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Who's done better on transit? Vancouver or Toronto

who's done better on transit over all?

  • Total voters
    57
WislaHD said:
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).
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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).
 
aquateam said:
So, I visited Vancouver for the first time this weekend. My impressions:

-I don't understand how the B line to UBC doesn't have reserved lanes, not that it was necessary for a long weekend.
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It's been a while since I've ridden it but the curb lanes are bus only from Commercial westward (Wikipedia says to Arbutus, which sounds right). Perhaps this wasn't in effect on a long weekend.
 
ssiguy2 said:
It is very true that Vancouver has done a very good job of creating TOD around it's SkyTrain stations.

The devil, however, is in the details. Yes the condos were built but that was by tearing down low rise apt buildings.............the wealthy moved in as the poor were evicted out. You also had obscene land speculation due to this especially along the Cambie/Canada Line Corridor. Houses bought for obscene amounts and literally flipped overnight..........none of the low cost housing that the city zoned for Cambie is, nor will it ever, take place.
In Vancouver TOD has been nothing but bad news for low income Vancouverites who are pushed out of their apts and due to land speculation where transit stations hold premium values, they are pushed further away from transit. In other words the low income who need good transit the most are the sacrificial lambs of Vancouver transit and development plans.

Many of these new condo towers you see have very much come at the expense of the poor made worse by the fact that most are bought for pure speculation and many will never even have anyone living in them. The city made a big deal about South Marine at Canada Line and how the development sold so fast and hence how Vancouverites embrace TOD. What the mayor "forgot" to mention is that of the 190 units sold on said weekend, they only went to 80 different buyers.
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So, right now you're conflating several different issues:
1) Property speculation, gentrification and general appreciation in property values
2) Inclusionary zoning (a form of rent control)
3) Absentee/foreign investors
4) Transit Oriented Development vs. Car Oriented Development

Transit Oriented Development means relaxing laws that make dense development illegal in areas where there is attractive transit service. It means not zoning areas such that grocery stores can only be legally built kilometers away from where people live. It means not requiring that only single-family homes be built on giant lots in cul-de-sacs, so that it is physically possible to perform daily tasks like getting milk without strapping yourself into a two-tonne shell of metal and burning a gallon of liquified dinosaur juice.

The alternative to TOD around subway stations is low density development around stations. This means that there are fewer dwellings within walking/biking distance of stations.
Question: If there are 200 dwellings in the desireable area near a station, who do you think gets to live there?
Answer: the 200 people who pay the most.

The more dwellings within distance of stations, the more that poor people have a fighting chance of finding an apartment!

You mentioned the issue of displacement and gentrification. The same principle applies: if you are poor and living in an up-and-coming/newly desireable area, but zoning prevents significant new construction, then the existing housing stock is going to be bought up by yuppies, renovated, and made into luxury housing. If they had the option of moving into new construction, then they wouldn't be outbidding existing tenants for the limited supply of existing units. You talked about flipping houses: flipping houses is what happens when an area becomes valuable but new housing can't be constructed.

The alternative to TOD is to just continue building outwards rather than intensifying at stations (or, since poor people can't afford expensive single-family homes, the alternative is often dense towers in remote areas.) This is damaging because if you are low-income, the cost of owning/insuring/maintaining/fueling a vehicle is a huge expense that could be avoided if you lived in a transit-rich location.
 
Wrong.

There is nothing wrong with new developments to house people around the station. The issue is evicting poor people to do it. Most areas around once SkyTrain stations had plenty of room for new development without having to evict people from their homes. these are real people with real lives not statistics.

Brentwood is great as it simply built on on industrial and sparce commercial space. Metrotown and the Canada Line corridor has resulted in displaced people. Also it is the poor/working people that accessibility to good transit not the people who can afford a shack for $400k who probably have a BMW in the parking garage.

The proof is in the pudding. Despite all the investments Vancouver remains #5 in per-capita ridership behind so-called car dependent Calgary and Vancouver has the longest commute times in NA. That is a horrid situation for such a relatively small city. The Vancouver transportation plan is clearly not very successful.
 
ssiguy2 said:
Wrong.
Click to expand...
Awesome.

Honestly, it's a big pet peeve of mine that people think this is how discussions are supposed to work, like whoever shouts "Nuh uh" the loudest somehow establishes who has the stronger argument.

ssiguy2 said:
There is nothing wrong with new developments to house people around the station. The issue is evicting poor people to do it. Most areas around once SkyTrain stations had plenty of room for new development without having to evict people from their homes. these are real people with real lives not statistics.
Click to expand...

If there's vacant valuable to build on, then developers will build there cause it's cheapest. The issue is when you run into legal limits on what can be built because of zoning. If you disallow TOD then you still end up with displacement because those people would be displaced through gentrification.

ssiguy2 said:
Brentwood is great as it simply built on on industrial and sparce commercial space. Metrotown and the Canada Line corridor has resulted in displaced people. Also it is the poor/working people that accessibility to good transit not the people who can afford a shack for $400k who probably have a BMW in the parking garage.
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Again, you haven't addressed my point: building more dwellings per lot will result in less displacement than maintaining existing zoning.

The displacement of people due to the rising cost of housing is a separate issue from TOD, which is just directing where new development occurs. Vancouver's unaffordability is driven by a number of factors, including high rates of immigration, foreign investment, speculation, low interest rates, and constrained geography. Housing more people in low-density sprawl will only displace poor people further to the outskirts, and will not help improve affordability.

ssiguy2 said:
The proof is in the pudding. Despite all the investments Vancouver remains #5 in per-capita ridership behind so-called car dependent Calgary and Vancouver has the longest commute times in NA. That is a horrid situation for such a relatively small city. The Vancouver transportation plan is clearly not very successful.
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#5 in per capita ridership: as we've been discussing earlier in this thread, how much of this is due to the entire Metropolitan Vancouver region being compared to just the city proper of other areas? How much of this is due to active transport (walking, biking) cannabalizing transit ridership?

And the focus on TOD is how Vancouver has been able to achieve phenomenal improvements in its transit mode share, whereas the GTA has remained stagnant. Greater Vancouver's mode share was 14.3% in 1996, 16.5% in 2006, 19.7% in 2011, a huge gain in 15 years!
portlandvancomparison.png


Longest commute times in NA: actually, this is the longest *auto* commute times, which makes sense considering there are no highways to the core. The goal is to reduce overall commute times, and that involves factoring in the people who walk and take public transit. Vancouver actually performs well for commute times among Canadian cities.
 
I think Toronto CMA's 23.3% transit mode share is better than Vancouver CMA's 19.7%, but maybe that's just me.

You could say Brampton has been doing a much better job than Toronto since its per capita ridership increased by 60.1% in 2013 compared to 2003, while TTC's per capita ridership only increased by 21.3% in the same period. But I think that's just stupid.

Going from high ridership to ultra-high ridership is probably a lot harder than going from low ridership to low-medium ridership, or from medium ridership to medium-high ridership. It seems like a pointless comparison.
 
ssiguy2 said:
The proof is in the pudding. Despite all the investments Vancouver remains #5 in per-capita ridership behind so-called car dependent Calgary and Vancouver has the longest commute times in NA. That is a horrid situation for such a relatively small city. The Vancouver transportation plan is clearly not very successful.
Click to expand...

Vancouver were so far ahead of Calgary in 2011, and you saying their transit mode share suddenly increased by 20% within the last 4 years?

Percentage of Commute by Car/Truck/Van:
Code: 
Montréal (Quebec)    69.8
Toronto (Ontario)    69.9
Ottawa - Gatineau (Ontario/Quebec)    70.4
Victoria (British Columbia)    70.7
Vancouver (British Columbia)    70.8
Halifax (Nova Scotia)    76.6
Calgary (Alberta)    76.7
Winnipeg (Manitoba)    78.2
Québec (Quebec)    80.5
Edmonton (Alberta)    82.2

Percentage of Commute by Public Transit:
Code: 
Toronto (Ontario)    23.3
Montréal (Quebec)    22.2
Ottawa - Gatineau (Ontario/Quebec)    20.1
Vancouver (British Columbia)    19.7
Calgary (Alberta)    15.9
Winnipeg (Manitoba)    13.4
Halifax (Nova Scotia)    12.5
Québec (Quebec)    11.3
Edmonton (Alberta)    11.3
Victoria (British Columbia)    11.1

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-012-x/2011003/tbl/tbl1a-eng.cfm
 
"Commute" is different if you use transit to "travel" for something other than commuting.

If you download the Service Summary, June 21, 2015 - September 5, 2015, at this link, you'll see what I mean.

upload_2015-8-10_19-14-14.png


Very few cities in North America would have a Sunday afternoon service of 2'25" on any streetcar, bus, light rail, or heavy rail line, as a regular service?
 

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I am going by the latest 1st Quarter APTA statistics which shows ridership levels. When divided by population Calgary has slightly higher transit trips per person. Not a big deal until you consider the fact that Translink serves twice the population and the higher the population and bigger the city per-capita ridership usually increases.
 
doady said:
I think Toronto CMA's 23.3% transit mode share is better than Vancouver CMA's 19.7%, but maybe that's just me.
You could say Brampton has been doing a much better job than Toronto since its per capita ridership increased by 60.1% in 2013 compared to 2003, while TTC's per capita ridership only increased by 21.3% in the same period. But I think that's just stupid.
Going from high ridership to ultra-high ridership is probably a lot harder than going from low ridership to low-medium ridership, or from medium ridership to medium-high ridership. It seems like a pointless comparison.
Click to expand...

Toronto CMA transit mode share may be 3.6% (in absolute terms, 18% in relative terms) better than Vancouver's, but when you factor in other non-auto modes, the result is 29.2% non-auto in Vancouver compared to 30.1% non-auto in Toronto. Toronto is still the winner, but Vancouver is catching up quickly.

For comparison: Vancouver was only 22.3% non-auto in 1996 but was 29.2% in 2011, while Toronto was 29.6% in 1996 but 30.1% in 2011. Vancouver improved by 6.9% absolute, while Toronto improved by 0.5%. If the same rate continues 2011-2016, Vancouver will have already surpassed us, and we'll be able to verify that in the 2016 census.

Here is the Urban Transportation Indicators report for all of Canada, it's an interesting read.

ssiguy2 said:
I am going by the latest 1st Quarter APTA statistics which shows ridership levels. When divided by population Calgary has slightly higher transit trips per person. Not a big deal until you consider the fact that Translink serves twice the population and the higher the population and bigger the city per-capita ridership usually increases.
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It serves twice the population because Translink has a huge service area. If the TTC statistics included Brampton, Missisauga and Durham you can bet that the per capita ridership would go down even though it's serving a larger population.
 
denfromoakvillemilton said:
Started this 2 years ago and Vancouver has opened their 3rd extension in 15 years.
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Though the last extension, and much of the first one were completely outside the City of Vancouver. Montreal's last extension was not only completely outside the City of Montreal, it wasn't even on the island. Most of Toronto's under-construction stuff is in Toronto. Or should we start counting VIVA and the Mississauga BRT as well? Do we include the Hurontario LRT? The Hamilton LRT?
 
nfitz said:
Though the last extension, and much of the first one were completely outside the City of Vancouver. Montreal's last extension was not only completely outside the City of Montreal, it wasn't even on the island. Most of Toronto's under-construction stuff is in Toronto. Or should we start counting VIVA and the Mississauga BRT as well? Do we include the Hurontario LRT? The Hamilton LRT?
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Are any of the LRTs up yet? They cut both of those down too. the Brampton Part and there is still a parlor game going on over stops in Hamilton. Toronto has the dropped the ball thanks in no part to political infighting.
 
Who's done better on transit? Vancouver or Toronto

The question here is, which system is closer to being built out to completion? The Skytrain largely takes you everywhere you'd want to go in the Vancouver metro area. Coverage in neighboring suburbs (Richmond, Burnaby, New Westminister, Surrey, Port Moody, Coquitlam) is actually very good. Apart from a Broadway subway from VCC Clark to UBC, the Vancouver Skytrain network is largely complete now.

Toronto is still two and a half lines. Network only now entering outlying suburbs. The Crosstown will soon change this, but still much to be desired.
 
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