I thought this would be a good thread to respond to the little article on the front page today.
http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2014/08/stuck-past-outmoded-plans-new-towns#disqus_thread
While this does have some form of valid criticisms, I find it exemplifies the typical planning view that a new build development without rail transit is useless. Too often I think planners get into this mindset that every neighbourhood needs rail transit, while that simply isn't reality. in reality towns like these have 2 kinds of transport needs, local transport needs and regional needs. What Queensville and Seaton have set out to do is to change it so that those local needs are met with non-auto trips, but the regional ones are using autos.
You can preach rail connections all day long if you want, but you also have to look at the real world here, too often I see people get caught up in this ideal that cars can be sidelined in new fringe development. it can't. Commuter rail can never serve anything but a token amount of trips in these types of locations (1-2% modal share), there simply aren't trips being made in these communities for it to be in demand. Regional travel from these locations using anything other than a car is a rather hopeless endeavour as the destinations that the residents will be visiting will be too far dispersed. People living in these areas are not commuting downtown in large numbers. The planners who designed these realized this, and planned accordingly. They designed the communities to allow for strong transit / active transportation links for local trips. The stores in Seaton must have street fronting retail, for example. The streets will feature bike lanes, and residential clusters will be focused around high density retail clusters, enabling residents to walk or bike to them. The entirety of Queensville is designed around a large central retail/ high density housing area, with blocks pointed towards it. Regional transport is provided by highways in both cases, yes. But in the cases of these towns, they aren't big enough to justify something much more than a rail station, which would siphon only a small amount of traffic off of the road network. You have to look at these towns in the context of the entire GTA as well, not all of the people working in them will be living in them (and vice versa). The only realistic solution to provide the commercial and industrial growth you require in these towns is to facilitate this through auto based transport. Someone from Markham can't take the train to Seaton for work.
These towns were designed with reality, not ideology, in mind. They need to provide single family homes, as dictated by market conditions. The question is how to build them in the most sustainable way without ruining their viability. This isn't the first time this type of planning has been done either, Cornell in Markham is a good example of how this type of sprawlish new urbanism is constructed while remaining viable. The idea behind them is to allow for local trips to be non auto travel, and although it would be nice to have non auto regional travel, it simply isn't realistic. What these towns set out to do (serve local trips), should be done fairly well. Strong bus routes designed to generate ridership, bike lanes, retail centred in the middle of communities to maximize the population within walking distance, pedestrian friendly spaces, etc. In the context of these towns construction, its about as good as it gets in terms of urbanism. to push for more isn't going to work as it simply isn't how these neighborhoods are built and isn't realistic in the context in which they sit, on the edge of the GTA.
