggest a new relationship among the federal government, the provinces, and the cities to work together to come up with a series of criteria that I think would include the cities' definitions of success. Of course, given the constitutional nature of cities, the provinces have to be part of that conversation. I do believe that cities understand the success of cities better than any other level of government does, so I think the cities should take a lead through maybe the big city mayors' caucus or other things, in defining “success” in cities.
But I think it should also include strong criteria around return on investment in terms of spinoff effects for job creation, tax generation, and other things like that, but also things relating to social equity, public health, climate change, etc. I think a framework of that kind of smart infrastructure decision making could be made, with the cities in a leadership role.
My sense of the data that whizzes by my eyes every single day is that if that kind of exercise were done, public transit, walking, and biking would come out significantly ahead. We've seen that, in everything from return on investment to job creation, various pieces of studies that have yet to be pulled together into something comprehensive for our national conversation are suggesting that transit, walking, and biking projects outperform. The data is on the side of what I'm talking about, which is why I say this is not ideological. Frankly, there are a lot of people who support transit, walking, and biking for various reasons, including ideological reasons. I'm very much motivated by a pragmatic need for our city regions to succeed in every way that we define success.