[OnTheIce]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

I agree with OTI. Losing lanes to bikes is silly. As he pointed out, 4-5 months of the year the weather is totally shite. Toronto should have built a decent underground decades ago but didn't. When I go into TO, I use the Go Train which is quick and semi-convenient. Driving is a pain in the arse but it is in any large city. Such is life.

Ford's 'end of the war on the car' is the right way to go. For far too long the city has been led by the lefty elite espousing wind farms, solar power and bike lanes. None of which are either economically prudent or a good use of scant resources.


It's the same mantra with the provincial Liberals and their 'green' energy plan which entails giving Samsung billions of tax payers money and jacking up all our hydro bills.

Ford is closing down a hobby farm, looking and cuts to services we can no longer afford or fund. Dozens of 'special' interest groups will have their funding cut, the free ride some have been on for years is over.

Let's not also forget the 80-90 days during the spring-fall that we get rain.

The GO Train for some who work downtown is great. You jump on the GO and get off at Union and walk or take a short bus ride to your office.

For those of us who work in Toronto but not downtown, the go train and the TTC is useless.

I live in Ajax. I live about 5 minutes from the Ajax GO station. Like many of us here in Ajax, I work in Toronto....but not downtown. For me to take transit, I'm at least 60-90 minutes which would include a GO Train ride, and 2 TTC buses.

When driving, I can get to work in 30 minutes via the 401 with the AC flowing. Even if traffic is bad due to an accident, I'm there in an hour.

[EyeBrock]

Well, the highways around Toronto are clogged.

Even in the 905 regions we are at build-out. Every spare bit of green land has new houses on it, and the roads are clogged up trying to cope with the increased populations. It's all part of Dalton's 'smart-growth'. Really, commuting isn't the way to go as it will only get worse.

I was looking into moving to a more rural area but I did a couple of recces at rush hour and I'm just not sitting in my car for an extra 90 minutes daily to live 15 kms further away. My strategy for gridlock is to live near where I work.

[Proculation]

If you want to see the catastrophe of what happens when a city decides to fight motor transportation, take a look at Montreal. Bridges falling, streets looking like Beyrut, companies and rich people quitting the island for the shores leaving poors and immigrants to pay the bills, etc. But hey ! We have the Bixi and great bicycle lanes everywhere !

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Proculation Proculation:

If you want to see the catastrophe of what happens when a city decides to fight motor transportation, take a look at Montreal. Bridges falling, streets looking like Beyrut, companies and rich people quitting the island for the shores leaving poors and immigrants to pay the bills, etc. But hey ! We have the Bixi and great bicycle lanes everywhere !

Yeah but in all fairness, the roads and bridges have been like that since before you were born

[EyeBrock]

Besides the Bay St lot and provincial government offices, a lot of companies have moved out of Toronto to places like Mississauga and close to either the 401 or 407.

Toronto residents like to pretend it's like NYC but the Yanks have a way better version of a great city on the island of Manhattan. But as some have mentioned, comparing TO to NYC is not an equitable comparison.

[scarecrowe]

Those who have "planned" have tried to deter the automobile by making it inconvenient to use but in the end creating havoc instead.
The automobile will never disappear, just the mode of energy of the engine. Planning to eliminate it will simply never work ... and without it, dismal economic performance will occur. Transportation routes must be expanded for both cars and subways to begin a process to get out of the current situation.
One more point; Toronto is not in a suitable climate for bicycle travel 365 days a year and the car will have to be used ... those currently pushing for car elimination in Toronto are better suited to work in place like Madrid, Mexico City or Sao Paulo.
.

[EyeBrock]

Just read the Toronto Star. Apparently Rob Ford is a very bad man. Everyday there's a new story about how bad he is.

[Lemmy]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

To think that cars won't be around in 100 years is naive at best, considering the business and transport use alone. I think we will see an end to gasoline based vehicles during that time but the car will be far from gone.

I'm not saying they'll be gone. But their place in the urban environment will definitely be different.

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

The Greater Toronto Area is bursting at the seams. We can't move people from Durham or Mississauga to Toronto fast enough with transit so many take the car. Unless the GTA adopts some massive transit plans over the next 20 years, the roads are only going to get worse as areas outside the GTA expand and there's no transit to serve them.

That's excatly my point. Automobile cities are not sustainable. As EB mentioned, Manhattan is a city that has cars, but most are commercial vehicles (taxis, delivery trucks, etc). The single passenger commuter vehicle is a rarity. Rob Ford, however, is trying to promote GREATER use of commuter vehicles in the city. He's trying to make it easier to drive into the city instead of looking for better commuter alternatives.

[EyeBrock]

Maybe a 'congestion charge' would do the job? Much like London and Paris.

The nightmare commute into Toronto is something I could never do. Really, because going into TO is a hassle I rarely do it. Went in twice last year, once for a stag-do and the other time was to see Roger Waters perform the 'Wall'. That was worth the drive!

[peck420]

In the future urban environment expect more of these http://gajitz.com/the-segway-car-gms-tiny-electric-urban-concept-car/.

And less of the typical sedan/suv concept currently around.

As already stated, current setup is not sustainable from an energy or a financial view.

Something needs to be done. Just need to figure out that something that works for the most people.

It pains me to watch my city completely ignore issues that cities like Toronto face today. These are the same problems we will be facing tomorrow unless we start planning around them now.

[EyeBrock]

I think Toronto needs Rob Ford and the strong leadership he brings, despite the Toronto Star. They still can't get over the fact that most of Toronto ignored their anti-Ford campaign and voted him in.

[Dragon-Dancer]

commanderkai commanderkai:

You're extremely optimistic, to put it bluntly. So far, automobiles, trucks, and other modes of private motorized transporation are extremely important for workers, business owners, etc. Just jumping to the conclusion that cities will adapt to "no longer having cars" is a bit of a stretch, especially since horse drawn carriages and carts were in service for a few hundred years.


If you want to use the same logic over the switch from horse drawn carriages to motorized transportation, cars are just in their infancy of their utilization by the masses.

Oh, and even if you are right, that doesn't change the current reality that cars are dominating now. Trying to change how many people get around, by providing poor services to motorized transport is a galactic sized mistake as well, since hoping for some alternative 50 or 100 years from now doesn't change current realities.

I think Lemmy has the right idea actually. You'd be surprised how quickly people would adapt to a city in which mass transit played a central roll rather than a secondary one. I'm positive commuters in many major cities when offered a choice would take an option that cost them less and saved them time. Personally I think the time saving is the real key here since it's the one thing that is finite in the whole equation. Will cars continue to linger for years to come in cities? sure, but I can certainly see a point in which they stop being used for daily commuting.

[EyeBrock]

I can't agree DD. Public transit can never really replace a car. Even in a city such as NYC where public transit is very prevalent I found it slow compared to cabbing it.

The more difficult it is to get into a city just encourages people to either live down-town or as close as they can get to down-town. That's what has happened in Toronto where the condo is king.

I had an opportunity to do a spell in Toronto recently but I declined. My commute is 10 minutes now, I don't want to add another two hours on my day just to travel to TO.

[andyt]

Dragon-Dancer Dragon-Dancer:

I think Lemmy has the right idea actually. You'd be surprised how quickly people would adapt to a city in which mass transit played a central roll rather than a secondary one. I'm positive commuters in many major cities when offered a choice would take an option that cost them less and saved them time. Personally I think the time saving is the real key here since it's the one thing that is finite in the whole equation. Will cars continue to linger for years to come in cities? sure, but I can certainly see a point in which they stop being used for daily commuting.

The proper thing to do is put an efficient transit system in place first, then start squeezing people out of their cars. But no politician will do that, because it takes massive bucks, and all the drivers will winge about their tax dollars being spent on it. In Vancouver we struggle to fund transit while making it tough on drivers - not a solution that leads to happy campers. But soon a major entry point to the city will become a tolled bridge - that will likely reduce vehicle inflow from the far burbs substantially. And they will add another gas tax to fund an expansion of the skytrain system. But of course the winging is already rising high to the heavens.

[Dragon-Dancer]

peck420 peck420:

In the future urban environment expect more of these http://gajitz.com/the-segway-car-gms-tiny-electric-urban-concept-car/.

And less of the typical sedan/suv concept currently around.

As already stated, current setup is not sustainable from an energy or a financial view.

Something needs to be done. Just need to figure out that something that works for the most people.

It pains me to watch my city completely ignore issues that cities like Toronto face today. These are the same problems we will be facing tomorrow unless we start planning around them now.

At least Mandel is a proponent of LRT construction and we've seen quite a bit more if that going on than at any time before him. It's still not an ambitious enough plan to solve the problem before it becomes any worse than it already is. Unfortunately, this is one of the few issues he's tackled so far I can agree with.