If conservatives had their way, they’d pay their corporate buddies to pave all of southern Ontario south of North Bay and turn it into one giant parking lot.
You want to end grid lock?
Quadruple public transportation, remove half the car lanes, remove half the parking places, put bicycle lanes everywhere.
So long as the roads are plowed, winter cycling is pretty easy. I bike all year round in toronto, and just the exercise keeps me warm enough that I’m out in a sweater until -10 or so, and any colder you can bundle up pretty effectively.
We will never end gridlock, never.
It would be nice to have transportation alternatives, however.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#Studies
See also ‘reduced demand’ on the same page.
- massively over-supply options better than cars
- people avoid car hassle
- shrink lanes
- repeat
But that first step is the killer: I found in my own experience that my transit commute had a maximum bus tolerance of 15-30 minutes (based on traffic) or I’d just not do it. I can ride a train for an hour, but have me sit in traffic on a bus and it’s “fuck no”.
They missed the easiest, cheapest and most effective solution: working from home. We wouldn’t need half of what we’ve built already if we put an end to the commute for office workers. We might even make our Paris Accord targets that way too.
working from home.
I’m pleased to have switched to a union job that protects my safety and respects my time, by allowing 100% remote work as available – that’s to allow for people to work from the office, but to promote a remote-first approach. The specific wording in the contract is as convoluted as anticipated, but the summary is they have a minimal number of ‘hotel’ (hot-desk) spots in an actual office, but the spaces they sold back during covid they do not intend to request again.
(For the poor managers more validated by seeing my ass in a chair every day, I say “get help, my ass isn’t appealing” and I also mention my day job deals with some pretty private shit, and an actual home office is a straight-forward to certify for ergo and data privacy; but the manager has to want it. And that’s how I can spot the fucking pervs)
I’m guessing that’s the 401? I know someone who used to commute on that and it sounded like fucking hell. Hours every day, in the car, driving, snacking, listening to the radio. You leave work and just get on a road in your car for hours.
People talk shit about paying a lot of money for tiny places in the city but I’d rather live in a box than commute 3-4 hours a day for 30 years.
There is a formula that suggested “living X minutes closer to work is worth Y dollars more on the purchase price” because the commute time saved and the health benefits of reduced stress were far worth the added cost – and it may be like $5k on the mortgage per 1 minute saved. And if the commute dropped to a <= 30min walking commute, the benefits skyrocketed.
You better believe a walking commute factors into planning subway stations.
