Sandpit
Active Member
Well apparently induced demand also applies to transit. But at least it probably represents increased economic activity either way.
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Well apparently induced demand also applies to transit. But at least it probably represents increased economic activity either way.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
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.
Leo_Chan
Senior Member
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?
TOareaFan
Superstar
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Absolutely.
With the new GO stations in Toronto, there were initially proposals to build them as cookie cutter GO Transit stations, with massive parking lots. But Toronto City Planning took the hardline position that they didn’t want any parking accommodations at these stations, precisely for the reasons I mentioned in my previous posts: they didn’t want these GO stations to create even greater car dependence in the City of Toronto. With City Planning now handling transit planning, I don’t believe we would’ve seen Highway 407 built as is, if it were proposed today. The same approach should be used for all transit stations in the region.
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. And rather than trying to arrest the growth of sprawl, they take the approach of just building more parking lots. That way thousands of people can drive from their sprawling subdivisions in northern Durham [for example] to the GO Station and take the train into Toronto. While that is probably the fastest method of increasing GO ridership, long term that’s not sustainable. Decades from now we’re going to be in the situation where Durham roads are congested, transit coverage is poor, and future generations are going to have very few good options for increasing the quality of commutes in those areas. We’re screwing over future generations with this plan
We can see the expected effect of this in the Regional Transportation Plan, where they expect that most of the major thoroughfares in the outer suburbs will be at or near capacity in 23 years:
The GO Transit parking lots aren’t the only cause of this problem, but they play a big role. Simply saying “no” to these parking lots would reduce incentives for people to build new subdivisions in the outer suburbs, forcing these people to relocate to denser and more transit friendly areas of the region.
It would also be helpful if the Province were more aggressive with their sprawl reduction targets. Current regulations allow for up to 40% of growth in GTHA municipalities to happen on presently undeveloped lands. In 2018 we’re still allowing that sprawl to happen, enabled by GO Transit and it’s massive parking lots.
And to bring this back to TYSSE, the parking lots at 407 station should not have been built, based on the same principles.
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W. K. Lis
Superstar
How many people were in each of the cars parked? One, two, four, or the average 1.3?
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Congestion is inevitbale? If so, why build any transit?
Congestion is only inevitable when you’re designing your transit network with the specific goal of allowing largely unchecked urban sprawl to continue. The problem isn’t the transit, but rather the planning policies that come with the transit. Put planning policies in place to stop sprawl, while also building transit, and we’d no longer be in the “congestion is inevitable” situation.
TOareaFan
Superstar
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.
aquateam
Active Member
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."
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
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.
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TheTigerMaster
Superstar
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).
innsertnamehere
Superstar
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.
The fundamental change needs to come from community design, not the current high level approach. We have governments mandating ridiculous densities but still only being willing to provide 1.5m sidewalks on one side of a residential street in a 20m wide residential ROW, and a 10m wide road. That ROW needs to be 15m, with an 8m road, and sidewalks on both sides with permit parking. The arterials need parallel parking, not situations like this. Mid density blocks actually need to be mid density, not some townhouses that still have 4 car driveways and large backyards.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
One of the concerns I have with the minimum density target is that it'll result in small pockets of very high density around transit stations, surrounded by huge swaths of low-density. But I don't know enough about the planning regulations to say for certain if it will result in that.
The problem with that kind of density distribution is that it still results in very car-dependant (and transit hostile) communities. We see this developing even in Vaughan Metropolitan Centre. VMC itself is (or will be) very high density, but the surrounding areas are very low density. But VMC isn't a self-contained community, and people will need to regularly travel outside of it, into the lower-density areas of York Region. But the densities outside VMC are so low that the only effective way to travel outside of it is by car, unless you happen to be traveling into Toronto to a destination along Line 1.
Transit-friendly densities doesn't mean 40 storey condos or even mid-rises. Toronto's streetcar suburbs are very transit friendly, even though they're made up of detached houses.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
oh absolutely. The problem is that we have forgotten how to build transit friendly streetcar suburbs. That takes more than minimum people and jobs per hectare numbers.
TOareaFan
Superstar
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.