Economic think tank report says the minimum wage needs to be $33.60 an hour for a worker to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto — $40 an hour for a two-bedroom apartment
Obviously there is the housing crisis, but housing prices are crazy in most huge metros like this. The best way to combat this IMO is to make it easier to get into the city from outside so people can live further away without worse commutes. And the only way to accomplish this is to drastically improve the public transit in and out of the city.
I recently moved out of Markham, from my old place to union station it would be 1.5hr bus ride, a 1hr car ride with traffic, and a 20min car ride without traffic. Lowering that bus ride would directly lower the with traffic number too.
Its not just big metros that are having rental market crisis. My hometown has a monthly 9% increase in the cost of apartment rentals and has for months now. And we’re far from a metro of any kind. Apartments that went for 600/month in 2021 are going for 1500 or more a month now. And a lot of currently available units are even worse off than that.
People are already commuting regularly from Kitchener, where housing also isn’t cheap. Agree that we need faster and better public transit, but Ontario as a whole is in a cost of living crisis that I don’t think better public transit is going to solve.
I feel like even if they had just prioritized the rail line growth in the early 2000s we’d be fine. Barrie is just starting to get their second line so there can be two way trains all day. All of the other Toronto suburbs need to have dedicated rail service accompanied by densification near those stations.
Obviously there is the housing crisis, but housing prices are crazy in most huge metros like this. The best way to combat this IMO is to make it easier to get into the city from outside so people can live further away without worse commutes. And the only way to accomplish this is to drastically improve the public transit in and out of the city.
I recently moved out of Markham, from my old place to union station it would be 1.5hr bus ride, a 1hr car ride with traffic, and a 20min car ride without traffic. Lowering that bus ride would directly lower the with traffic number too.
Its not just big metros that are having rental market crisis. My hometown has a monthly 9% increase in the cost of apartment rentals and has for months now. And we’re far from a metro of any kind. Apartments that went for 600/month in 2021 are going for 1500 or more a month now. And a lot of currently available units are even worse off than that.
People are already commuting regularly from Kitchener, where housing also isn’t cheap. Agree that we need faster and better public transit, but Ontario as a whole is in a cost of living crisis that I don’t think better public transit is going to solve.
Yes, public transportation wil definitely help. But good luck trying to make policy changes that favor public transit
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I feel like even if they had just prioritized the rail line growth in the early 2000s we’d be fine. Barrie is just starting to get their second line so there can be two way trains all day. All of the other Toronto suburbs need to have dedicated rail service accompanied by densification near those stations.
Barrie is also starting to get really expensive with regards to housing.