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Transit and Condos

marsh said:
With all due respect, you can't extropolate base on your own personal experiences. I know a lot of people who live near Yonge and Bloor and also work in the financial district and they regularly take the Bay bus or the subway to get to work and back. Also there are many people, elderly, disabled, who are increasingly living downtown and rely on transit to travel short distances because they physically can't walk. Yes living near work is a good thing and hopefully will encourage more people to walk, but I think it is overly simplistic to assume that the majority of people who live in the downtown core are not going to use transit regularly or not at peak hours.
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Please use some basic logic and math.
I never said once moving downtown, one doesn't need to take transit any more. Of course people still use the subway and buses, just not as much as if they live in the suburbs. Do you agree?

Yes, seniors, handicapped, sick, pregnant, whatever. They always existed and will always exist. They use transit if they live in the suburbs or downtown. They don't add to our system. I don't see the point of mentioning these people. Are you suggesting if they live far away, they won't take the subway?

Ask around, if someone lives at Bay/Wellesley and work at Bay and King, what are the chances that he will take the subway/bus every day? Probably less than 20% of them will to so lazy that they can't walk for 15-20 minutes when it is not very cold. On the other hand, if they live somewhere farther away, 100% of them will have to take the subway. I have a coworker who lives at King/Shaw and still walks to the financial district to work every day.

My point is by living downtown a lot fewer people will be dependent on transit. I never said for a second downtown dwellers simply don't take subways. No one ever implied that. You are totally missing the point here. Simple math, why can't you get it?
 
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marsh said:

The real issue to getting more transit is money. We need to be realistic about how we are going to fund transit. For those who have the opinion that if we keep building condos and increasing the density downtown, we will some how force the government to act because of crisis point will be reached, I respectfully disagree, because this is what we've been doing for the past few years and there's been nothing and in my view we are already at a crisis. I do blame city hall's shenanigans as well as the province for part of the whole transit debacle, but the reality is we need to find the funds. And I don't think we can expect to have huge handouts from the provincial government (though I think they should be investing more in Toronto). I think we should charge higher development fees. I think we should reinstate the vehicle registration tax and start earmarking those funds towards transit. There may be other taxes that we have to start thinking about like tolls. None of these are popular. People want everything but don't want to pay for it. We need to start having a honest conversation with ourselves about our expectations and the reality - you pay for what you get.
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It is not that people don't want to play. It is that politicians are too scared to make the bold but right decision to ask them to pay.
The Province has no money to fund TTC, it is easy, throw a $10 copayment for each doctor's visit, so much revenue will be generated, and I am sure the waiting room at the doctor's office will be a lot less crowded because those mother will stop take their kid to the doctor for a slight cold instead of getting some OTC, and bored seniors will not go to their doctors just to chat.

The City has no money, fine. raise parking fees downtown. Toll the DVP and Gardiner. Charge a downtown entrance fee (like Boston does). Privatize many services and contract out public projects and avoid paying skyhigh union salaries. Many ways to do it. They are just scared because they want to be "popular".
 
Is it fear of unpopularity, or the more realistic fear of losing their jobs? Most politicians in the GTA still believe it's the political kiss of death to start advocating tolls on our highways (or any other measure designed to raise funds for expanded mass transit, however badly needed that is). Nor am I positive that the majority of the electorate is quite ready to face up to the truth that the money for this can only come about with new "revenue tools," as they say in the business. That majority viewpoint is doubtless coming; the writing is on the wall. But think of the stalwart supporters of Rob Ford, who still wants an end to the so-called "war on the car;" do you really think there's not a ton of people still who absolutely loathe the idea of being asked to cough up more in order to make some real progress, finally, against gridlock in the GTA?

Again, your anger at politicians is noted; well, if you truly believe your elected representatives are nothing more than cowards, why not run for office yourself? I'd love to see how well you would go about implementing your decisions on behalf of Toronto.
 
I don't think condos are big trip generators, at least not compared to employment nodes.

We shouldn't get too stressed out about the size of condo projects impacting travel demand, but we should think twice when we do things like plan hospitals and community college campi in greenfield sites on the edge of cities far away from any potential transit line, either now or in the future.
 
Hipster Duck said:
I don't think condos are big trip generators, at least not compared to employment nodes.
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This really needs to be stressed more. Even a really major development like Mirvish-Gehry only adds, maybe, 2,600 units. Of those, many wont use peak hour transit or wont do so daily because they're unemployed/not in labor force/commute counterflow/walk/wtv.

By comparison, FCP apparently houses ~10,000 employees, and most of them will have to show up every day between 7am-9am.

I've often been curious about creating a secondary CBD to relieve pressure on the current one. I know NYCC and STC haven't worked out great, though.
 
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diminutive said:
This really needs to be stressed more. Even a really major development like Mirvish-Gehry only adds, maybe, 2,600 units. Of those, many wont use peak hour transit or wont do so daily because they're unemployed/not in labor force/commute counterflow/walk/wtv.

By comparison, FCP apparently houses ~10,000 employees, and most of them will have to show up every day between 7am-9am.

I've often been curious about creating a secondary CBD to relieve pressure on the current one. I know NYCC and STC haven't worked out great, though.
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Only because of tax rates. NYCC could have been something if not for our high business taxes...but the residential taxes are low so beggars can't be choosers and as a result NYCC and STC are more nice areas.
 
Lenser said:
I like the idea except for one thing - the cost of elections. Adding in more cycles of elections costs the city coffers, big time. Still, three year term limits have their own attractions.
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It comes down to the point of democracy as well. Are we willing to make the democratic process more limited to save a couple dollars on our property taxes?

Also, could bloor yonge be encouraged as a new office core? Direct access from 3 subway lines instead of 2, but lacks GO transit.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Also, could bloor yonge be encouraged as a new office core? Direct access from 3 subway lines instead of 2, but lacks GO transit.
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It may not be a significant office core, but the area around Yonge and Bloor is probably a significant jobs cluster because of all the retail, services and students. Something as simple as a coffee shop in the PATH has up to 20 workers coming in and out every day during different shifts. Because they earn low incomes, many of them will commute by public transit from somewhere that is cheaper to live.
 
Hipster Duck said:
It may not be a significant office core, but the area around Yonge and Bloor is probably a significant jobs cluster because of all the retail, services and students. Something as simple as a coffee shop in the PATH has up to 20 workers coming in and out every day during different shifts. Because they earn low incomes, many of them will commute by public transit from somewhere that is cheaper to live.
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Yonge Eglinton is also a good corridor.
 
balenciaga said:
Please use some basic logic and math.
I never said once moving downtown, one doesn't need to take transit any more. Of course people still use the subway and buses, just not as much as if they live in the suburbs. Do you agree?

Yes, seniors, handicapped, sick, pregnant, whatever. They always existed and will always exist. They use transit if they live in the suburbs or downtown. They don't add to our system. I don't see the point of mentioning these people. Are you suggesting if they live far away, they won't take the subway?

Ask around, if someone lives at Bay/Wellesley and work at Bay and King, what are the chances that he will take the subway/bus every day? Probably less than 20% of them will to so lazy that they can't walk for 15-20 minutes when it is not very cold. On the other hand, if they live somewhere farther away, 100% of them will have to take the subway. I have a coworker who lives at King/Shaw and still walks to the financial district to work every day.

My point is by living downtown a lot fewer people will be dependent on transit. I never said for a second downtown dwellers simply don't take subways. No one ever implied that. You are totally missing the point here. Simple math, why can't you get it?
Click to expand...

Too bad most new development is not happening downtown. If you look at development maps, most is happening in the west end, and there will be, and already is, very significant pressure on the 504 and 501 lines as those condos become inhabited.

Your main assumption, that everyone (or most people) are moving within walking distance of where they work, is a ridiculous fantasy. Certainly the ridership numbers on the TTC do not back it up. Condos are being built all over the GTA, it's an issue of the massive increases of population they're enabling within the city, without the developers contributing enough money to infrastructure.
 
nrb said:
Too bad most new development is not happening downtown. If you look at development maps, most is happening in the west end, and there will be, and already is, very significant pressure on the 504 and 501 lines as those condos become inhabited.
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which is good. eventually the city will HAVE to build a subway somewhere between Queen/King (at least from Parliament to Dufferin) just because 501/504 simply won't be able to handle the commuters.
The fact that we don't have an East-West subway below Bloor is ridiculous. Ideally we have should two.
 
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