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When will they turn King Street into a true pedestrian street and ban cars even if its for short stretch? Does Toronto even have a pedestrian zone apart from maybe the Distillery?
 
When will they turn King Street into a true pedestrian street and ban cars even if its for short stretch? Does Toronto even have a pedestrian zone apart from maybe the Distillery?
The Distillery is private property; our 'pedestrian zone' is the PATH (also private) :->
 
I think the "war on car" feeling is natural considering we literally cleared way for cars in cities. Tore out trees and narrowed sidewalks around the 50's. Now when we are starting to strike a balance people are not enthused their privilege is being taken. I think this attitude will probably always be a struggle in North America where car ownership is fairly high (in comparison to Europe).
 
I think the "war on car" feeling is natural considering we literally cleared way for cars in cities. Tore out trees and narrowed sidewalks around the 50's. Now when we are starting to strike a balance people are not enthused their privilege is being taken. I think this attitude will probably always be a struggle in North America where car ownership is fairly high (in comparison to Europe).
This doesn't necessarily contradict your point, but car ownership in Europe is higher than most North Americans think. Car ownership is higher in Italy than Canada for example. It's just one small piece of the transportation puzzle.
 
Car ownership is higher in Italy than Canada for example. It's just one small piece of the transportation puzzle.
True - but not a big puzzle why. The decline of the middle class in the USA, and to a lesser extent in Canada, with the money shifting to the super-rich, etc., has been less prevalent in Europe. So a great percentage of the population can afford cars.

This isn't particularly new - there was a good article in The Atlantic back in 2012. Probably a good Economist article on it somewhere.

 
True - but not a big puzzle why. The decline of the middle class in the USA, and to a lesser extent in Canada, with the money shifting to the super-rich, etc., has been less prevalent in Europe. So a great percentage of the population can afford cars.

This isn't particularly new - there was a good article in The Atlantic back in 2012. Probably a good Economist article on it somewhere.

Interesting. I've seen the list on Wikipedia but not that article. Looks like the list on Wikipedia includes all vehicles while the study referenced in the Atlantic uses only passenger vehicles, which is more relevant to the claim that Europeans owner fewer cars than North Americans. It appears that car ownership is even less relevant to transit ridership than I thought. It's not surprising though. Anyone who's familiar with Toronto should intuitively understand that that most transit riders own a car.
 
Do you have to type the "automobile-god" crap in so many posts? I don't know why your postings are never flagged by the mods!
Easy the mods are clearly left leaning and have no interest of pandering to the Scarborough crowd. I have no idea why my parents from Holland decided to punish us by raising us in Scarborough. Good thing we had a Toronto Star subscription so I could read day after day how downtown was better and then was able to form my get away plan.
 

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