Toronto's Eglinton Line 5 opened last weekend — finally. I have yet to ride it, but I'm really looking forward to doing so the next time my day brings me north of St. Clair or I find the time for a joyride. Notwithstanding the fact that it took a really long time, it's a crucial piece of transit infrastructure for the city.

It's a need that we arguably recognized in the 80s with a proposed busway, and then started and stopped construction on in the 90s with the Eglinton West line. Some four decades later, we now have a 25-station, 19-kilometre rapid transit line that runs across the middle of the city.

Transit consultant Jarrett Walker is calling it the first major transit investment that shows Toronto is moving away from its downtown-oriented network. Historically, Toronto's transit network has emphasized bringing commuters from the suburbs and other lower-density parts of the city to downtown for work. Then, at the end of the day, these people would return home. Simple.

But this kind of network no longer reflects the reality of today's city, which has become and is continuing to become far more polycentric.

Walker's argument is that Toronto needs a transit network to match its grid geography, so that "people can go from anywhere to anywhere in a simple L-shaped trip, usually with a single transfer." Line 5 is an example of this approach and, of course, we need much more of it.

But the other thing that is needed alongside a "grid transit network" is the right land-use approach. One of the fundamental principles that we espouse on this blog is that land-use and transportation planning are interdependent.

In this regard, Toronto is undertaking some important planning work. It has been proposing new Avenues (a defined term that you can read about here) and encouraging

This is an important chart from a recent study commissioned by Greater Wellington, New Zealand. The study looks at the cost benefits of urban intensification and the above chart shows the relationship been density and infrastructure costs. For this study, they specifically looked at the costs that local governments face in providing road, public bus transport, and "three-waters infrastructure." I hadn't heard this latter term before, but it refers to drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater.

What they obviously found was that there are real economies to higher densities. More density lowers the per dwelling cost of delivering infrastructure. In the case of three-waters infrastructure, it doesn't even really matter if you're proximate to reservoirs or treatment plants. The bulk of the cost lies in the local connection pipes. So what matters most is how many dwellings you can service off of the main lines -- even if these lines need to be upsized.

Toronto's Eglinton Line 5 opened last weekend — finally. I have yet to ride it, but I'm really looking forward to doing so the next time my day brings me north of St. Clair or I find the time for a joyride. Notwithstanding the fact that it took a really long time, it's a crucial piece of transit infrastructure for the city.

It's a need that we arguably recognized in the 80s with a proposed busway, and then started and stopped construction on in the 90s with the Eglinton West line. Some four decades later, we now have a 25-station, 19-kilometre rapid transit line that runs across the middle of the city.

Transit consultant Jarrett Walker is calling it the first major transit investment that shows Toronto is moving away from its downtown-oriented network. Historically, Toronto's transit network has emphasized bringing commuters from the suburbs and other lower-density parts of the city to downtown for work. Then, at the end of the day, these people would return home. Simple.

But this kind of network no longer reflects the reality of today's city, which has become and is continuing to become far more polycentric.

Walker's argument is that Toronto needs a transit network to match its grid geography, so that "people can go from anywhere to anywhere in a simple L-shaped trip, usually with a single transfer." Line 5 is an example of this approach and, of course, we need much more of it.

But the other thing that is needed alongside a "grid transit network" is the right land-use approach. One of the fundamental principles that we espouse on this blog is that land-use and transportation planning are interdependent.

In this regard, Toronto is undertaking some important planning work. It has been proposing new Avenues (a defined term that you can read about here) and encouraging

This is an important chart from a recent study commissioned by Greater Wellington, New Zealand. The study looks at the cost benefits of urban intensification and the above chart shows the relationship been density and infrastructure costs. For this study, they specifically looked at the costs that local governments face in providing road, public bus transport, and "three-waters infrastructure." I hadn't heard this latter term before, but it refers to drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater.

What they obviously found was that there are real economies to higher densities. More density lowers the per dwelling cost of delivering infrastructure. In the case of three-waters infrastructure, it doesn't even really matter if you're proximate to reservoirs or treatment plants. The bulk of the cost lies in the local connection pipes. So what matters most is how many dwellings you can service off of the main lines -- even if these lines need to be upsized.