The topics covered would have been familiar to anyone who is a regular reader of this blog (the power of open data, the knowledge economy, etc…), so I’m not going to repeat it all here. But I did want to touch on one of his impressions of Toronto, which is that this is a city that is “never finished.”
What does that mean?
The opposite of a city that is never finished would be a city like Paris that feels a bit like a monument that is now done and shouldn’t be touched anymore. It’s a city that almost feels too precious to intervene in. This is obviously not the case for all of Paris, but I think you get the point.
The topics covered would have been familiar to anyone who is a regular reader of this blog (the power of open data, the knowledge economy, etc…), so I’m not going to repeat it all here. But I did want to touch on one of his impressions of Toronto, which is that this is a city that is “never finished.”
What does that mean?
The opposite of a city that is never finished would be a city like Paris that feels a bit like a monument that is now done and shouldn’t be touched anymore. It’s a city that almost feels too precious to intervene in. This is obviously not the case for all of Paris, but I think you get the point.
Toronto, on the other hand, is a city that is constantly building, changing, and renewing itself. There are often layers upon layers of new interventions being applied, which gives you the impression that the city will never be done. It’s constantly in flux.
Some of you may not appreciate this kind of “messy” urbanism, but I think it gives cities a kind of entrepreneurial resiliency (resiliency is a hot topic right now in urbanist circles). Cities are an ecological system. And the most resilient ecological systems in the world are the ones that are able to adapt to constant change.
So in my view I look at this as a feature, not a bug. The only constant is change.
Toronto, on the other hand, is a city that is constantly building, changing, and renewing itself. There are often layers upon layers of new interventions being applied, which gives you the impression that the city will never be done. It’s constantly in flux.
Some of you may not appreciate this kind of “messy” urbanism, but I think it gives cities a kind of entrepreneurial resiliency (resiliency is a hot topic right now in urbanist circles). Cities are an ecological system. And the most resilient ecological systems in the world are the ones that are able to adapt to constant change.
So in my view I look at this as a feature, not a bug. The only constant is change.
What I meant by that was simply that conventional notions around private car use are going to change. And ultimately that is going to mean that we need to rethink public transport and how that fits into a broader urban mobility framework.
The study looked of what might happen when all cars become self-driving in a mid-sized European city (specifically Lisbon, Portugal). They leveraged existing transportation data from the city, but replaced 100% of the human powered cars with two types of self-driving cars: TaxiBots and AutoVots.
TaxiBots were driverless cars that would be shared with multiple people at the same time. In other words, they were a kind of pseudo-public transit. And AutoVots we’re your more conventional private taxi. They picked up one person at a time.
In the first scenario, they combined their TaxiBots and AutoVots with public transit (light rail) and discovered that the same number of people could be moved around with only 10% of the cars currently on the road. That’s a 90% reduction!
They also found that the city needed 20% less on-street parking and 80% less off-street parking since driverless cars don’t need to sit idle waiting for a driver.
In the second scenario, they removed mass transit from the equation. And in this instance they found that the city was still able to get around, but with an 80% reduction in the number of cars on the road. Remarkably, it also led to a 10% reduction in rush hour commute times.
These are pretty profound changes. Reducing the number of cars on the road by 80-90% is a significant change.
But it’s also why I’ve been thinking about the tension between private and public transport. As we get better at optimizing “cars” (their definition will change), what becomes the role of true public transit?
Ultimately, I think what will happen is a blurring of the two. In the example above, the TaxiBots served basically as small scale public transit. But that does not necessarily mean that true mass transit will become irrelevant. We’re just going to need to rethink how the entire mobility network fits together.
I’d now like to bring this discussion back to Toronto for a minute.
As many of you probably know from this blog, Toronto is on the cusp of deciding what to do with the eastern portion of the Gardiner Expressway (an elevated highway that runs across the downtown waterfront). It will go to City Council next month.
By today’s standards, I believe this concern represents an outdated way of thinking about cities and urban mobility. Adding more lanes is like loosening your belt to deal with obesity. However, it gets even worse when you think about urban mobility in the context of this post.
Given the profound transportation changes that are currently underway, I think there’s a strong likelihood that the Gardiner projections we have today will be completely wrong by 2031. I don’t know know for sure, but I’m guessing the models don’t account for the efficiencies being created by driverless cars and peer-to-peer networks.
In other words, I am suggesting that those 3 to 5 minutes could prove to be a red herring. The relevant question should be: Which decision will allow Toronto to build the absolute best waterfront in the world? And in my opinion that leads to removing the Gardiner East.
I have an announcement to make on Architect This City today.
Next week I’m joining the development team at CAPREIT (TSE: CAR.UN) here in Toronto. CAPREIT is one of Canada’s largest residential landlords. They are a growth-oriented real estate investment trust with over 41,839 residential units in major urban centers across both Canada and Ireland.
They also happen to be headquartered in the St. Lawrence Market area, which means I now live and work in the same neighborhood. As we discussed here, location matters a lot.
So here’s to a new chapter. I’m looking forward to diving into the multi-family business. Change is good.
What I meant by that was simply that conventional notions around private car use are going to change. And ultimately that is going to mean that we need to rethink public transport and how that fits into a broader urban mobility framework.
The study looked of what might happen when all cars become self-driving in a mid-sized European city (specifically Lisbon, Portugal). They leveraged existing transportation data from the city, but replaced 100% of the human powered cars with two types of self-driving cars: TaxiBots and AutoVots.
TaxiBots were driverless cars that would be shared with multiple people at the same time. In other words, they were a kind of pseudo-public transit. And AutoVots we’re your more conventional private taxi. They picked up one person at a time.
In the first scenario, they combined their TaxiBots and AutoVots with public transit (light rail) and discovered that the same number of people could be moved around with only 10% of the cars currently on the road. That’s a 90% reduction!
They also found that the city needed 20% less on-street parking and 80% less off-street parking since driverless cars don’t need to sit idle waiting for a driver.
In the second scenario, they removed mass transit from the equation. And in this instance they found that the city was still able to get around, but with an 80% reduction in the number of cars on the road. Remarkably, it also led to a 10% reduction in rush hour commute times.
These are pretty profound changes. Reducing the number of cars on the road by 80-90% is a significant change.
But it’s also why I’ve been thinking about the tension between private and public transport. As we get better at optimizing “cars” (their definition will change), what becomes the role of true public transit?
Ultimately, I think what will happen is a blurring of the two. In the example above, the TaxiBots served basically as small scale public transit. But that does not necessarily mean that true mass transit will become irrelevant. We’re just going to need to rethink how the entire mobility network fits together.
I’d now like to bring this discussion back to Toronto for a minute.
As many of you probably know from this blog, Toronto is on the cusp of deciding what to do with the eastern portion of the Gardiner Expressway (an elevated highway that runs across the downtown waterfront). It will go to City Council next month.
By today’s standards, I believe this concern represents an outdated way of thinking about cities and urban mobility. Adding more lanes is like loosening your belt to deal with obesity. However, it gets even worse when you think about urban mobility in the context of this post.
Given the profound transportation changes that are currently underway, I think there’s a strong likelihood that the Gardiner projections we have today will be completely wrong by 2031. I don’t know know for sure, but I’m guessing the models don’t account for the efficiencies being created by driverless cars and peer-to-peer networks.
In other words, I am suggesting that those 3 to 5 minutes could prove to be a red herring. The relevant question should be: Which decision will allow Toronto to build the absolute best waterfront in the world? And in my opinion that leads to removing the Gardiner East.
I have an announcement to make on Architect This City today.
Next week I’m joining the development team at CAPREIT (TSE: CAR.UN) here in Toronto. CAPREIT is one of Canada’s largest residential landlords. They are a growth-oriented real estate investment trust with over 41,839 residential units in major urban centers across both Canada and Ireland.
They also happen to be headquartered in the St. Lawrence Market area, which means I now live and work in the same neighborhood. As we discussed here, location matters a lot.
So here’s to a new chapter. I’m looking forward to diving into the multi-family business. Change is good.
