The problem with that is you’re not going to reduce traffic and shift away from car dependency because the entire GTA is designed exclusively for cars. If I want to go to Costco I have to take the highway. If I want to walk to the local McDonalds it would take me at least a half an hour to get there from my house. If I want to take a bus, it takes 30-45 minutes before one passes, and the routes are inconvenient, almost always requiring a bunch of transfers. You easily triple or quadruple your journey time by trying to take public transit.
The GTA is too far gone in suburban sprawl to really reduce car dependency unless we tear down all the low density single family detached homes and replace everything with 15-minute-cities-style mixed residential, we’re never going to actually reduce the number of cars on the road, and with more suburban projects still sprawling further, the issue is continuing to compound.
They wanted to use the Glen Abbey golf course for residential real estate and they estimated another few thousand homes, which in a best-case scenario include higher density duplexes and such, but would more than likely be generally full of single family detached, contributing probably about on average a car and a half. I can tell you already Oakville does not have the road infrastructure to handle even more cars, and zoning approval for denser real estate is fucked because everybody on the council is NIMBY as all get out.
The problem with that is you’re not going to reduce traffic and shift away from car dependency because the entire GTA is designed exclusively for cars. If I want to go to Costco I have to take the highway. If I want to walk to the local McDonalds it would take me at least a half an hour to get there from my house. If I want to take a bus, it takes 30-45 minutes before one passes, and the routes are inconvenient, almost always requiring a bunch of transfers. You easily triple or quadruple your journey time by trying to take public transit.
The GTA is too far gone in suburban sprawl to really reduce car dependency unless we tear down all the low density single family detached homes and replace everything with 15-minute-cities-style mixed residential, we’re never going to actually reduce the number of cars on the road, and with more suburban projects still sprawling further, the issue is continuing to compound.
They wanted to use the Glen Abbey golf course for residential real estate and they estimated another few thousand homes, which in a best-case scenario include higher density duplexes and such, but would more than likely be generally full of single family detached, contributing probably about on average a car and a half. I can tell you already Oakville does not have the road infrastructure to handle even more cars, and zoning approval for denser real estate is fucked because everybody on the council is NIMBY as all get out.
“We cant not design for cars because we already designed for cars”
Toronto existed before cars. People walked or took the tram. It can’t be fixed over night but it can be rebuilt to be less car centric.
We can design for pedestrians, my point is just that the majority of the GTA needs massive massive reworks to be pedestrian friendly.
I’m not saying we can’t, it’s just that we haven’t for the last two generations, and now it’s even harder to break the habit.
The best time to start was two generations ago. The second best time is now.
Allow mixed-use 3-5 story buildings everywhere, remove parking minimums, and watch how transit corridors fill with liveable neighborhoods.