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“The research shows you can’t really build your way out of traffic congestion,†said Robin Lindsey, professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.
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This is such a frustrating quote and it comes up everywhere.

Yes, it's true that any good that's provided for free, or substantially below cost, will see demand outstrip capacity and, therefore, congestion. So, yes, the only practical solution to end congestion is to put a cost on road use.

But just because demand will practically always outstrip supply doesn't mean that there are no transport benefits. If people are using a given route, it's usually their quickest option. If you build a highway and it's full, those road users are still probably benefitting from the route or why else would they be taking it in the first place?

People talk about congestion like it's a bad thing. Could you imagine if Air Canada sat around saying, 'gee, let's not bother adding more service on this YYZ-LHR route, no matter how many seats we add there are just more passengers!'
 
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We certainly need some level of road capacity so that people and goods can get around the GTA, but for the most part new highways simply enable people to move further away from work and benefit from lower housing costs on the periphery. The government ends up subsidizing and encouraging sprawl, while commuters spend the same amount of time in the car but happen to travel longer distances in that time.

In your air traffic analysis, AC does actually aim to make a profit so there is no implicit subsidy. In the case of highways, there is effectively unlimited demand because the cost to drivers is zero.
 
I agree. The 407 has already enabled a lot of sprawl (ie. Oakville development north of Dundas and the future Durham developments like Seaton).

Despite the Greenbelt and Places to Grow, this new highway will do the same.
 
I'm not one to support new highway construction, however there is a severe lack of E-W routes in Northern York Region. Either missing links need to be connected or a new route created.

As an example. Between Major Mackenzie Dr. in Vaughan and Hwy 9 in Newmarket, 20km. There are only 3 roads that connect hwy 404 to hwy 400, and it basically drops to 0 if you extend the range to hwy 27 (ie. future route of hwy 427 extension).
 
I guess you can blame York Region for that one! There are some pretty stupid discontinuities (like why didn't they reroute Jefferson sideroad to connect Stouffville Rd. and King Vaughan Rd.) where it's obvious that the region just cheaped out or didn't plan properly. A 400-series connection between 400 and 404 would make a lot of sense, but at this point where are you going to build it? Straight through the Greenbelt?!
 
Can't really do much about urban sprawl - people will always want to live in houses and new houses need to be built to serve the growing population. Sure, many would love to live in houses near the subway line but they are just way too expensive for the average family.

It seems to boil down to people living in Toronto who don't want to pay for a highway they will never use, and people in the suburbs not wanting to pay for transit they will never use.
 
wopchop said:
I agree. The 407 has already enabled a lot of sprawl (ie. Oakville development north of Dundas and the future Durham developments like Seaton).

Despite the Greenbelt and Places to Grow, this new highway will do the same.
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To be fair, I'm ok with the development in Oakville north of Dundas, since by and large it's a decent suburban density (a lot of semis and townhomes). Dundas is also earmarked for a BRT, and much of the development is within walking distance of Dundas. Yes, it's still not infill development, but at least it's expanding the urban boundary with some semblance of a plan.
 
arcum said:
Can't really do much about urban sprawl - people will always want to live in houses and new houses need to be built to serve the growing population. Sure, many would love to live in houses near the subway line but they are just way too expensive for the average family.

It seems to boil down to people living in Toronto who don't want to pay for a highway they will never use, and people in the suburbs not wanting to pay for transit they will never use.
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How about I rephrase what you wrote: "people want stuff without paying for it".

They don't want to pay for the cost of infrastructure to support those new houses and they don't want to pay for the highway or transit line that will allow them to get around the city. If people actually had to pay for the cost of their own choices, you might see a return to less wasteful urban growth. Unfortunately, Ontario voters have figured out that they can vote for "free stuff" and politicians will indulge them by taxing someone else or relying on deficit spending.

I'd be fine with new highway construction if drivers actually paid for all the costs. Likewise, transit users should cover the ongoing capital and operating costs. It's only fair.
 
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gweed123 said:
To be fair, I'm ok with the development in Oakville north of Dundas, since by and large it's a decent suburban density (a lot of semis and townhomes). Dundas is also earmarked for a BRT, and much of the development is within walking distance of Dundas. Yes, it's still not infill development, but at least it's expanding the urban boundary with some semblance of a plan.
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Yeah, I get that, and I'm not criticizing what they are building. Just pointing out that a highway will encourage new development. That's inevitable. For a recent example, just look at the new Queensville development being made possible by the 404 extension.
 
wopchop said:
Yeah, I get that, and I'm not criticizing what they are building. Just pointing out that a highway will encourage new development. That's inevitable. For a recent example, just look at the new Queensville development being made possible by the 404 extension.
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Yup, agreed. I think it's pretty easy to distinguish when suburban development is being built around transit, and when it's being built around an auto-centric model. The Queensville developments are certainly the latter.

In general, I'm not opposed to new highways spurring new development, as long as there's transit infrastructure that's accompanying it, and the new communities are being planned with transit in mind, and not just more cookie cutter, car centric suburbia. Oakville and Burlington are doing great things in the latter. Most of the residential development going in along the Highway 5 corridor is pretty dense, and even further back it's mostly semis and towns. It may have been partially spurred by the 407, but at least it's decent development.
 
I don't really understand why the 404 extension was built so soon. Surely the money could have been better spent on widening projects closer to the GTA.

It's like the equivalent of extending the subway into Scarborough (but even more sparsely populated) when downtown is already extremely congested.
 
Woodbine was shot to hell traffic wise and 4 laning it wouldn't have made any sense.

The Highway was also an $85 million dollar project, which wouldn't even pay for 1km of collector-express additions to the 401.

The 404 extension right now is roughly 1/3rd of the originally planned Northern York region highway network they wanted to build, The 404 was originally going to go to Beaverton and there was to be an additional highway constructed between the 400 and 404 just north of Bradford.
 
Since there are no railways to Keswick or any of the other communities along the south shore of Lake Simcoe, it would have made a lot of sense to build the 404 extwnsion with a commuter rail line in the right of way. It could have been a branch of the Barrie line, with a link built somewhere around Green Lane. Montreal recently extended one of its commuter lines doing something similar. I suppose it's too late now, but it seems like it would have been a great opportunity. If we can justify spending $85 million building a new commuter freeway to a small town, surely we can justify spending a little more to balance out the modal split.
 
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