3 ms·

Some of us don't want to impose the externalities of car ownership on others. The suburbanite who drives a car barely feels these inconveniences, but everybody

Some of us don't want to impose the externalities of car ownership on others. The suburbanite who drives a car barely feels these inconveniences, but everybody else does. Cars are dangerous to both pedestrians and cyclists. They make our streets noisy, our air polluted -- even electric cars shed particulates from their tires and their brakes. Cars require extensive amounts of parking, which is ugly dead space which contributes to sprawl.

fulafel 4y ago
And the biggest one, bringing about and excerbating global heating.
GiorgioG 4y ago
Mass transit isn't without its own inconveniences: "In 2017, the average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Toronto, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 96 minutes. 34% of public transit riders ride for more than two hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 14 minutes, while 10% of riders wait for over twenty minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 10 kilometres (6.2 mi), while 25% travel for over 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) in a single direction."
- david-gpu 4y ago
  Proving my point, because something like 80% of the land in Toronto is zoned for single-family housing. The Toronto metropolitan area is one massive sprawling suburb. How would these numbers look like if we had more dense walkable neighborhoods? No need to speculate, simply look at similar statistics from places like Montreal.
  - GiorgioG 4y ago
    Not everyone wants to live in dense housing. I grew up in Buffalo and spent many many hours on the QEW driving family to/from Pearson Intl. Every ride up there I'd be in awe of the number of cranes in the sky as new (I assumed) residential buildings were going up around Toronto. It seems like high density developments are a thing in the GTA: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/02/07/gta-communities-worry-about-impact-of-high-density-developments/ https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/02/07/gta-communities-worry... and like everything else they are not without their own problems. I grew up in a single-family home, and also spent a year in an apartment in France as a kid and while it was more walkable...it wasn't better or worse - it was just different. People have choices, if they want to live in a more walkable city, they can relocate to one. If enough people vote with their feet, the cities will have to adapt. It seems like the people living in the 80% single-family zoned areas of Toronto are not unhappy/inconvenienced enough with the state of things to leave.
    - david-gpu 4y ago
      > It seems like the people living in the 80% single-family zoned areas of Toronto are not unhappy/inconvenienced enough with the state of things to leave. How could they be? They externalize all of their noise and traffic to the denser neighbourhoods. And the people living in denser areas are subsidizing the immense amount of roads and public infrastructure consumed by those suburbs. They are having their cake and eating it too. I may not be able to afford moving to a nicer place, but I can sure complain about it!
    - mcv 4y ago
      From what I understand, a big problem in North America is that there is almost no new mid-density building. Most is low density, and where anything denser is allowed, it's immediately all skyscrapers. The few surviving mid-density neighbourhoods, especially when walkable, are often extremely popular and expensive, but very rare, and no new ones are being built because the zoning rules don't allow them. These are choices that simply aren't available in much of North America. People can't vote for them with their feet if they don't exist and people aren't aware of them.
      - GiorgioG 4y ago
        Folks that can afford to live in a single home tend do to so outside of cities. When people/governments propose medium/high density developments, there's a huge pushback because the perception is that lower income people will live in those developments and "cause problems". I'm not saying I buy it, but I do think that's part of the problem with increasing density in single-family home areas.
        mcv 4y ago
        They could leave the existing developments as they are, but use mid-density buildings in new developments. A big problem is also unfamiliarity. People aren't used to it anymore.
    - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
      > Not everyone wants to live in dense housing Two factors to make dense housing acceptable 1. Larger units 2. Mandated recording booth quality soundproofing between units
- hgomersall 4y ago
  None of those are externalities. Public transport clearly does have externalities, but they're dwarfed by private car usage.
- mcv 4y ago
  Sounds like Toronto needs to invest in better public transit. 14 minutes average waiting time? How often do they come? Every 30 minutes? In a large city, that should be 10.
  - dublinben 4y ago
    10 minutes is a pretty poor goal for a major city. The Paris metro has headways of 2-3 minutes. The Moscow metro has headways as short as 1-2 minutes. The busiest metro in the world, in Shanghai, has 2.8 billion rides per year with headways of between 1-3 minutes.
    - mcv 4y ago
      Amsterdam is not that busy. Here it's usually 6-10 minutes, depending on the time and the line. It makes sense that larger cities have to move more people and therefore need a lot more trains. Amsterdam isn't that big. Toronto is, though. And yet public transport is terrible.

fulafel 4y ago

And the biggest one, bringing about and excerbating global heating.

GiorgioG 4y ago

Mass transit isn't without its own inconveniences: "In 2017, the average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Toronto, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 96 minutes. 34% of public transit riders ride for more than two hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 14 minutes, while 10% of riders wait for over twenty minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 10 kilometres (6.2 mi), while 25% travel for over 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) in a single direction."

david-gpu 4y ago
Proving my point, because something like 80% of the land in Toronto is zoned for single-family housing. The Toronto metropolitan area is one massive sprawling suburb. How would these numbers look like if we had more dense walkable neighborhoods? No need to speculate, simply look at similar statistics from places like Montreal.
- GiorgioG 4y ago
  Not everyone wants to live in dense housing. I grew up in Buffalo and spent many many hours on the QEW driving family to/from Pearson Intl. Every ride up there I'd be in awe of the number of cranes in the sky as new (I assumed) residential buildings were going up around Toronto. It seems like high density developments are a thing in the GTA: https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/02/07/gta-communities-worry-about-impact-of-high-density-developments/ https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/02/07/gta-communities-worry... and like everything else they are not without their own problems. I grew up in a single-family home, and also spent a year in an apartment in France as a kid and while it was more walkable...it wasn't better or worse - it was just different. People have choices, if they want to live in a more walkable city, they can relocate to one. If enough people vote with their feet, the cities will have to adapt. It seems like the people living in the 80% single-family zoned areas of Toronto are not unhappy/inconvenienced enough with the state of things to leave.
  - david-gpu 4y ago
    > It seems like the people living in the 80% single-family zoned areas of Toronto are not unhappy/inconvenienced enough with the state of things to leave. How could they be? They externalize all of their noise and traffic to the denser neighbourhoods. And the people living in denser areas are subsidizing the immense amount of roads and public infrastructure consumed by those suburbs. They are having their cake and eating it too. I may not be able to afford moving to a nicer place, but I can sure complain about it!
  - mcv 4y ago
    From what I understand, a big problem in North America is that there is almost no new mid-density building. Most is low density, and where anything denser is allowed, it's immediately all skyscrapers. The few surviving mid-density neighbourhoods, especially when walkable, are often extremely popular and expensive, but very rare, and no new ones are being built because the zoning rules don't allow them. These are choices that simply aren't available in much of North America. People can't vote for them with their feet if they don't exist and people aren't aware of them.
    - GiorgioG 4y ago
      Folks that can afford to live in a single home tend do to so outside of cities. When people/governments propose medium/high density developments, there's a huge pushback because the perception is that lower income people will live in those developments and "cause problems". I'm not saying I buy it, but I do think that's part of the problem with increasing density in single-family home areas.
      - mcv 4y ago
        They could leave the existing developments as they are, but use mid-density buildings in new developments. A big problem is also unfamiliarity. People aren't used to it anymore.
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
    > Not everyone wants to live in dense housing Two factors to make dense housing acceptable 1. Larger units 2. Mandated recording booth quality soundproofing between units
hgomersall 4y ago
None of those are externalities. Public transport clearly does have externalities, but they're dwarfed by private car usage.
mcv 4y ago
Sounds like Toronto needs to invest in better public transit. 14 minutes average waiting time? How often do they come? Every 30 minutes? In a large city, that should be 10.
- dublinben 4y ago
  10 minutes is a pretty poor goal for a major city. The Paris metro has headways of 2-3 minutes. The Moscow metro has headways as short as 1-2 minutes. The busiest metro in the world, in Shanghai, has 2.8 billion rides per year with headways of between 1-3 minutes.
  - mcv 4y ago
    Amsterdam is not that busy. Here it's usually 6-10 minutes, depending on the time and the line. It makes sense that larger cities have to move more people and therefore need a lot more trains. Amsterdam isn't that big. Toronto is, though. And yet public transport is terrible.