thommyjo
Senior Member
Agreed. But when monthly insurance, depreciation/payments, etc are all “sunk” already, it feels easier to just use your car a little more than the very obvious $5-7 round trip cost. So parking is really the only easy direct cost comparison for people to mentally choose between for driving vs transit.The real cost of operating a car is more than gas. It's insurance, depreciation, maintenance, oil changes and so forth. It's more like 30 cents per kilometre, and that's a modest estimate.
Agreed. Not suggesting we SHOULD make traffic worse or parking more or any of that. But realistically, that’s why many use transit in other cities. If Toronto had as little traffic as use, and as many parking spots per person available, way less people would use transit there too.If you make going downtown more expensive and difficult, then you get more of what we have been dealing with over the last few years, a struggling downtown and more companies will just move their offices to suburban areas where parking is cheaper, more available and it is easier to get to.
In the short term it is perhaps easier to treat people like bad children and punish them to get them to do what you want. This will not work and will probably provoke both resentment and serious backlash.
In the long run the real solution is to improve ETS.
In some ways it’ll just take time. More development of surface lots, more city growth that worsens traffic, more train lines offering more frequent, enjoyable service.