Courtesy TheMarkNews.com
Congratulations! You’ve decided to run
for council, maybe even for mayor. You hear that public transit is a hot
item these days, something worth learning about. Transit is a big
portfolio, an area of complex issues and big, big
spending.
Knowing
a little might get you through one press conference, but you need to
know a lot and think hard about your positions.
The
first, most important question, is this: Is public transit something
for “us” or for “them”? Do you use it? Would you use it? Will you fight
for and represent those who want more and better transit?
When
you say you “support public transit,” what do you mean? What is transit?
What does it do? Will it have priority in your budget?
Does
“better transit” mean getting people off the road so that there’s more
room for you to drive? Do you like “transit” as an idea, but want to
rein in spending? Do you know where the money comes from, where it goes?
Do you have an alternative model good for the long term, or only a
quick fix good for a sound bite?
Public transit does not just
move people around the city. Everyone knows that commuters, especially
those on the subway and GO Transit, love a quick, traffic-free ride to
work. There’s also big savings in avoided pollution and fuel
consumption. But that’s not all.
Over half of the trips on the
TTC are outside of the peak periods, and even in the peak, many people
are not going downtown. All that transportation capacity avoids the
space needed for cars – storage, driving lanes, and parking
– plus the expense of owning them. That’s a huge public and
private benefit all over the GTA, even if the auto industry might prefer
that we all drive.
Will traffic congestion ever go away? Not
likely. At current levels of transit market share (well under 10 per
cent outside of the 416, and nowhere near 50 per cent inside of it), we
would have to provide vast new transit capacity to make a serious dent
in traffic. Much of the congestion is for travel that isn’t
well-oriented to a transit network – the typical
everywhere-to-everywhere suburban commuting pattern. Some of this can be
captured for transit, but not all of it.
The real challenge is
the growing demand for travel as the GTA population grows. New homes,
offices, and industrial centres pop up everywhere, but not in a way that
is easily served with transit. Try to constrain or redirect
development, though, and you will meet howls of outrage from developers
and politicians who want more of the same.
Toronto has the
advantage of an [Official
Plan](http://www.toronto.ca/planning/official_plan/introduction.htm),
presuming that council sticks with it and the city’s goal to increase
density along major streets. However, many 416 residents, not to mention
those from the 905 who travel through the 416 on their way to and from
work, have a very road-oriented view of travel – it’s the only
option that works for them.
Transit solutions that work within
the 416, especially in the central area, are less viable the further out
we go. If the reach of good transit expands, that boundary between
inner and outer cities will move.
Do we let this boundary drift
outward with small transit improvements here and there, maybe a new
subway line every decade, or do we actively push it outward expanding
the range of communities with good transit options?
Transit is
all about choice – the ability to leave the car at home or to
get by without one much of the time – and this choice only
works if there is good service. Many of Toronto’s transit riders could
drive, but don’t. Force them away with service cuts in the name of
economy, and you may never get them back. You will, however, get the
added congestion they bring to the city.
As the balance shifts,
transit, pedestrians, and cyclists will take the lion’s share of road
capacity and motorists will have to make do with the leftovers. That’s a
very hard message for many to swallow.
Road space is finite.
What do we use it for? In built-up areas where wider, let alone new
roads, are out of the question, any improvement for one road user is at
the expense of another. Even where space remains today, there will be no
room left tomorrow.
Should transit get priority, and what,
exactly, does this mean? Should half of the space on major roads be
dedicated to parking? Where do bicycles fit? What happens in areas where
“minor” roads for a parallel bike network separate from the arterials
don’t exist? Should wide, fast streets be redesigned, “calmed,” or
“tamed” to improve the lot of pedestrians?
As a candidate, do you
look forward to see how the city would address limits on road space, or
do you look back to an era when we could pretend car use would grow
forever, and everyone else would just get out of the way?
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