Will Toronto have a second CBD?

[gristle]

If Toronto is going to have two Central Business Districts, at least one of them won't be central.

 

[kkgg7]

It's also worth pointing out that most people's "world standards" try and ignore asian cities on purpose. They provide a terrible standard of living for the most part, with a few notable exceptions. No one aspires to become like them, just like you wouldn't aspire to replicate the built form of Caracas (Venezuela), in spite of its apparent density.



The quality of a city isn't just down to density and population.

EDIT #2: Reading the original post, the poster was wrong about Asia, so sorry for not giving you some credit.

Unfortunately we were only talking about city size, not living standards, or human rights, or where to move to. Only which are bigger, or whether "Toronto's size in beyond imaginable by world standards".
You might want to discuss quality of life in a different thread.

 

[kkgg7]

If Toronto is going to have two Central Business Districts, at least one of them won't be central.

Agree. Preferably out of downtown but close to rapid transit.
I already think many nodes on the Spadina line north of Bloor are underdeveloped， and I believe the city should maybe stop focusing on areas on Yonge. I don't know about you guys, an extremely linear city (in terms of business, jobs, retail) is not exactly appealing/convenient.

 

[Tuscani01]

Wouldn't a second CBD just cause more problems?

Sure, it would get some people commuting somewhere besides downtown, but how is that going to stop the mass of people who already commute downtown? Its not like we can just erase the offices and stores in our current downtown. The amount of people commuting downtown will not change at all by adding a second CBD. A second CBD means you will have the same problem, just in a different location. The Union station area will still require a huge investment in Transit, and now you would have a second area that would need a large investment in order to keep traffic manageable.

 

[kkgg7]

Wouldn't a second CBD just cause more problems?

Sure, it would get some people commuting somewhere besides downtown, but how is that going to stop the mass of people who already commute downtown? Its not like we can just erase the offices and stores in our current downtown. The amount of people commuting downtown will not change at all by adding a second CBD. A second CBD means you will have the same problem, just in a different location. The Union station area will still require a huge investment in Transit, and now you would have a second area that would need a large investment in order to keep traffic manageable.

I am assuming population and jobs will grow significantly in the next two-three decades. If that's the case, I personally think it makes more sense to have a new business area than jamming everything in the already jammed core.
If everything is stagnant, of course there is no point in having a second CBD.

 

[RC8]

Unfortunately we were only talking about city size, not living standards, or human rights, or where to move to. Only which are bigger, or whether "Toronto's size in beyond imaginable by world standards".
You might want to discuss quality of life in a different thread.

I think you are misinterpreting that quote. What I read from it is that a city with Toronto's population surrounded by suburbs of their respective populations and assuming that MCC, NYCC, SCTC, and the CBD stay where they are, each of them would occupy a much smaller area to the point there'd be farmland in between.

I've lived in 2 bigger cities (population-wise), and I found the GTA's size to indeed be unimaginable when I moved here. Same thing applies to Miami and Chicago, mind you, but quite clearly the comparison was made with European, Asian, and even perhaps South America in mind.

 

[unimaginative2]

I think that more office space in the future will exist at small scales outside of nodal clusters

You might be right but I sure hope not. That, more than anything, would kill transit in Toronto. There is nothing that generates strong transit ridership like concentrated office employment, particularly in the downtown core. It's far more important than population density or anything else. Scattered origins and destinations make automobile transportation the only option, as we see in most of North America.

It's very true that Toronto is an extremely sprawly city. Though the densities in our new suburbs are relatively high, they go on forever and they do a very poor job of planning around infrastructure, particularly transit infrastructure. Most of our major trip generators (malls, office parks) are still built around arterial intersections and expressway interchanges. Look at that new regional mall being proposed in Brampton. Just like so many others, it's being built just outside walking distance from the transit stop. Unless we fix this development pattern quick, we're going to have real problems spreading our relatively successful 416 transit system into the 905 beyond a couple of corridors.

 

[Electrify]

The GTA already has several business districts. In fact, downtown Toronto makes up a very small percentage of jobs in the region are located there. However, the GTA does lack a true multiple central business districts. Areas where people can live, work, and play in a walkable environment. These areas should also have enough to attract people from all over the region to visit as well, preferably by transit if possible.

The closest to such an area would be downtown North York. It is dense; good mix of residential, employment, and commercial; and has some pretty strong transit connections as well. When Jersey Boys was playing at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, it also gave people a reason to go there. Still, it needs/ed more to get people to go there, a good and unique variety of points of interest. While still striving for the urban environment that downtown North York has, downtown Mississauga has Square One, Playdium, and the Living Arts Centre to get people to come and visit.

To the topic, yes I do think we need to take the idea of multiple CBDs seriously. While quiet suburbia isn't necessarily good, neither is overcrowding. In a city with the population and area so large, we shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket and provide true CBDs on a more local scale.

 

[taal]

Why ? Our CBD isn't nearly as big as Chicago / New York, and many other Asian / European cities.

I see your point but I think we can continue to build our current CBD and should focus there. When the amount of office space approaches 100 million (i.e. about double what it is today), maybe then we should consider decentralization.

The argument is wherever you build this new higher concentration of office, it'll need new transit as well, might as well expand the current transit options to downtown.


You're correct that we already have multiple areas, the largest outside of Toronto, is the airport area (which is very large in area), then Hi-way 7 between Bathurst / Warden, again very large.

 

[neubilder]

Will Toronto have a second CBD?

There is one in Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, a smaller one in Mississauga...

 

[andrewpmk]

We already have them. They are called Leslie/Highway 7, Airport Corporate Centre and Meadowvale. All have crap transit, are very ugly areas, and are near airports/under airport flightpaths. Meadowvale in particular is also ridiculously far from downtown (probably 1 hour in heavy traffic congestion on Gardiner/427/401 by car), it is a very bad place to build offices in my opinion.

If you are talking about North York Centre and Mississauga Centre, unfortunately they don't build office buildings there anymore.

Toronto needs to reduce taxes for new office building construction (like they do for high rise residential, there is a higher rate for older buildings and a lower rate for newer buildings).

 

[Jonny5]

The Municipality of Rio is twice the size of Toronto.

Just thought I would pull out this comment for a sidenote.

I've only been in Rio for a few days in total, but it was obvious that city has to have the most wonky geography of any place I have been. It's twice the size of Toronto for a good reason: there are vast areas where you can't build anything because of the mountains and lagoons. I have never been somewhere with so many huge empty spaces spread amongst a high density area. It's a fascinating city but travel through but it is was always complicated and a PITA to get where I wanted to go. There was this restaurant I wanted to go to that looked realy close, but I had to go around one of those mountains and then around the lagoon to get to it. What would be a 20 minute walk in a straight line turned into a 20 minute bus ride plus a 20 minute walk. Rio shouldn't be used as a comparison to what is large or small in size.

 

[11th]

If you are talking about North York Centre and Mississauga Centre, unfortunately they don't build office buildings there anymore.

Toronto needs to reduce taxes for new office building construction (like they do for high rise residential, there is a higher rate for older buildings and a lower rate for newer buildings).

It's more profitable for developers to build condos rather than office buildings, as far I know; couple it with NYCC and MCC having higher land costs (do they?) .