Sandpit
Active Member
Read up on induced demand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
Well apparently induced demand also applies to transit. But at least it probably represents increased economic activity either way.
Read up on induced demand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
But apparently induced demand also applies to transit. But at least it probably represents increased economic activity either way.
But there's no parking at Downsview Park GO Station. It only gets riders from drop offs, TTC, or the rare walk-ins. Should the same thing be implemented with new GO stations?In the short term it will certainly cause greater economic activity, because more people will be able to travel across the region. But in the long term, this isn't a sustainable development pattern. The construction of commuter parking lots needs to go hand-in-hand with the development of minimum-density regulations. Otherwise we just get into a situation where these commuter parking lots encourage more urban sprawl.
And this isn't a hypothetical situation either. We have decades of experience with this, with GO Transit, who is now the largest parking provider on the continent. The legacy of Go Transit to date has been one of subsidizing and propagating suburban sprawl; encouraging more people to locate in the suburbs, while doing nothing to increase density in the outer suburban communities where GO stations are located. These new massive parking lots on TYSSE and GO lines are a continuation of that legacy. That's not something we should be proud of.
As I mentioned before, whatever space is "freed" on highways, due to people not taking trips all the way downtown, will just be replaced by other people making new trips.
But there's no parking at Downsview Park GO Station. It only gets riders from drop offs, TTC, or the rare walk-ins. Should the same thing be implemented with new GO stations?
Congestion is inevitbale? If so, why build any transit?
View attachment 133963
In the image about we have Metrolinx proudly proclaiming that the GTHA is rapidly growing, with most of the growth happening in areas were transit coverage is essentially non-existent, as if that’s a good thing.
Fun fact: Over the coming decades, transit modal share in the GTHA is expected to decrease, despite hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in infrastructure.
Are you being fooled by percentages?
I think most of the population growth (in real numbers) is still happening in Peel, York, Toronto and Hamilton.....all places where transit is far from non-existent.
This. I don't see how anyone in Metrolinx who signed off on the Big Move (Leslie Woo, Bob Pritchard, etc.) could have read the thing, noticed that after about hundreds of billion in investment, if everything is built and rosy projections are accurate, that mode share would not even move. It's shameful. It's an embarrassment. It's scandalous how absolutely anybody could look at that and think "yeah, we're on the right track. This is what success looks like. A+ Master Plan" Do they experience any cognitive dissonance, or do they just not care?
Vancouver has managed to shift their mode share by 1% year over year for 2 decades with a fraction of what we're spending. So has Seattle. So this is possible, there's no reason why we can't do the same.
Someone high up really needs to take a step back and notice "something is wrong here, guys. Maybe we need to change our approach."
Even Vancouver allows limited greenfield, although extremely limited. Not sure I am entirely interested in going the Vancouver route anyway. The city has some of the highest average commute times on the continent.Queen’s Park could trivially put an end to sprawl by banning development on undeveloped lands. They refuse to. In fact, QP claims their solution for putting an end to sprawl it to continue to allow up to 40% or development in the suburbs to happen on undeveloped lands. It’s a pitiful attempt at stopping sprawl (if that is indeed their goal).
Mid density blocks actually need to be mid density, not some townhouses that still have 4 car driveways and large backyards.
So your problem is not that growth is happening where "transit is non-existent" it is that growth is happening where not enough people are using the transit that exists....those are two completely different problems and, granted, the second one is much harder to fix.No, I’m not being fooled by percentages. 80% of new residents between now and 2041 will be located outside of the City of Toronto.
And no, transit isn’t non-existent in those areas. It’s just very, very poor. Transit share in Peel, York and Hamilton are all well below 10%. And mind that despite their low modal share, those three municipalities have the highest transit modal share in the GTHA, other than Toronto. This is a bad situation.
With 80% of the population growth concentrated in areas with little to no modal share, the Province is expecting transit modal share to decrease outside of the 416. This is a point that cannot be repeated enough. Despite billions in transit investments, transit modal is expected to decrease. Why? Because rather than using transit to build transit-oriented communities, we’ve been using it as a way to propagate more urban sprawl. The goal is to get some commuters into trains, so we can have more people commuting between Toronto and the suburbs, so that we can build more subdivisions.