[kettal]

Congestion is not the sign of a healthy city, it is just the sign of poor planning.

Then what successful major city has no congestion?

 

[lead82]

I think the issue is not just congestion but rather lack of alternate transit options. That is what all successful world class cities have: congestion and excellent transit choices.

 

[lead82]

while Toronto has congestion and no good alternative transit options unless you live on Yonge or Bloor, or live right downtown, you must drive in this city.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Firstly, kudos to the TTC for reducing the ecological footprint of one of their buildings. Green roofs also save money by prolonging the lifespan of the roofing materials, so this is a win win situation.

Secondly, although I do agree that the proposed route of the Spadina Expressway was a terrible selection, I do think that it's unfortunate that infrastructure expansion of any kind - including transit - came to a grinding halt in the 1970s. The fact of the matter is that transportation capacity into the city desperately needs to be expanded, and it's highly unfortunate that the end of inner city freeway construction did NOT result in massive transit spending instead.

We are stuck with a transportation system straight out of the 1970s, designed for a GTA of 3 million people. It's no wonder gridlock exists in this city! I almost feel that as bad as the Spadina Expressway may have been, it would at least have been the only measure in 40 years that made it easier to get downtown. The northwest GTA has no direct highway access into downtown. There's also a 30 km gap in GO service between Maple and Brampton. At least the damn highway would have been something.

This is exactly what I was talking about. Even that I'm happy about Eglinton West's green roof

 

[Whoaccio]

Then what successful major city has no congestion?

Singapore. Stockholm. Even Tokyo has surprisingly little congestion, considering more people live there than in Canada at least. One common theme is that none of them were stupid enough to think traffic jams somehow showed health. The GTA loses two billion dollars per annum on congestion and the average US peak commuter wastes about a 100l of fuel a year on congestion, so I'm sure the environment is just loving the success.

Reversing the logic, cities like Lagos have congestion unrivaled in in Canada. It doesn't mean they are urban beacons. Looking through the 2009 TTI Urban Mobility Report, there is fairly minimal correlation between "success" and congestion. It makes no sense, for instance, that Washington and Houston are more congested than Seattle or Chicago. L.A. is about 60% more congested than New York, so does that mean it is 60% more succesful?

Building the Spadina Expressway would have destroyed Spadina Avenue. More buildings would have been replaced with parking lots. And downtown would be deserted at night and weekends, like most American cities.

Montreal has more expressways than us, and it is hardly deserted at night. Toronto never was, and never will be, Spadina Avenue. I see no reason why people wouldn't have simply moved elsewhere in the City and done basically just as well.

Toronto never would have turned out like "most American cities" because of differences in economies and societies. At least part of the reason Toronto has resisted hollowing out is because of the financial sector and the inherent socializing aspects of it. Unlike making glass bottles, much of the financial sector involves personal contact between participants. With that cluster you get legal services, restaurants, doctors and a bunch of other supporting services. Let's be honest, any business that has been able to justify leaving downtown Toronto has. Even the "back office" stuff of the main banks. Cities like Chicago and New York, which have similar financial service industries, have resisted hollowing out pretty much as well as Toronto (and in Chicago's case, there is a much more extensive freeway network).

The other reason, that never gets played up by Jane Jacobs fanboys, is Toronto's lack of a nucleus of impoverished black people. It is impossible to talk about urban decay in the US without talking about racial tensions and all the resulting social ill-effects. Within American social history this is usually recognized as one of, if not the, main cause of urban decay. Sure, highway construction has negative effects, but nothing compared to the race riots that spread over urban America with frightful regularity. Where Toronto does have nuclei of impoverished black people, we only differ from the US on scale. Regent Park or Jane and Finch aren't particularly close to any highways, yet they clearly exhibit many of the same issues Watts would. Part of me wonders what the perceived "livability" of places like Seattle or Portland have to do with their relative lack of black/white racial tensions.

There are other macroeconomic reasons (read, not highways) why Canadian cities have developed differently. Higher taxes on gasoline have always discouraged profligate auto usage, as have our historically weaker dollar and lower incomes typically discouraged excessive auto usage. We lacked the excessive subsidies on home ownership that characterize much of American suburbanization. More effective immigration has kept racial divisions from approaching US levels and more robust social safety nets have staunched a major gap between urban and suburban areas. I would rank any of these as more important to Toronto's current situation than building or not building a highway.

 

[kettal]

Singapore. Stockholm. Even Tokyo has surprisingly little congestion, considering more people live there than in Canada at least. One common theme is that none of them were stupid enough to think traffic jams somehow showed health. The GTA loses two billion dollars per annum on congestion and the average US peak commuter wastes about a 100l of fuel a year on congestion, so I'm sure the environment is just loving the success.

Reversing the logic, cities like Lagos have congestion unrivaled in in Canada. It doesn't mean they are urban beacons. Looking through the 2009 TTI Urban Mobility Report, there is fairly minimal correlation between "success" and congestion. It makes no sense, for instance, that Washington and Houston are more congested than Seattle or Chicago. L.A. is about 60% more congested than New York, so does that mean it is 60% more succesful?

We're talking in terms of expressway growth. Someone saying that Toronto would have less congestion if there were more expressways only need to consider Los Angeles to see that is untrue. While these "congestion free" cities like Stockholm fewer expressways per capita, and Singapore is the pioneer of downtown congestion pricing. Singapore had horrible traffic problems which were only solved by tolling.

The only other way to get rid of congestion is to have an empty shell of a city, like Buffalo.

 

[Second_in_pie]

We're talking in terms of expressway growth. Someone saying that Toronto would have less congestion if there were more expressways only need to consider Los Angeles to see that is untrue. While these "congestion free" cities like Stockholm fewer expressways per capita, and Singapore is the pioneer of downtown congestion pricing. Singapore had horrible traffic problems which were only solved by tolling.

The only other way to get rid of congestion is to have an empty shell of a city, like Buffalo.

I'm not advocating for expressways in any way, but you do realize LA has over two times the population of Toronto, right?

I do agree that a congestion charge should definitely be implemented (most probably by Metrolinx) which would then be used to improve transit in the entire region. Also, highways are definitely not the right way to improve people and goods movement. I think that Toronto has the perfect number of highways right now actually, and it's a great opportunity to just stop our highway growth and focus totally on mass transit and freight rail. There's not really any other American City that has an opportunity like this, if you ask me.

 

[CDL.TO]

Firstly, kudos to the TTC for reducing the ecological footprint of one of their buildings. Green roofs also save money by prolonging the lifespan of the roofing materials, so this is a win win situation.

Do they really? I figured that by putting a consistently wet material on the roof, combined with root action, would actually substantially shorten the life of a roof. That's very interesting.

 

[Chuck]

Do they really? I figured that by putting a consistently wet material on the roof, combined with root action, would actually substantially shorten the life of a roof. That's very interesting.

A properly designed green roof has a root barrier and an air layer between the vegetation and the roof membrane. These two items prevent the roots from ever coming in contact with the membrane, and also allow some drying to occur. What ultimately kills a roof is temperature fluctuations, exposure to UV, and foot traffic. A green roof removes all three of these from the equation, thus substantially prolonging its lifespan.

By my estimate, the TTC might defer close to a million dollars worth of capital cost in a few decades due to the longer lifespan of the roof. That's enough freed up money to buy a bus!

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

A properly designed green roof has a root barrier and an air layer between the vegetation and the roof membrane. These two items prevent the roots from ever coming in contact with the membrane, and also allow some drying to occur. What ultimately kills a roof is temperature fluctuations, exposure to UV, and foot traffic. A green roof removes all three of these from the equation, thus substantially prolonging its lifespan.

By my estimate, the TTC might defer close to a million dollars worth of capital cost in a few decades due to the longer lifespan of the roof. That's enough freed up money to buy a bus!

a mil for 1 roof?

 

[CodeMonkey]

They still haven't fixed the leak. Water still gets onto the platform.

 

[Chuck]

a mil for 1 roof?

50 years from now. Of course a bus will cost a lot more too, but meh.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

50 years from now. Of course a bus will cost a lot more too, but meh.

if it saves more money than it costs to implement & maintain, i'm all for it.

 

[299 bloor call control.]

Singapore had horrible traffic problems which were only solved by tolling.

Not to mention the incredibly high cost of becoming a private car owner, which makes it next to impossible for ordinary Singaporeans to own a vehicle. This limits the number of vehicles on the road to the practical capacity.

 

[jwill]

I really dont think Tokyo, Singapore, and Stockholm have less congestion that Toronto because they built more expressways. It probably has more to do with their denser land use, higher capacity transit networks, and lack of car culture. Probably.

Sometimes I'm glad Toronto stopped building infrastructure in the 70s. Yes, we missed out on some subways, but we havent destroyed a single neighbourhood since then either. I think thats a better accomplishment. But now lets get back to building, albeit with some sensitivity and creativity.