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We talk a lot about mobility and traffic congestion on this blog — particularly in the context of Toronto — and that's because it remains a problem and we continue to avoid any sort of big and meaningful moves. Instead, we like to politicize the problem and find scapegoats, such as bike lanes. So I think it's important to have regular reminders that we do actually know how to address this problem. It's a choice we and other cities can make.
Here are three examples and possible solutions:
Copenhagen: Over 60% of residents use a bicycle to commute to work or school. It is one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. You've probably heard this before and are prepared to say, "yeah, well, we're not Copenhagen." But it's important to point out that neither was Copenhagen. In the early-to-mid 70s, the modal split for bikes was somewhere between ~10-15%.
Singapore: This is one of my favorite examples. Singapore is home to the world's first congestion charge zone (1975). And it operates on a dynamic pricing model, meaning that traffic congestion is continually monitored and road prices are adjusted to ensure that traffic always flows at certain minimum speed. It's a highly effective tool and there's no shortage of global case studies. Here's Miami.
Zurich: Despite being one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, car ownership is relatively low (~40-45% of the population, compared to ~60-65% in Toronto). This is due to a great public transit system (Swiss trains and stuff) and because of strict parking policies, among other things.
Zurich has a hard cap on the number of parking spaces in the central part of the city. It is set at 1990 levels, which works out to about 7,600 total parking spaces. What this means is that if somebody, like a big bad developer, wants to build off-street parking, they need to simultaneously reduce the parking supply somewhere else. You can't exceed the cap.
This obviously discourages car usage and moderates the demand for city streets, but it also serves as a clever way to slowly replace on-street parking with better uses, such as an enhanced public realm. This policy has been in place since 1989 and it has had a dramatic effect on car usage. Between 2000 and 2021, the share of car trips in the city decreased from 40% to 29%.
I know that many of you will scoff at these solutions and think "yeah, there's no way." But this is how you make traffic better. You reduce demand and use our finite amount of road capacity more efficiently. So we can either make bold moves or we can continue to complain about traffic.
Cover photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
One of the truly remarkable things about Tokyo is that it manages to be both the largest metropolitan area in the world and one of the most livable cities in the world. That's quite an accomplishment. And one of the key ingredients has to be its heavy reliance on rail for mobility. Look at any list of the busiest train stations in the world and you'll find that the majority of them are in Japan.
But what does this mean for the average person living in a city like Tokyo? Well, every 10 years Tokyo does a "person trip survey" that looks at how people get around. And if you look at the last set of results from 2018, you'll find the following modal splits:
33% railway
27% private car
23% walking
13% bicycle
4% other (bus and motorcycle)
This is a big deal. Supposedly this is the highest railway split in the world. But the numbers may be even better than this. According to a recent book by Daniel Knowles, who is a correspondent for The Economist, only about 12% of trips in Tokyo are done with a car, giving the city one of the lowest driving rates in the world. Bike usage is also higher than the above at 17%.
Whatever the exact numbers are, it is clear that there's a heavy bias toward rail and other forms of non-car mobility. And you feel that in the city. You feel it in the lack of traffic congestion (which incidentally makes the city feel generally quieter and calmer) and you feel it in the way that density and pedestrian traffic is obviously concentrated around stations.
In the span of a 10 minute walk, you can go from feeling like you are, in fact, in a giant megacity, to feeling like you're in a tranquil community where grade-separated sidewalks aren't even needed because the cars, if any, all drive so slowly. It's an interesting dichotomy that is the result of true transit-oriented development.
On-street parking is also virtually non-existent. According to Knowles, 95% of streets in Japan do not allow it, either day or night.
At the same time, this approach makes it easier to get around by car. We have taken a handful of Ubers on this trip, and they always arrived in a few minutes, and we have yet to be stuck in soul-crushing traffic. It's perhaps ironic that in a city many multiples larger than Toronto, it feels easier to move around. Or maybe it just goes to show you that it's not about how much urban space you have, it's about how efficiently you use it.
In my opinion, we need far better urban data if we're actually going to make evidence-based decisions. Thankfully, there are lots of great companies that are focused on this space. One of them is Eco-Counter, which makes devices to count pedestrians and cyclists, among other things. This is an important job, because as Peter Drucker used to say, "you can't manage what you don't measure."
Let's look at their bike counters. According to their global map, they have 464 of them installed around the world. Montreal has 58 of them, which we've spoken about before, and is an impressive install base. And Toronto looks to have only one, which is located on Bloor Street on the north side of High Park.
The busiest route/counter in Montreal is at St-Denis Street and Rue des Carriéres. So far this year -- up to November 17, 2024 -- this counter has seen an average of just under 5,000 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 1,600,468 trips. Both of these metrics are notably up compared to 2023 when I last looked at the data.
The busiest route in Eco-Counter's entire network is on Boulevard de Sébastopol in Paris (an important main roadway, not a side street). It has seen an average of 13,667 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 4,386,996 trips. Not surprisingly, the Paris counter exhibits less seasonality. People still cycle in the winter in Montreal, but it's less than in the warmer months.
Finally, our lone Toronto counter adjacent to High Park has seen an average of 1,186 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 380,813 trips. Not quite Paris or Montreal (the latter of which has a colder climate), but I would argue that this really isn't an indicative location for Toronto given how underdeveloped the area is. Plus, you need to see each route as part of a network.
If you look at Montreal's top 5 bike counters, all of them have a year-to-date total that exceeds 1 million trips. This is important information if you're trying to make mobility decisions and these are significant figures. Imagine if these millions of people got off their bikes and instead decided to take transit or drive a car. That would change things.
Photo by Celine Ylmz on Unsplash