44 North
Senior Member
I think that though we are behind Vancouver, it is not as if the plan in Toronto is to not build TOD development. That is actually the stated plan and objective for cities like Vaughan, Markham and Richmond Hill (who are currently waiting on the transit to open first).
Plans are one thing. Reality is something else. Vaughan has development plans, and a subway (that by all accounts should've opened this year). Good on them! But they also have a city council that collectively snubs their noses at smart growth and overwhelmingly supports sprawling onto protected greenbelt (all the while having generation's worth of designated sprawl land). We got hosed with the extension to VMC and it set a terrible precedent, there's no two ways about it. Of all the growth centres, VMC has the absolute lowest jobs and pop. density - and that includes places well outside the GTA like downtown Peterboro (6x bigger) and downtown St Catharines (5.5x bigger). In order to achieve a "metropolitan"-level population of 20k by 2031 it has to grow 900%. Yes, nine hundred percent.
Another subway destination, Markham and Richmond Hill's RHC-LG, has to grow by 567% in order achieve a pop. of 20k by 2031 (which keep in mind would be 5k lower than existing STC, and 50k lower than existing NYC). Very low existing density, absurdly ambitious hopes for (what can be argued is so-so) growth, very costly transportation to put the T in TOD... I find it all hard to take seriously.
I think I can give credit to Van-city for being more realistic in their aspirations for developing an ever-expanding subway network, but using an affordable means of obtaining it (i.e - a light metro system). If like TO they all of a sudden decided they can only build all-underground, the Evergreen Line probably wouldn't have gotten past the planning stage. And if they were to only build underground, I think they'd put a lot more thought into where such an investment should go (i.e - not gamble it on high-risk ventures like sending a subway to industrial parks with dangerously low densities, low transit usage, and shaky growth plans).