It should start from the premise that the fundamental underpinning of the Canadian economy to have prosperity is dependent on the success of the cities, because 80 per cent of Canadians live in cities.
-Toronto mayor John Tory
This week the leaders of Canada’s 22 largest municipalities are gathering in Toronto to figure out how to put urban issues on our national agenda. This is a topic I’ve touched upon many times before on Architect This City, but I continue to believe that it’s one of our most pressing issues.
We know that the vast majority of Canadians live in cities (see above quote) and we know that the vast majority of our economic output is concentrated in cities. In fact, roughly half of Canada’s GDP is produced in our 6 biggest cities alone – Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa-Gatineau.
But despite this concentration of wealth and economic activity, our governance structures do not reflect this reality. They’re outdated. They were built for a Canada that has passed. And so in my view, there’s a significant amount of untapped potential lying dormant in our cities if only we could get around to properly empowering them. There’s a “stimulus package” waiting to be unleashed.
In anticipation of this week’s leadership meeting, the Globe and Mail published an article called, Canada’s big city mayors ready to push urban agenda. And in it they included a number of interviews with Canadian mayors. It’s fairly long, but definitely worth a read. Here are a few relevant sound bites…
Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson
We have an archaic system. Cities aren’t recognized in our constitution. It’s unbelievable. But Big City Mayors have set aside those important gaps because the needs are now so urgent on housing and transit, we can’t afford to spend a couple years debating structural change. For the time being, the focus is just on ensuring there’s more federal capital provided for transit and other urban infrastructure.
Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi (on municipal funding sources)
I would prefer to levy myself, so that I’m ultimately accountable to my citizens and, if they don’t like it, they can get rid of me. Allowing others to levy the tools takes away predictability and stability, as well. That said, we’re starving here, and any improvement to the system that leads to those predictable, stable cash flows is a good thing.
Winnipeg mayor Brian Bowman (on the most pressing issue facing Canadian cities)
I’d say without question infrastructure and new funding models to modernize the ways that cities fund themselves. That’s something I’ve started discussions on already with some of my counterparts, Mayor [Naheed] Nenshi in Calgary, Mayor [Don] Iveson in Edmonton as well as Gregor Robertson in Vancouver. We’ve talked about a number of topics including the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls issue, public transit and rapid transit development. But the one consistent theme is that the way cities are funded is outdated.
Toronto mayor John Tory
I start from this premise: Are people paying enough taxes? In many cases, you could argue, not only are they paying enough taxes, they can’t afford to pay any more. We should be looking at the total amounts paid to all three levels of government and how that is being allocated. Do we believe that, in the case of Toronto, the federal and provincial governments are making adequate investments in transit, given the amount of money they take out of this area in taxation? I would say the answer is: not yet. [But] they have been doing better.
Montreal mayor Denis Coderre
We are negotiating a new pact between the province and Montreal, and it’s all about municipal autonomy. We need tools so we’re not always waiting in the hallway at the end of legislative sessions looking for amendments to make the city work better. Since 85 per cent of immigration in Quebec is going to Montreal, we need more control over tools of integration, like job creation and housing. Montreal needs financial leverage…
Image: Vancouver via Flickr
If you live in Toronto and only give serious thought to one thing today, it should be to this interactive transit map created by Metro.
The map shows all existing, planned, and proposed transit lines in the city, and then overlays population densities, commuting patterns, household income, and so on. It’s a super valuable map that I think reveals a lot about how we should be focusing our energies to get Toronto moving.
So what sorts of things does it tell us? I’ll give 2 examples.
If you look at commuting patterns across the Bloor-Danforth subway line, you’ll see that Runnymede station in the west is where people switch over from taking transit to driving. People west of that station tend to drive. Naturally, it also happens to coincide with where population densities start to fall off.
By contrast, if you look at the east side of the city along the Danforth and beyond, the entire stretch more or less relies on transit to get around. Part of this likely has to do with income levels, but it’s also because of the availability of the Gardiner Expressway. There’s no equivalent in the east end. Dylan Reid of Spacing Magazine believes this makes a case for some sort of road pricing along the Gardiner, and I would agree.
As a second example, look at the population densities along the proposed Downtown Relief Line, Finch LRT, and John Tory’s SmartTrack line. Outside of the core, the population densities are relatively low along the proposed SmartTrack line – which is never a good thing for rapid transit.
There’s also no Sherbourne station on the SmartTrack line, which happens to have the highest population density across the entire Relief Line – 22,131 people per square kilometre! That’s more than any other stop along the Yonge-University subway line except for Wellesley station.
I’ve written about this a lot before, but I think we need to do a better job of matching up transit investment with expected customer demand. Too often we let politics get in the way of rationale decision making. Maybe it’s time we did something like set minimum population densities. If you want a subway line in your area, you have to first bring the people.
What else does this map tell you?
One evening this past spring I was leaving a Rotman School event at Liberty Grand on the west side of Toronto. There aren’t a lot of taxis coming through this part of the city, so I figured I was going to have to wait while I hailed one from my phone. But as luck would have it, one happened to be pulling up just as I walked out of the hall.
As he drove up and rolled down the window, I told him that I was going to the St. Lawrence Market area and that I needed to pay by credit card (I was trying to be a nice guy and avoid the inevitable fight when he was dropping me off). He responded by saying, “My machine is broken. Can’t you pay with cash?” I told him, “No, unfortunately I don’t have any cash on me. I need to pay with credit card.” He then rolled up his window and drove up closer to the entrance of the hall.
Faced with this scenario, I did what most people would probably do nowadays: I pulled out my phone so that I could hail either an Uber or a Hailo cab (I’m sad that Hailo has since left the North American market). I decided on Hailo (it was cheaper until UberX came along) and ordered a car.
But within a few minutes, the same taxi with the broken credit card machine circled back around, rolled down his window, and told me that his machine was now working and he would take me to the St. Lawrence Market. Knowing exactly what had happened, I said to him, “Wooooow, that’s funny that within the span of a few minutes your machine has magically started working again.” He wasn’t happy with that response.
Now, we all know why he didn’t want to take my credit card. He didn’t want to pay the fees and he wanted the cold hard cash. And who can really blame him for wanting to maximize his profits. But for the end user, this experience sucks. When it’s 2 in the morning and all you want to do is go home to bed, you don’t care about the few dollars he’s trying to save. You just, want, to go, home.
And that’s one of the reasons why Uber (and previously Hailo) is having such a huge impact on the market. Even before UberX arrived (the cheaper alternative), lots of people were more than willing to pay the Uber premium. And they continue to pay their controversial surge prices. But that’s because the experience is so much better than what’s offered today.
We all know that Uber is under a lot of fire for what they do, but Toronto mayor Tory is 100% right in saying that ridesharing and peer-to-peer taxis are here to stay. Toronto may be seeking a court injunction to stop the service in this city, but I would agree that it’s likely going to be a big waste of money. The cat is already out of the bag.
What’s happening here is no dissimilar to what happened with Napster. A court order may have forced the company to shut down, but it didn’t maintain the status quo for the music industry. That industry went, and continues to go through, a lot of change. So a better option, would be for everyone to sit down together and figure out what the future of the taxi industry is going to look like. Because I can guarantee you that it’ll continue to change.
Image: Anti-Uber protest in London (Flickr)
It should start from the premise that the fundamental underpinning of the Canadian economy to have prosperity is dependent on the success of the cities, because 80 per cent of Canadians live in cities.
-Toronto mayor John Tory
This week the leaders of Canada’s 22 largest municipalities are gathering in Toronto to figure out how to put urban issues on our national agenda. This is a topic I’ve touched upon many times before on Architect This City, but I continue to believe that it’s one of our most pressing issues.
We know that the vast majority of Canadians live in cities (see above quote) and we know that the vast majority of our economic output is concentrated in cities. In fact, roughly half of Canada’s GDP is produced in our 6 biggest cities alone – Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa-Gatineau.
But despite this concentration of wealth and economic activity, our governance structures do not reflect this reality. They’re outdated. They were built for a Canada that has passed. And so in my view, there’s a significant amount of untapped potential lying dormant in our cities if only we could get around to properly empowering them. There’s a “stimulus package” waiting to be unleashed.
In anticipation of this week’s leadership meeting, the Globe and Mail published an article called, Canada’s big city mayors ready to push urban agenda. And in it they included a number of interviews with Canadian mayors. It’s fairly long, but definitely worth a read. Here are a few relevant sound bites…
Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson
We have an archaic system. Cities aren’t recognized in our constitution. It’s unbelievable. But Big City Mayors have set aside those important gaps because the needs are now so urgent on housing and transit, we can’t afford to spend a couple years debating structural change. For the time being, the focus is just on ensuring there’s more federal capital provided for transit and other urban infrastructure.
Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi (on municipal funding sources)
I would prefer to levy myself, so that I’m ultimately accountable to my citizens and, if they don’t like it, they can get rid of me. Allowing others to levy the tools takes away predictability and stability, as well. That said, we’re starving here, and any improvement to the system that leads to those predictable, stable cash flows is a good thing.
Winnipeg mayor Brian Bowman (on the most pressing issue facing Canadian cities)
I’d say without question infrastructure and new funding models to modernize the ways that cities fund themselves. That’s something I’ve started discussions on already with some of my counterparts, Mayor [Naheed] Nenshi in Calgary, Mayor [Don] Iveson in Edmonton as well as Gregor Robertson in Vancouver. We’ve talked about a number of topics including the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls issue, public transit and rapid transit development. But the one consistent theme is that the way cities are funded is outdated.
Toronto mayor John Tory
I start from this premise: Are people paying enough taxes? In many cases, you could argue, not only are they paying enough taxes, they can’t afford to pay any more. We should be looking at the total amounts paid to all three levels of government and how that is being allocated. Do we believe that, in the case of Toronto, the federal and provincial governments are making adequate investments in transit, given the amount of money they take out of this area in taxation? I would say the answer is: not yet. [But] they have been doing better.
Montreal mayor Denis Coderre
We are negotiating a new pact between the province and Montreal, and it’s all about municipal autonomy. We need tools so we’re not always waiting in the hallway at the end of legislative sessions looking for amendments to make the city work better. Since 85 per cent of immigration in Quebec is going to Montreal, we need more control over tools of integration, like job creation and housing. Montreal needs financial leverage…
Image: Vancouver via Flickr
If you live in Toronto and only give serious thought to one thing today, it should be to this interactive transit map created by Metro.
The map shows all existing, planned, and proposed transit lines in the city, and then overlays population densities, commuting patterns, household income, and so on. It’s a super valuable map that I think reveals a lot about how we should be focusing our energies to get Toronto moving.
So what sorts of things does it tell us? I’ll give 2 examples.
If you look at commuting patterns across the Bloor-Danforth subway line, you’ll see that Runnymede station in the west is where people switch over from taking transit to driving. People west of that station tend to drive. Naturally, it also happens to coincide with where population densities start to fall off.
By contrast, if you look at the east side of the city along the Danforth and beyond, the entire stretch more or less relies on transit to get around. Part of this likely has to do with income levels, but it’s also because of the availability of the Gardiner Expressway. There’s no equivalent in the east end. Dylan Reid of Spacing Magazine believes this makes a case for some sort of road pricing along the Gardiner, and I would agree.
As a second example, look at the population densities along the proposed Downtown Relief Line, Finch LRT, and John Tory’s SmartTrack line. Outside of the core, the population densities are relatively low along the proposed SmartTrack line – which is never a good thing for rapid transit.
There’s also no Sherbourne station on the SmartTrack line, which happens to have the highest population density across the entire Relief Line – 22,131 people per square kilometre! That’s more than any other stop along the Yonge-University subway line except for Wellesley station.
I’ve written about this a lot before, but I think we need to do a better job of matching up transit investment with expected customer demand. Too often we let politics get in the way of rationale decision making. Maybe it’s time we did something like set minimum population densities. If you want a subway line in your area, you have to first bring the people.
What else does this map tell you?
One evening this past spring I was leaving a Rotman School event at Liberty Grand on the west side of Toronto. There aren’t a lot of taxis coming through this part of the city, so I figured I was going to have to wait while I hailed one from my phone. But as luck would have it, one happened to be pulling up just as I walked out of the hall.
As he drove up and rolled down the window, I told him that I was going to the St. Lawrence Market area and that I needed to pay by credit card (I was trying to be a nice guy and avoid the inevitable fight when he was dropping me off). He responded by saying, “My machine is broken. Can’t you pay with cash?” I told him, “No, unfortunately I don’t have any cash on me. I need to pay with credit card.” He then rolled up his window and drove up closer to the entrance of the hall.
Faced with this scenario, I did what most people would probably do nowadays: I pulled out my phone so that I could hail either an Uber or a Hailo cab (I’m sad that Hailo has since left the North American market). I decided on Hailo (it was cheaper until UberX came along) and ordered a car.
But within a few minutes, the same taxi with the broken credit card machine circled back around, rolled down his window, and told me that his machine was now working and he would take me to the St. Lawrence Market. Knowing exactly what had happened, I said to him, “Wooooow, that’s funny that within the span of a few minutes your machine has magically started working again.” He wasn’t happy with that response.
Now, we all know why he didn’t want to take my credit card. He didn’t want to pay the fees and he wanted the cold hard cash. And who can really blame him for wanting to maximize his profits. But for the end user, this experience sucks. When it’s 2 in the morning and all you want to do is go home to bed, you don’t care about the few dollars he’s trying to save. You just, want, to go, home.
And that’s one of the reasons why Uber (and previously Hailo) is having such a huge impact on the market. Even before UberX arrived (the cheaper alternative), lots of people were more than willing to pay the Uber premium. And they continue to pay their controversial surge prices. But that’s because the experience is so much better than what’s offered today.
We all know that Uber is under a lot of fire for what they do, but Toronto mayor Tory is 100% right in saying that ridesharing and peer-to-peer taxis are here to stay. Toronto may be seeking a court injunction to stop the service in this city, but I would agree that it’s likely going to be a big waste of money. The cat is already out of the bag.
What’s happening here is no dissimilar to what happened with Napster. A court order may have forced the company to shut down, but it didn’t maintain the status quo for the music industry. That industry went, and continues to go through, a lot of change. So a better option, would be for everyone to sit down together and figure out what the future of the taxi industry is going to look like. Because I can guarantee you that it’ll continue to change.
Image: Anti-Uber protest in London (Flickr)
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