[MrsNesbitt]

While it's true that driving a car is becoming more affordable, I can't entirely accept the thesis that it's still cheaper than transit. While you're right about people from low-income backgrounds often needing to work multiple jobs and end at odd hours, to be honest the cost of commuting via transit is still way lower than automobiles. Car insurance and gas per month, plus (depending on where you live/work potentially) parking are way over the cost of your Metropass, even if you factor in the fact that transit may take longer to get you somewhere.

Of course that last part is not always true - at rush hour when the roads are jammed with the metal syrup of congestion, rapid transit (at least) will get you to your destination far faster than driving. The fact that we don't have enough rapid transit, especially in low-income isolated areas in the suburbs of Toronto, isn't an argument to getting everyone to drive, however. It's an argument to build more rapid transit, preferably lower-cost LRT as Johnny Au stated.

Also I have to laugh up on re-reading the initial post: families with cars are living in neighbourhoods with lower levels of cancer risk.
Yeah, um. More automobile dependence and the associated more pollutant emissions equals lower cancer risk?

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

The thing is, cars are expensive to maintain. The "war on the car" is being waged by the market and insurance companies.

 

[Silence&Motion]

For the past 60 years, American cities (and Canadian cities, to a lesser extent) have basically been designed to segregate essential resources such as good schools, safe neighbourhoods and employment from those who can't afford car ownership. It completely makes sense that if you give poor people access to a car, they'll be able to better their position. The problem is that the wealthy will just find other ways to segregate the poor.

 

[Electrify]

The sad truth is that in an area as sprawled out as the GTA, car ownership is important for many people. When I got a car several years ago, suddenly the region became my oyster. I could get from Richmond Hill to Mississauga to Pickering to North York with ease. Such freedom of travel by transit is impossible by transit. Getting a car also allowed me to job search for better employment in places which would traditionally take half the day to get to.

The real problem with transit in the GTA is that it seems to neglect the speed factor. It's great that transit services can get you within a 5 minute walk to anywhere in the GTA, but what good is it if it takes you 2 hours to get to a place which would normally be a 20 minute drive? Each municipality is so focused at delivering services within their little district, that getting beyond that is beyond time consuming. Even the Transit City lines as planned would see speed play second fiddle to accessibility, and would barely be time competitive to getting across the former municipalities of Metro, let alone across the region or even the city proper.

I'm finishing up my undergrad and will soon be looking for work, likely beyond the GTA due to not having my masters or being a registered planner. I have since sold my car, but I may need to look at getting one again by going into deep debt because of this reality.

 

[diminutive]

While it's true that driving a car is becoming more affordable, I can't entirely accept the thesis that it's still cheaper than transit. While you're right about people from low-income backgrounds often needing to work multiple jobs and end at odd hours, to be honest the cost of commuting via transit is still way lower than automobiles. Car insurance and gas per month, plus (depending on where you live/work potentially) parking are way over the cost of your Metropass, even if you factor in the fact that transit may take longer to get you somewhere.

How do you figure that owning a car is more affordable than paying for public transit? The opposite is true. I'm a car owner and I take transit regularly. Car insurance alone is almost always more expensive than a metropass, not to mention the price of the car, gas, and maintenance. There are plenty of low-income people in Toronto who can't afford to own a car and therefore have to take transit.

Depends...

All in, the total cost of driving is certainly higher than the TTC. The TTC would cost about 1,500 per person. Once you start including insurance, gas, repairs, depreciation and such, a car would most likely wind up at 6,000-7,000$/year.

Lots of things can reduce the gap, though.

For instance, a car may allow for cheaper housing costs by living in a lower cost area. You could conceivably save one or two thousand dollars a year of rent living somewhere further out.

Once you get into opportunity costs, things become bizarre. Even assuming pretty modest time values, things add up pretty quickly. Each 10 minute delay over driving, per way, translates into a 1,000$/year just on commute times (assuming a people value their time at 12$/hour)! Car owners also have access to more jobs, which can result in higher salary.

Incremental car use costs are also a bit flat once you're already driving a bit. If for some reason (professional, personal, recreational...) a household already has a car, the marginal costs aren't necessarily huge. Theoretically if you had a Nissan Leaf and free office parking, the marginal costs would be pretty close to zero!

Really, the whole thing depends on the household. If you're a single person working downtown a car would be a terrible investment over most income levels. If you're a couple with three kids with jobs in a non-transit accessible location, you'd almost certainly be better off to get a car.

 

[ehlow]

The sad truth is that in an area as sprawled out as the GTA, car ownership is important for many people. When I got a car several years ago, suddenly the region became my oyster. I could get from Richmond Hill to Mississauga to Pickering to North York with ease. Such freedom of travel by transit is impossible by transit. Getting a car also allowed me to job search for better employment in places which would traditionally take half the day to get to.

The real problem with transit in the GTA is that it seems to neglect the speed factor. It's great that transit services can get you within a 5 minute walk to anywhere in the GTA, but what good is it if it takes you 2 hours to get to a place which would normally be a 20 minute drive? Each municipality is so focused at delivering services within their little district, that getting beyond that is beyond time consuming. Even the Transit City lines as planned would see speed play second fiddle to accessibility, and would barely be time competitive to getting across the former municipalities of Metro, let alone across the region or even the city proper.

I'm finishing up my undergrad and will soon be looking for work, likely beyond the GTA due to not having my masters or being a registered planner. I have since sold my car, but I may need to look at getting one again by going into deep debt because of this reality.

Yeah 90% of North America was built for the car. However many of the places that people love weren't: much of NYC, San Francisco etc.

Accessibility and speed both matter when you're competing with a car, as well as frequency and reliability, because they all contribute to total trip time. If you have to walk 15 minutes to the station or stop instead of 3 minutes, you're much more likely to want to take the car because in that 15 minutes you could've already driven very far. This is amplified if it's a really cold day and the car is right in your driveway or garage. Similarly if the destination stop is far from your destination but a free parking spot is much closer, you're also more likely to drive. If you have density of destinations & origins of trips, then transit becomes much more convenient for that reason.

For example, I go to a facility in Downsview Park, they are building a new subway station there. However, the subway station is still a 10-15 minute walk from the place that I go to regularly. Would I take transit there? Probably not.. it's just faster to drive and there's a giant parking lot right outside. If parking was a hassle or expensive, or the place I go to was closer, then it starts tipping in the other direction.

 

[ehlow]

Depends...

All in, the total cost of driving is certainly higher than the TTC. The TTC would cost about 1,500 per person. Once you start including insurance, gas, repairs, depreciation and such, a car would most likely wind up at 6,000-7,000$/year.

Lots of things can reduce the gap, though.

For instance, a car may allow for cheaper housing costs by living in a lower cost area. You could conceivably save one or two thousand dollars a year of rent living somewhere further out.

Once you get into opportunity costs, things become bizarre. Even assuming pretty modest time values, things add up pretty quickly. Each 10 minute delay over driving, per way, translates into a 1,000$/year just on commute times (assuming a people value their time at 12$/hour)! Car owners also have access to more jobs, which can result in higher salary.

Incremental car use costs are also a bit flat once you're already driving a bit. If for some reason (professional, personal, recreational...) a household already has a car, the marginal costs aren't necessarily huge. Theoretically if you had a Nissan Leaf and free office parking, the marginal costs would be pretty close to zero!

Really, the whole thing depends on the household. If you're a single person working downtown a car would be a terrible investment over most income levels. If you're a couple with three kids with jobs in a non-transit accessible location, you'd almost certainly be better off to get a car.

I agree that if you're in a situation where driving is faster than transit, it can add value, and there are many situations like that (although there are also situations where transit is faster).

With regards to the marginal cost issue though, with a family a lot of times transit can result in the family having one car instead of two, which can be a big financial savings for that family, even though they share and have the convenience of a car, maybe one parent takes transit to work.

 

[diminutive]

The real problem with transit in the GTA is that it seems to neglect the speed factor. It's great that transit services can get you within a 5 minute walk to anywhere in the GTA, but what good is it if it takes you 2 hours to get to a place which would normally be a 20 minute drive? Each municipality is so focused at delivering services within their little district, that getting beyond that is beyond time consuming. Even the Transit City lines as planned would see speed play second fiddle to accessibility, and would barely be time competitive to getting across the former municipalities of Metro, let alone across the region or even the city proper.

Barring some kind of as-yet uninvented technology, transit would have a very difficult time speed competing with cars.

Once you start dealing with access times, transfers and indirect routes, effective travel speeds just become incredibly slow. For half of my commute, I'm usually not even moving!

Not to be 'anti-transit,' but I feel like in the next 50 years we'll try to move towards a mix of automated electric vehicles, bicycling and walking.

 

[ehlow]

Barring some kind of as-yet uninvented technology, transit would have a very difficult time speed competing with cars.

Once you start dealing with access times, transfers and indirect routes, effective travel speeds just become incredibly slow. For half of my commute, I'm usually not even moving!

Not to be 'anti-transit,' but I feel like in the next 50 years we'll try to move towards a mix of automated electric vehicles, bicycling and walking.

Why has Ttc ridership gone up consistently? Traffic, parking and cost

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

The sad truth is that in an area as sprawled out as the GTA, car ownership is important for many people. When I got a car several years ago, suddenly the region became my oyster. I could get from Richmond Hill to Mississauga to Pickering to North York with ease. Such freedom of travel by transit is impossible by transit. Getting a car also allowed me to job search for better employment in places which would traditionally take half the day to get to.

The real problem with transit in the GTA is that it seems to neglect the speed factor. It's great that transit services can get you within a 5 minute walk to anywhere in the GTA, but what good is it if it takes you 2 hours to get to a place which would normally be a 20 minute drive? Each municipality is so focused at delivering services within their little district, that getting beyond that is beyond time consuming. Even the Transit City lines as planned would see speed play second fiddle to accessibility, and would barely be time competitive to getting across the former municipalities of Metro, let alone across the region or even the city proper.

I'm finishing up my undergrad and will soon be looking for work, likely beyond the GTA due to not having my masters or being a registered planner. I have since sold my car, but I may need to look at getting one again by going into deep debt because of this reality.

Yeah 90% of North America was built for the car. However many of the places that people love weren't: much of NYC, San Francisco etc.

Accessibility and speed both matter when you're competing with a car, as well as frequency and reliability, because they all contribute to total trip time. If you have to walk 15 minutes to the station or stop instead of 3 minutes, you're much more likely to want to take the car because in that 15 minutes you could've already driven very far. This is amplified if it's a really cold day and the car is right in your driveway or garage. Similarly if the destination stop is far from your destination but a free parking spot is much closer, you're also more likely to drive. If you have density of destinations & origins of trips, then transit becomes much more convenient for that reason.

For example, I go to a facility in Downsview Park, they are building a new subway station there. However, the subway station is still a 10-15 minute walk from the place that I go to regularly. Would I take transit there? Probably not.. it's just faster to drive and there's a giant parking lot right outside. If parking was a hassle or expensive, or the place I go to was closer, then it starts tipping in the other direction.

But the thing is transit, mainly horses, then streetcars, then interurbans, were the basis of the cities just like in europe until general motors ruined everything. The car culture is manufactured due to circumstance.

 

[EnviroTO]

The article is biased in the way it is interpreting a study that is really telling us what we already know. Mobility increases opportunity and people need to get to work. If one was to rely on transit in most American cities you would not have reasonable access to opportunity, and your mobility would be abysmal. Many cities have very infrequent service on routes that provide poor coverage of the city. This is not the scenario in Toronto.

They are interpreting the results to mean something about a car, but it is really nothing about a car. If we were to accept the premise that it really was about a car, then our follow up would be to give out cars as a social program? Add more cars to the streets and then there is more traffic jams and how is sitting in traffic with the car running saving money or making money? It has nothing to do with cars! It is mobility that matters and cities which are implementing congestion charges and pushing transit are doing so to increase mobility. In suburban places where there is little congestion, jobs are spread out across a wide area, and the distance from frequent transit to those jobs is significant or pedestrian unfriendly then absolutely a car equals mobility. People in Regent Park don't need a car. Someone at Jane and Finch probably might find benefit, especially since transit treats Steeles Ave like a wall with the fares for crossing the boundary.. Does that mean that the city should promote cars at Jane and Finch? I don't think so because it isn't cost effective or efficient. The opening of Finch West station would likely provide far greater mobility increases and related opportunities for people who have a hard time with the affordability of cars and car insurance than any car supportive investment like an extra lane on Finch.

 

[Electrify]

Barring some kind of as-yet uninvented technology, transit would have a very difficult time speed competing with cars.

Once you start dealing with access times, transfers and indirect routes, effective travel speeds just become incredibly slow. For half of my commute, I'm usually not even moving!

Not to be 'anti-transit,' but I feel like in the next 50 years we'll try to move towards a mix of automated electric vehicles, bicycling and walking.

Even if transit did not become faster than driving, there are still plenty of opportunities to make it a realistic option for regional transit. For example, how come we still do not have any frequent regional transit on the 401? There are a few GO bus routes, but they are not heavily identified on maps, make all stops, or is there promotional material to better explain the services provided. Imagine if there was a TTC or GO route which went between Pearson and Rouge Hill, getting off the highway every 2-3 interchanges to make passenger stops. It might not be as fast as driving, but it certainly would be better than what we have now.

 

[Ervin]

In other news, families who are given a money printing machine see a substantial rise in their monthly income.

one of the most pointless studies I have ever seen.

 

[diminutive]

In other news, families who are given a money printing machine see a substantial rise in their monthly income.

one of the most pointless studies I have ever seen.

I don't think it's pointless... I can think of two main ways it's significant.

1.) Socioeconomically, it supports the idea that it's expensive to be poor! We spend so much time talking about why people can't get jobs; skills gaps, cultural issues, the need for more educationm lacke of role models... God knows what else. This sort of thing shows how poverty persists because of itself and the inability to invest in things which improve lifetime earnings and quality of life (cars, secondary education, housing to a certain extent...)

It's not quite as trite as your example of the money printing machine. Or at least, you're equating car-ownership with a money printing machine, which is actually kind of accurate according to the study.

2.) Transit-wise, lots of cities justify and operate their transit systems as almost-social-welfare for those who absolutely can't afford cars. Even Toronto, to an certain very limited extent, operates like this (e.g. Transit City & Priority Neighbourhoods). In cities where public transit exists solely to shuttle low-income people, it would probably be better for the city to just buy low-income people cars.

Personally, I'd prefer if jurisdictions moved away from subsidizing transit agencies on the basis of providing social services and just gave direct cash transfers to low-income residents. Depending on those resident's circumstances, they could then choose between cars, bikes, transit passes... whatever.

 

[11th]

Even if transit did not become faster than driving, there are still plenty of opportunities to make it a realistic option for regional transit. For example, how come we still do not have any frequent regional transit on the 401? There are a few GO bus routes, but they are not heavily identified on maps, make all stops, or is there promotional material to better explain the services provided. Imagine if there was a TTC or GO route which went between Pearson and Rouge Hill, getting off the highway every 2-3 interchanges to make passenger stops. It might not be as fast as driving, but it certainly would be better than what we have now.

Because the 401 is unreliable during rush hour? Although it can be argued it's just as unreliable for cars; so if one has to spend 40min inside a car, behind the wheel, stuck in traffic, they might as well do that inside a bus (GO bus, as in seated, not standing) - and that bus better has washroom access.