Toronto – The Gridlock City Part 2

In my last post “Toronto – The Gridlock City – Part 1”

I mainly talked about my various commuting times using different modes of transportation. Whether it be a car, GO Transit or TTC, the car seem to be the most efficient mode of travel, and the TTC is “The Worst Way”. Even Jack Layton’s little experiment got the same result.

I also touch on the costs of lost productivity from the congestion in the GTA that range from 2-20 billion dollars annually.

It amazes me the amount of money being lost in not dealing with this huge issue of congestion and gridlock. This prevents people, goods and services from getting around. I believe the root of this is a combination of the following:

1. Poor urban planning, particularly around the GTA.

2. Lack of Government funding or forethought.

3. The incredible leverage developers and influential contractors have over city councils.

The Ideal Urban Plan

Countless studies have explored the ideal urban plan. Downtown Toronto along Bloor/Danforth, Dundas, Queen and King Streets are great examples of good urban planning. What they have in common is a great mixture of commercial and residential zoning. Shopping, entertainment and going to and from work are all within walking distance. Rapid transit is a short walk away. Other major cities envy the vibrancy of Toronto and its core.

I grew up in Bloor West Village, and it had all the amenities everyone needed. There was an IGA grocery store, two theatres, bakeries, a stationery store, fruit and vegetable markets and restaurants. If you needed to go downtown, the TTC subway was a 5-10 min walk away. You didn't need a car. The area has a great mixture of single-family homes, multi-unit apartments, retail and professional businesses. Since people can walk to shop, you end up running into your neighbours. This strengthens the social fabric of a local, friendly community. This is how cities and towns should be planned and built, but instead the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has become a sprawling mess that has reared its ugly head.

Suburban Paradise?

Over the last several decades, urban planning has gone by the wayside. Housing booms lured potential homeowners into buying cheaper homes with bigger lots, creating ad hoc residential developments that had no cohesion. You needed a car to drive 5 to 10 kms to get basic necessities. With no transit infrastructure in place, let alone building commercial and professional areas to create a local workforce, residents have to drive to major urban centres to work, causing gridlock.

Promises of schools to be built in new communities don’t materialize because school boards can’t afford to build them. Parents have to shuttle their kids early enough to arrive on time from the long commute to work. Now people are shifting back into the city, realizing the hidden costs of living in suburban towns and driving up housing prices, particularly in Toronto. The only problem with suburbanites migrating back to the city, along with the increase of new immigrants, is that it has put a strain on Toronto roads and transit.

There was Hope

I was in shock and awe while researching for this post. Back in 2007, then-Mayor David Miller proposed a transit plan called Transit City, and later the Government of Ontario proposed MoveOntario 2020, which incorporated Transit City. Those were ambitious plans; they would have relieved many of the headaches commuters face today. The current transit plan is The Big Move under Metrolinx, which will take decades to complete.

When it comes to governments—bureaucratic red tape, petty political agendas, and a lack of funding commitments—results in these great urban plans never get off the ground. The whole thing reminds me of the Nation Building Authority, portrayed in the Australian political-satire TV series Utopia (Dreamland in the US/Canada). You can watch it on Netflix.

What we lacked in the past couple of decades is the kind of leadership we had in the 1950s. During that time, the building of Interstate Highways in the U.S. and Toronto’s first subway was underway. In our current lagging economic environment, high unemployment and near-zero interest rates, it is imperative that we start moving dirt. Enough studies and environmental assessments have been done; now it is time to act. Money was wasted on auto industry bailouts and pet projects under Harper’s Economic Action Plan, not to mention allocating the Gas Tax Fund to anything other than roads, bridges and transit. This is part of the reason why $200 billion is needed today to repair and upgrade existing infrastructure, according to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

There shouldn’t be a funding shortage. We pay some of the highest gasoline prices, considering that oil prices have fallen back to the point when gas was 50 cents a litre. There certainly is a lot of taxes being collected. These taxes should be used strictly to fund road infrastructure and public transit, not the general coffers.

Short-term Profits

Powerful developers and contractors have a major influence on Mayors, City Councillors, and provincial MPPs. There has been a huge explosion in tall condo buildings being built everywhere in Toronto. Parking lots are being converted to condos, making parking your car very difficult, not to mention very costly. It is unfortunate that most of these newly built condos remain vacant, as many foreign investors gobble up every unit that becomes available and then rent them at unreasonable rates. That discussion is for another post, but this forces many workers to live in underserved transit deserts and dread a one- or two-hour commute.

No one has taken real leadership to create a more affordable housing plan that would help not only low-income families but also middle-class families. The middle class is being forced to move farther to afford housing. Realistically, affordable homes are beyond the GTA. The north end of Barrie and St. Catharines seem to be places that haven’t been hit by over-inflated house prices. Middle- and upper-middle-class families resort to buying houses they can’t afford, resulting in Canadians having the highest debt ratio. For every dollar Canadians earn, they owe $1.64, according to the latest reports.

Developers outside the City of Toronto have been building subdivisions wherever land was cheap, with no real plan for the suburbs to grow organically. Instead, we have pockets of subdivisions with no schools or shopping malls. Eventually, these get built a few years after new homeowners move in. New homeowners end up driving their kids to school and using their vehicles for short errands, such as shopping for groceries. This causes unnecessary gridlock and frustration in their very own community.

Several solutions can alleviate gridlock and congestion, while also building more sustainable, community-friendly places with real environmental benefits. In my next post, I'll present solutions ranging from long-term changes to things we can do today to ease gridlock and congestion.