Metrolinx has released the white papers for consultation. Regular readers will recall that the board had asked for changes to be made to examine several additional scenarios, and these have been added to the white papers in the forms of new appendixes E and F. These scenarios examine the effect of increased road building (in the form of new highways), as well as decreased road building (e.g. no 407 extension), on several of the scenarios. They also examine the impact of the scenarios on the province’s climate change plan.
To see the online version of the white papers as well as the earlier green papers, visit the Metrolinx consultation site at http://metrolinx-consult.limehouse.com/portal . No PDF versions are available yet, but I’ll post when they are. UPDATE: PDFs are available from the consultation site, by looking at the Supporting Documents section on each white paper’s page.
I will review in more detail as time permits and provide my own thoughts here on the impact on Durham residents, and of course, I’ll provide the same thoughts to Metrolinx via their consultation site. I urge readers to read, review, and provide comments on the white papers. We are only a few months away from the draft Regional Transportation Plan (now expected in late July), so it’s critical that Metrolinx get useful feedback from all interested parties now.
I’ll also urge readers to not focus exclusively on transit lines but to look at the specific “directions” proposed in the papers. In order to get people out of cars, we need to improve transit service, true – but we also need to make significant changes to people’s attitudes, and this requires more than simply building lines.
Filed under: Metrolinx
It is difficult to get people out of their cars. The recent surge of higher gasoline prices have not reduced traffic. People will just spend less else where. Many people have to drive because of the distance between work and home. When I was working at driving buses I had to drive to work because of the lack of bus service at 4:30 am.
Andy, you’re absolutely right. This is one of the issues that is studied in the white papers. If you take the their “web” concept (ie. the largest scale transit implementation), the expected transit modal share only increases from 16.5% today (across the GTA) to 29% in 2031. And that’s with 90 billion dollars put into massive improvements!
Of course, what their model does not show is the effect of peak oil. In fact, recent oil price increases indicate that the Metrolinx model may already be out of date in terms of the cost of oil put into it. But we’re heading into an era of significantly more expensive oil, and the recent increases are just the thin edge of the wedge. We haven’t hit the crunch yet, but I think that as costs go up people will make changes. Already we’re beginning to see the impact on the types of cars being bought, which is one reason why GM has been hit so hard.
This doesn’t mean getting everyone out of every car every day, but reducing the number of trips. I *can* take GO to work and save money (and relax far more than I can driving the same trip), so I choose to do so. Others don’t have the choice right now – but the sorts of networks being talked about by Metrolinx will enable that choice for many others.
But this is a *big* problem and we won’t be able to resolve it overnight.
Is it really fair to ask commuters, with no other transportation option to pay tolls even more to fund Toronto’s transportation solution? Drivers already pay over 30 cents tax on every litre of gasolne. Someone driving from Barrie spends $480.00 a month to drive to Toronto. Add road tolls and that goes up to almost $1000.00 / month. In pre-tax dollars that’s really $2000.00/month. Where is the fairness in that kind of solution? If Toronto is really so important to the economy of Ontario, then the solution must involve the entire province and not just picking the pockets of people who have no transportation option. What would happen if all the commuters suddenly decided to take what limited public transportation there is? The city would shut down.
Good questions, Stephen, and ones that need to be addressed in the investment strategy. An investment strategy that is seen as being overly weighted against drivers is likely to hit major political resistance. The government itself needs to play a role. But according to Metrolinx estimates, we are looking at $4-6B additional funding per year over the next 25 years, above and beyond what already exists. This is a huge amount of money and it may be very difficult to make the case that all of this needs to come from general provincial revenues. What approaches can “we” take to getting that money?
Another angle here is that of Transportation Demand Management – of using road pricing and other mechanisms to discourage individual car trips in favour of other modes. Even with gas at $1.35, I still look at traffic on the 401 during rush hour and notice that virtually every vehicle holds but a single passenger. Simply getting car pooling up to, say, a 25% rate would make a huge difference in reducing congestion.
BTW, my apologies for not getting more white paper responses online. Both twins got sick last week, so it’s been a challenging time. I hope to get back on track in reviewing the papers soon.