6 ms·

We designed Canada's cities for cars, not people – and the people are dying

40 points by anonymfus 8y ago

scosman 8y ago
Worth noting the author, Jennifer Keesmaat, has announced she's running for mayor since this was published.
- mabbo 8y ago
  She's got a hell of a lot of work ahead of her if she's going to win. Keesmaat won't win over the right-wing voters- not with articles like "cars are not the greatest thing ever". Many on the left may like Keesmaat, but as a center-left voter, I'd take another four years of Tory over a big unknown with wild promises. I want her to win me over, I do. But she's got only a few weeks left to do it.
  - scosman 8y ago
    Agree on a lot of work to do, but Keesmaat is far from a big unknown with wild promises. She was the chief city planner for 5 years. Her stance on the issues have been well articulated for years. She has significantly more experience running the city than any candidate in years, including current mayor Tory.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  She would also like to commit to building 100k affordable homes. I've been following her on Twitter for a while because she tweets interesting things about city design, but I find this implausible. I did ask for specific how to info to make that happen. She seems to be out campaigning or something. I'm still semi hoping that she will actually reply to me at some point because I would like useful info to apply to my small American town. But I'm not holding my breath here. I will be quite surprised if I get any reply at all from anyone at all. I think most people don't really know how to foster more affordable housing.
  - scosman 8y ago
    I don't think her plan for Toronto would apply to a small town. A detached home anywhere near the core starts at about $1.3M, so "affordable" housing is relative. Adding 100k units will make the entire market more affordable, the challenge is where to put them. As the former chief planner, she's highly qualified to tackle this; she has been pushing plans for adding density in smart ways for years.
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      I hope you are right that she's highly qualified. I've certainly enjoyed some of her tweets on city design type stuff. I sometimes talk to professional planners. One recently said to me that affordable housing was a tough nut to crack. This part of where I get the idea that most people have no idea how to solve it. As I have the time and energy, I'm trying to do my own research. I still hope to find viable answers.
      - Agustus 8y ago
        Affordable housing is easy, increase the amount of available housing to allow for an increase in supply to drive down demand. If you do not increase available housing because of NIMBYISM, landlords wanting to keep supply limited, ridiculous rules for supply creation (San Francisco's rules and regulations for permit application are a great example), historic districts (forcing creators to adhere to maintain old and outdated buildings that require significant investment to meet codes), and politicians who would like to avoid having to figure out a new voter base, then you will never see houses that make financial sense to maintain. As a thought experiment, how many more people could live in San Francisco city limits if you added three stories to the current limit (which is three I believe). You double the available supply, reduce / address demand and increase the opportunity for transit usage. However, if you proposed this idea, you do not have to worry about re election. The politicians will say it is difficult, then use public funds to add 1,000 affordable homes, which is a drop in the bucket to addressing the supply issue. Do note, that when the affordable housing allotted to the skyscraper in New York City, the affordable housing facilities were given out by the city and conveniently, if I recall, a city counselor's relative got one of the homes.
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slededit 8y ago
I've had more near misses with cyclists than with cars in Toronto. While I'm a huge fan of tolling the QEW to encourage more transit - Toronto roads are already pretty hostile to vehicles. Driving downtown is a high stress activity, and I don't see how increasing that even more will lead to fewer road deaths. Increases in GO service are having an impact, we need to double down there and add congestion tolls to make it even more attractive.
- scosman 8y ago
  This is the attitude discussed in the article. Driver's feel ownership of the road and unfairly blame cyclists and pedestrians for conflicts. This needs to change. Several studies have shown that drivers are at fault in the majority of car/bike collisions. It's concerning that you've had more near misses with cyclists than cars; those easily turn into deaths. Getting cars to slow down and and share the road on dense urban streets isn't being hostile to cars, it's trying to stop avoidable deaths though good design.
  - AzzieElbab 8y ago
    What attitude? No one has a perfect 360 view all the time while driving. If you are on bike you are part of the traffic, take care accordingly
  - jm__87 8y ago
    As someone who lives in Toronto, there are some very aggressive cyclists here who do not follow the rules. They run through red lights and stop signs without stopping, weave in and out of traffic, try to bike by cars on the shoulder and freak out on drivers if they happen to have not left enough room for a cyclist to zip past. Not all cyclists in Toronto are like this of course, but I've seen a lot of cyclists who just do whatever they want on the road and get upset when the cars can't anticipate their actions. With all that said I think it would be a good idea to lower speed limits and install some speeding cameras. I feel there has been an uptick in the number of cyclists on the streets in the past few years and we should keep them safe. Police should also be ticketing the unsafe cyclists as it is clear that they really have no interest in sharing the road with cars. Perhaps police are already ticketing these people at a good rate, but if they are, I've never heard about it. I feel these aggressive cyclists are probably the main contributers to the anti-cyclist sentiment you see among many drivers in Toronto. Showing cyclists and drivers that we aren't going to tolerate that level of irresponsibility would probably help shift public opinion on cyclists in Toronto.
caiob 8y ago
Toronto was designed for cars, not Canada's cities. Toronto just happens to be one of them.
- John_KZ 8y ago
  Actually Toronto is one of the most transit-friendly cities in North America. Or so I've been told by a friend that lived there. That doesn't mean it's bike-friendly though. Or that it should be. Biking in Toronto will probably be miserable half the year, probably a lot more than Netherlands too. It should be safe though.
  - jhbadger 8y ago
    Well, it has a subway, which by definition puts it on the list of transit-friendly cities, as only a handful of North American cities do. One issue though is the 1998 amalgamation. Toronto used to be just the actual dense city part, well covered by transit, and now it includes many former suburbs which are far less dense and are almost entirely car-based.
- abdullahkhalids 8y ago
  I live in Calgary and visit Toronto frequently. I don't drive. Calgary is a lot worse than Toronto from transit, biking or pedestrian perspective. Its almost like the city was actively designed to make it as difficult as possible for non-cars while making it reasonable for cars.
  - caiob 8y ago
    Take the 2nd and 3rd biggest cities in Canada (Montreal and Vancouver respectively) as an example. These places are meccas of cycling in North America. Generalizing Canada's cities is so typical of Torontonians, while their own city is the exception when it comes down to traffic and gun violence.
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theonemind 8y ago
The article asserts that lowering the speed limit dramatically reduces deaths, and provides a link, and also suggests lowering speed limits as a safety measure. However, the link shows that lower collision speed dramatically reduces death, not lower speed limits. Mostly, I have seen that drivers don't tend to obey artificially low speed limits, for example, https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a14463672/how-lowering-the-speed-limit-can-actually-hurt-pedestrians/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a14463672/how-lower...
- scosman 8y ago
  The source might not have used the best link, but there are studies to support that claim. Vision Zero in NYC has been studied extensively and has had a huge proven impact. I wouldn't say a opinion piece from Road and Track would be a better source, especially considering it's just quoting untested theories on the cause of a single city's issue.
  - u801e 8y ago
    The Martin Parker study on the effects of raising and lowering speed limits on actual traffic speeds should be the one that's cited.
  - scosman 8y ago
    Oh, the people who implemented Vision Zero replied to the cited article here https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a14500765/new-york-city-vision-zero/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a14500765/new-york-... They call the cited article "dangerous if believed by your driving readership". They provide several points of evidence (full studies available to those interested).
- u801e 8y ago
  This is a fundamental problem that a lot of people don't understand. In order to lower travel speed, the road itself needs to be designed with a lower speed in mind. Just posting a 40 km/h speed limit in a road with a design speed of 80 km/h won't result in lower traffic speeds without constant enforcement.

40 points by anonymfus 8y ago

scosman 8y ago

Worth noting the author, Jennifer Keesmaat, has announced she's running for mayor since this was published.

mabbo 8y ago
She's got a hell of a lot of work ahead of her if she's going to win. Keesmaat won't win over the right-wing voters- not with articles like "cars are not the greatest thing ever". Many on the left may like Keesmaat, but as a center-left voter, I'd take another four years of Tory over a big unknown with wild promises. I want her to win me over, I do. But she's got only a few weeks left to do it.
- scosman 8y ago
  Agree on a lot of work to do, but Keesmaat is far from a big unknown with wild promises. She was the chief city planner for 5 years. Her stance on the issues have been well articulated for years. She has significantly more experience running the city than any candidate in years, including current mayor Tory.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
She would also like to commit to building 100k affordable homes. I've been following her on Twitter for a while because she tweets interesting things about city design, but I find this implausible. I did ask for specific how to info to make that happen. She seems to be out campaigning or something. I'm still semi hoping that she will actually reply to me at some point because I would like useful info to apply to my small American town. But I'm not holding my breath here. I will be quite surprised if I get any reply at all from anyone at all. I think most people don't really know how to foster more affordable housing.
- scosman 8y ago
  I don't think her plan for Toronto would apply to a small town. A detached home anywhere near the core starts at about $1.3M, so "affordable" housing is relative. Adding 100k units will make the entire market more affordable, the challenge is where to put them. As the former chief planner, she's highly qualified to tackle this; she has been pushing plans for adding density in smart ways for years.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    I hope you are right that she's highly qualified. I've certainly enjoyed some of her tweets on city design type stuff. I sometimes talk to professional planners. One recently said to me that affordable housing was a tough nut to crack. This part of where I get the idea that most people have no idea how to solve it. As I have the time and energy, I'm trying to do my own research. I still hope to find viable answers.
    - Agustus 8y ago
      Affordable housing is easy, increase the amount of available housing to allow for an increase in supply to drive down demand. If you do not increase available housing because of NIMBYISM, landlords wanting to keep supply limited, ridiculous rules for supply creation (San Francisco's rules and regulations for permit application are a great example), historic districts (forcing creators to adhere to maintain old and outdated buildings that require significant investment to meet codes), and politicians who would like to avoid having to figure out a new voter base, then you will never see houses that make financial sense to maintain. As a thought experiment, how many more people could live in San Francisco city limits if you added three stories to the current limit (which is three I believe). You double the available supply, reduce / address demand and increase the opportunity for transit usage. However, if you proposed this idea, you do not have to worry about re election. The politicians will say it is difficult, then use public funds to add 1,000 affordable homes, which is a drop in the bucket to addressing the supply issue. Do note, that when the affordable housing allotted to the skyscraper in New York City, the affordable housing facilities were given out by the city and conveniently, if I recall, a city counselor's relative got one of the homes.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

slededit 8y ago

I've had more near misses with cyclists than with cars in Toronto. While I'm a huge fan of tolling the QEW to encourage more transit - Toronto roads are already pretty hostile to vehicles. Driving downtown is a high stress activity, and I don't see how increasing that even more will lead to fewer road deaths. Increases in GO service are having an impact, we need to double down there and add congestion tolls to make it even more attractive.

scosman 8y ago
This is the attitude discussed in the article. Driver's feel ownership of the road and unfairly blame cyclists and pedestrians for conflicts. This needs to change. Several studies have shown that drivers are at fault in the majority of car/bike collisions. It's concerning that you've had more near misses with cyclists than cars; those easily turn into deaths. Getting cars to slow down and and share the road on dense urban streets isn't being hostile to cars, it's trying to stop avoidable deaths though good design.
- AzzieElbab 8y ago
  What attitude? No one has a perfect 360 view all the time while driving. If you are on bike you are part of the traffic, take care accordingly
- jm__87 8y ago
  As someone who lives in Toronto, there are some very aggressive cyclists here who do not follow the rules. They run through red lights and stop signs without stopping, weave in and out of traffic, try to bike by cars on the shoulder and freak out on drivers if they happen to have not left enough room for a cyclist to zip past. Not all cyclists in Toronto are like this of course, but I've seen a lot of cyclists who just do whatever they want on the road and get upset when the cars can't anticipate their actions. With all that said I think it would be a good idea to lower speed limits and install some speeding cameras. I feel there has been an uptick in the number of cyclists on the streets in the past few years and we should keep them safe. Police should also be ticketing the unsafe cyclists as it is clear that they really have no interest in sharing the road with cars. Perhaps police are already ticketing these people at a good rate, but if they are, I've never heard about it. I feel these aggressive cyclists are probably the main contributers to the anti-cyclist sentiment you see among many drivers in Toronto. Showing cyclists and drivers that we aren't going to tolerate that level of irresponsibility would probably help shift public opinion on cyclists in Toronto.

caiob 8y ago

Toronto was designed for cars, not Canada's cities. Toronto just happens to be one of them.

John_KZ 8y ago
Actually Toronto is one of the most transit-friendly cities in North America. Or so I've been told by a friend that lived there. That doesn't mean it's bike-friendly though. Or that it should be. Biking in Toronto will probably be miserable half the year, probably a lot more than Netherlands too. It should be safe though.
- jhbadger 8y ago
  Well, it has a subway, which by definition puts it on the list of transit-friendly cities, as only a handful of North American cities do. One issue though is the 1998 amalgamation. Toronto used to be just the actual dense city part, well covered by transit, and now it includes many former suburbs which are far less dense and are almost entirely car-based.
abdullahkhalids 8y ago
I live in Calgary and visit Toronto frequently. I don't drive. Calgary is a lot worse than Toronto from transit, biking or pedestrian perspective. Its almost like the city was actively designed to make it as difficult as possible for non-cars while making it reasonable for cars.
- caiob 8y ago
  Take the 2nd and 3rd biggest cities in Canada (Montreal and Vancouver respectively) as an example. These places are meccas of cycling in North America. Generalizing Canada's cities is so typical of Torontonians, while their own city is the exception when it comes down to traffic and gun violence.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

theonemind 8y ago

The article asserts that lowering the speed limit dramatically reduces deaths, and provides a link, and also suggests lowering speed limits as a safety measure. However, the link shows that lower collision speed dramatically reduces death, not lower speed limits. Mostly, I have seen that drivers don't tend to obey artificially low speed limits, for example, https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a14463672/how-lowering-the-speed-limit-can-actually-hurt-pedestrians/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a14463672/how-lower...

scosman 8y ago
The source might not have used the best link, but there are studies to support that claim. Vision Zero in NYC has been studied extensively and has had a huge proven impact. I wouldn't say a opinion piece from Road and Track would be a better source, especially considering it's just quoting untested theories on the cause of a single city's issue.
- u801e 8y ago
  The Martin Parker study on the effects of raising and lowering speed limits on actual traffic speeds should be the one that's cited.
- scosman 8y ago
  Oh, the people who implemented Vision Zero replied to the cited article here https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a14500765/new-york-city-vision-zero/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a14500765/new-york-... They call the cited article "dangerous if believed by your driving readership". They provide several points of evidence (full studies available to those interested).
u801e 8y ago
This is a fundamental problem that a lot of people don't understand. In order to lower travel speed, the road itself needs to be designed with a lower speed in mind. Just posting a 40 km/h speed limit in a road with a design speed of 80 km/h won't result in lower traffic speeds without constant enforcement.