Toronto 2 Queen West | 34.44m | 7s | Cadillac Fairview | Zeidler

salsa said:
You live in Rosedale but can "barely afford for 06' Grand Prix"?
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Lol! I'm a renter, sadly, because of my health, my career, and income, has been staggered, I just love living in older, well established neighbourhoods, I'm definitely not your typical wealthy Rosedale resident, I just wish I was :p
 
bro it doesn't matter where u live, what u drive or what u look like. all that matters is that if u have a gold heart, u r the best. :)
 
egotrippin said:
Maybe some of us want a car, but still want to live and work downtown. Not everyone has to be molded to fit this idealistic version of the downtown city dweller.

But it's ok, I get it, cars are evil etc, etc.
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A little touchy, no? Where did I suggest that no one ought to have a car? I said, and you can read what you quoted, "if you live and work downtown, you don't need a car." Also note, I didn't mention anything about cars being evil. That's your defensiveness coming through again. If you are feeling guilty, relax, you were not being lectured.
 
For those who advocate car sharing programs, I didn't find those very helpful.

I am a member of both Autoshare and Car2Go, and they become increasingly expensive. If you want to take a short trip and come back right after, for a total of less than 2 hours, yes, it is probably a good idea. But for those who need to head somewhere for most of the day, the math starts to collapse as those programs charge more than $80 for usage exceeding a certain number of hours, and you only drove it for 25 minutes to Richmond Hill in the morning and come back in the afternoon, and leave it parked for the entire day. I end up renting cars in the traditional way 95% of the time, as it turns out, the occasions you need to make a quick trip somewhere and come back immediately is very very rare.

Yes, it is still cheaper than to own a car - but the level of convenience is different too. With you own car, you can use it any time you want, not subject to availability, and you have the luxury to drive to get grocery, instead of carrying all the heavy stuff in your hands and walk for 20 minutes. For example, I like to shop at the T&T, but the one on cherry street has no public transit access. The only way to go there is driving (for only 10-15 minutes).

I don't like driving and 'd like to envision Toronto as a completely car independent city like Paris or New York - but it is not. The city doesn't offer nearly adequately convenient, to be say affordable public transit for people who choose not to have a car. Even those who never have a car, life quality of life is highly constrained by not having a car (often choosing not to go somewhere they want to within the city proper due to not having a car/transit taking too long).
 
ksun said:
For those who advocate car sharing programs, I didn't find those very helpful.

I am a member of both Autoshare and Car2Go, and they become increasingly expensive. If you want to take a short trip and come back right after, for a total of less than 2 hours, yes, it is probably a good idea. But for those who need to head somewhere for most of the day, the math starts to collapse as those programs charge more than $80 for usage exceeding a certain number of hours, and you only drove it for 25 minutes to Richmond Hill in the morning and come back in the afternoon, and leave it parked for the entire day. I end up renting cars in the traditional way 95% of the time, as it turns out, the occasions you need to make a quick trip somewhere and come back immediately is very very rare.

Yes, it is still cheaper than to own a car - but the level of convenience is different too. With you own car, you can use it any time you want, not subject to availability, and you have the luxury to drive to get grocery, instead of carrying all the heavy stuff in your hands and walk for 20 minutes. For example, I like to shop at the T&T, but the one on cherry street has no public transit access. The only way to go there is driving (for only 10-15 minutes).

I don't like driving and 'd like to envision Toronto as a completely car independent city like Paris or New York - but it is not. The city doesn't offer nearly adequately convenient, to be say affordable public transit for people who choose not to have a car. Even those who never have a car, life quality of life is highly constrained by not having a car (often choosing not to go somewhere they want to within the city proper due to not having a car/transit taking too long).
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All well and good, but in the case of a condo tower right downtown, parking allotment is insanely expensive and already people stretch their budgets just to live within the core, with all its relative convenience. I believe we're transitioning to being a less car-dependent city (at least in the core) and there are admittedly teething pains involved in the process - but the answer is not to provide parking for every tenant / unit holder in every new building which goes up. More parking means more cars in an already choked core. At some point it makes sense to discourage the use of the conventional car in the core; those who wish to go against that will have to shell out for the privilege.

Yeah, personal ownership of a car is as exactly as you describe it - a luxury. That degree of personal autonomy exacts a significant price on your pocketbook and negatively impacts your ability to spend your discretionary income on other things. I expect the costs of owning a car to only go up, unfortunately. Car payments, insurance, upkeep, parking, parking tickets... it can add up to a fairly onerous burden.

Perhaps invest in a bike with carrying bags so you can stay fit as you boost down to TNT? Until such time as that chain opens up a new location or two downtown - which I also think is inevitable.
 
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ksun said:
For those who advocate car sharing programs, I didn't find those very helpful.

I am a member of both Autoshare and Car2Go, and they become increasingly expensive. If you want to take a short trip and come back right after, for a total of less than 2 hours, yes, it is probably a good idea. But for those who need to head somewhere for most of the day, the math starts to collapse as those programs charge more than $80 for usage exceeding a certain number of hours, and you only drove it for 25 minutes to Richmond Hill in the morning and come back in the afternoon, and leave it parked for the entire day. I end up renting cars in the traditional way 95% of the time, as it turns out, the occasions you need to make a quick trip somewhere and come back immediately is very very rare.

Yes, it is still cheaper than to own a car - but the level of convenience is different too. With you own car, you can use it any time you want, not subject to availability, and you have the luxury to drive to get grocery, instead of carrying all the heavy stuff in your hands and walk for 20 minutes. For example, I like to shop at the T&T, but the one on cherry street has no public transit access. The only way to go there is driving (for only 10-15 minutes).

I don't like driving and 'd like to envision Toronto as a completely car independent city like Paris or New York - but it is not. The city doesn't offer nearly adequately convenient, to be say affordable public transit for people who choose not to have a car. Even those who never have a car, life quality of life is highly constrained by not having a car (often choosing not to go somewhere they want to within the city proper due to not having a car/transit taking too long).
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Your case definitely isn't the norm, and you need to realize that. Most people who live downtown don't need to take weekly trips to Richmond hill (and again, if they did, renting would still be far cheaper than owning), they don't need to shop at T&T (maybe you should call T&T and suggest they open one downtown?) all the time, etc. Most people who choose to live downtown already have all the conveniences they need within walking distance/transit coverage. It would be nice to have everything covered by transit, but your case is the equivalent of someone saying "I live in Manhattan, but transit here is not effective, because there isn't good coverage for my weekly trip to Staten Island."
 
ksun said:
For those who advocate car sharing programs, I didn't find those very helpful.

I am a member of both Autoshare and Car2Go, and they become increasingly expensive. If you want to take a short trip and come back right after, for a total of less than 2 hours, yes, it is probably a good idea. But for those who need to head somewhere for most of the day, the math starts to collapse as those programs charge more than $80 for usage exceeding a certain number of hours, and you only drove it for 25 minutes to Richmond Hill in the morning and come back in the afternoon, and leave it parked for the entire day. I end up renting cars in the traditional way 95% of the time, as it turns out, the occasions you need to make a quick trip somewhere and come back immediately is very very rare.

Yes, it is still cheaper than to own a car - but the level of convenience is different too. With you own car, you can use it any time you want, not subject to availability, and you have the luxury to drive to get grocery, instead of carrying all the heavy stuff in your hands and walk for 20 minutes. For example, I like to shop at the T&T, but the one on cherry street has no public transit access. The only way to go there is driving (for only 10-15 minutes).

I don't like driving and 'd like to envision Toronto as a completely car independent city like Paris or New York - but it is not. The city doesn't offer nearly adequately convenient, to be say affordable public transit for people who choose not to have a car. Even those who never have a car, life quality of life is highly constrained by not having a car (often choosing not to go somewhere they want to within the city proper due to not having a car/transit taking too long).
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I agree with on your dislike or driving and your hope for Toronto becoming car independent, but unfortunately that goal will be MUCH harder for our city for two main reasons:

-Geography. With the exception of Manhattan, New York is just as much of a sprawl bomb (to take writer David Owen's phrase) as any other city in the US and Canada. Manhattan is car independent because it is a small island with no room for outward growth, making car ownership unnecessary.
Toronto, by contrast is a blank slate no oceans, mountains, or other geographic impediments to outward growth.

-Isolation. Another reason you can easily get away with not owning a car in western Europe is because not just the cities, but rural areas are more dense and proximate, calling for a more extensive rail system. Toronto, which is several hundred kilometres from a city of comparable size (Montreal), makes rail more difficult and less useful for getting to specific destinations.

A good place to start would be to impose a minimum density per hectare for all new housing developments, trying to get the provincial government to give more money to the TTC, and approving wonderful projects like this.

If Toronto was as reluctant about allowing rural areas to be turned into suburbs as it was about embracing interesting architecture, this city would be dramitcally denser.
 
ksun said:
For example, I like to shop at the T&T, but the one on cherry street has no public transit access. The only way to go there is driving (for only 10-15 minutes).
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This is inaccurate. Both the 72 from Pape Station and the 172 from King Station get you to a 2 minute walk from T&T. Unless a bus doesn't count as public transit.
 
I still don't see compelling arguments for not allowing the developer to chose how much parking to include in a project. Regardless, expect many similar projects in the coming years as it is a prudent fiscal choice for certain developers based on numbers and economic conditions.
 
Toronto, by contrast is a blank slate no oceans, mountains, or other geographic impediments to outward growth.
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You mean Lake Ontario doesn't count? Toronto can only grow in three directions and with the Greenbelt that growth is now also being constrained.
 
The greenbelt should have been expanded years ago as a strategy of preventing suburban growth. This city and its surrounding suburbs are already frightening large and spread out, it's horrifying to think what it would be like if it extended all the way to the greenbelt.
 
Subdivisions have such long buildout times that most subdivisions under construction today were actually approved before the greenbelt. Knowing what was coming, developers flooded proposals for subdivisions in the early 2000s. Subdivision construction should slow pretty much everywhere in the GTA other than Durham over the next few years. (Even then the subdivisions are specifically designed to be more urban and transit friendly)
 
Most of the rail in Ontario was speedily removed in the 50s and 60s by an idiotic government. Our current sprawl / lack of villages or transit is not innate to our history, but manufactured. I would also point out that aging sprawl itself can act as a barrier to further sprawl: there comes a point when the drive in is no longer possible (diminishing returns, for example, of places north of Aurora, especially after Vaughan completes it's elastic band of townhouses around the 400).
 
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