One of the things that I’ll often hear people say about Toronto is that we’re a car-oriented city with inadequate transit, and that’s why we simply can’t implement things like congestion pricing. Usually it’s accompanied by statements like this: “Sure, I can see how it might work in London or New York, but they have proper transit systems, and we don’t.”
But is this really fair to say?
Let’s look at some of the data from the 2022 Transportation Tomorrow Survey.
For all trips starting and ending in the City of Toronto, people driving themselves around is the dominant mode share at 45.3%. But the transit mode share is not nothing at nearly a quarter of all trips. And if you add up taking transit, walking, cycling (and other forms of micromobility), and taxiing, you get to 42% of all trips within the city. That’s a meaningful number.
For home-based work trips within the City of Toronto, the split between driving and taking transit becomes dangerously close. (A home-based work trip is a trip within the city that either starts or ends at home and is done for the purpose of work.) Driving sits at 39.4% and transit sits at 37.1%. Add in walking (10.2%), cycling/micromobility (5.8%), and taxiing/ridesharing (1.4%), and non-car forms of mobility dominate when it comes to getting to and from work.
Looking at all trips to only downtown Toronto, transit once again dominates at 40.4%. Add in the other non-car forms of mobility and we’re up to nearly 75% of all trips.
The numbers become even more pronounced if we look at only home-based work trips to downtown. In this case, transit ridership increases to 48.7%. Add in the other non-car forms of mobility and we’re now at 80%!
These are fascinating figures because, let’s say you were considering a congestion charge for motorists driving into downtown Toronto, and that the proceeds of this charge would be used to make impactful investments in transit and other mobility infrastructure. Based on this data, you’d actually be benefiting the greatest number of Torontonians.
These numbers also help to debunk the objection that people simply have no other option. If you’re coming into downtown Toronto, you have options. The transit exists, and the majority of Torontonians use it.
I guess Toronto isn’t so car-oriented after all. (The rest of the region is a different story.)
Charts via the City of Toronto (TTS 2022); cover photo by Aditya Chinchure on Unsplash
Benjamin Couillard is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto whose research looks at things like residential choice and housing supply. And in this recently published paper, he studies the causal effects of rising housing costs on fertility. Here's what he found when examining US Census Bureau data:
...rising [housing] costs since 1990 are responsible for 11% fewer children, 51% of the total fertility rate decline between the 2000s and 2010s, and 7 percentage points fewer young families in the 2010s. Policy counterfactuals indicate that a supply shift for large units generates 2.3 times more births than an equal-cost shift for small units. This analysis concludes that the supply of housing suitable for families can meaningfully contribute to demographic sustainability.
Intuitively, it makes sense that rational adults might consider where they would put a child if they had one, or had one more, and consider the cost of this incremental space. Housing is expensive in major urban centers. Perhaps it's no surprise that Canada, which is known for its broadly unaffordable housing, has fallen into the "ultra-low fertility" category.
But I think this fertility-housing relationship is an important one to call out when considering appropriate public policies. Housing is often viewed through the lens of what bad things will happen if we build it. That's why we do shadow studies, force stepbacks, charge development charges (impact fees), and the list goes on.
What is harder to grasp is what happens when we don't build new housing. Most — or at least many — seem to agree that not building enough housing hurts overall affordability. But what this study also demonstrates is that not building enough family-sized housing is bad for making babies!
This has all sorts of socio-economic repercussions, one of which is that a country now has to rely more heavily on immigration in order to offset a shrinking population base. It becomes a larger economic problem. When framed this way, it makes me wonder: why do we tax new family-sized homes the way we do?
CoStar recently published an article titled “Architectural stars appear on the skyline of Canada's largest city — Toronto reaches a new level of global reach and ambition.”
What the article is talking about is a slew of iconic, under-construction projects designed by some of the world's most celebrated living architects. Namely, Forma by Frank Gehry (Los Angeles), One Delisle by Jeanne Gang (Chicago), KING Toronto by Bjarke Ingels (Copenhagen), as well as a handful of other noteworthy projects by some of the best local firms in Toronto.
It is no doubt an exciting moment. These are projects that, I think, the world will come to associate with our great city. They will strengthen the global brand of Toronto.
But let me also state the obvious: These projects are the result of a particular moment in time and a particular point in the last real estate cycle. They wouldn't exist today, irrespective of our level of ambition.
This is not to say that this calibre of project won't exist again in the future — it will. But for right now, these are special and differentiated architectural treasures that truly stand alone, showing us what is possible when we bet on the unknowable future.
One of the things that I’ll often hear people say about Toronto is that we’re a car-oriented city with inadequate transit, and that’s why we simply can’t implement things like congestion pricing. Usually it’s accompanied by statements like this: “Sure, I can see how it might work in London or New York, but they have proper transit systems, and we don’t.”
But is this really fair to say?
Let’s look at some of the data from the 2022 Transportation Tomorrow Survey.
For all trips starting and ending in the City of Toronto, people driving themselves around is the dominant mode share at 45.3%. But the transit mode share is not nothing at nearly a quarter of all trips. And if you add up taking transit, walking, cycling (and other forms of micromobility), and taxiing, you get to 42% of all trips within the city. That’s a meaningful number.
For home-based work trips within the City of Toronto, the split between driving and taking transit becomes dangerously close. (A home-based work trip is a trip within the city that either starts or ends at home and is done for the purpose of work.) Driving sits at 39.4% and transit sits at 37.1%. Add in walking (10.2%), cycling/micromobility (5.8%), and taxiing/ridesharing (1.4%), and non-car forms of mobility dominate when it comes to getting to and from work.
Looking at all trips to only downtown Toronto, transit once again dominates at 40.4%. Add in the other non-car forms of mobility and we’re up to nearly 75% of all trips.
The numbers become even more pronounced if we look at only home-based work trips to downtown. In this case, transit ridership increases to 48.7%. Add in the other non-car forms of mobility and we’re now at 80%!
These are fascinating figures because, let’s say you were considering a congestion charge for motorists driving into downtown Toronto, and that the proceeds of this charge would be used to make impactful investments in transit and other mobility infrastructure. Based on this data, you’d actually be benefiting the greatest number of Torontonians.
These numbers also help to debunk the objection that people simply have no other option. If you’re coming into downtown Toronto, you have options. The transit exists, and the majority of Torontonians use it.
I guess Toronto isn’t so car-oriented after all. (The rest of the region is a different story.)
Charts via the City of Toronto (TTS 2022); cover photo by Aditya Chinchure on Unsplash
Benjamin Couillard is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto whose research looks at things like residential choice and housing supply. And in this recently published paper, he studies the causal effects of rising housing costs on fertility. Here's what he found when examining US Census Bureau data:
...rising [housing] costs since 1990 are responsible for 11% fewer children, 51% of the total fertility rate decline between the 2000s and 2010s, and 7 percentage points fewer young families in the 2010s. Policy counterfactuals indicate that a supply shift for large units generates 2.3 times more births than an equal-cost shift for small units. This analysis concludes that the supply of housing suitable for families can meaningfully contribute to demographic sustainability.
Intuitively, it makes sense that rational adults might consider where they would put a child if they had one, or had one more, and consider the cost of this incremental space. Housing is expensive in major urban centers. Perhaps it's no surprise that Canada, which is known for its broadly unaffordable housing, has fallen into the "ultra-low fertility" category.
But I think this fertility-housing relationship is an important one to call out when considering appropriate public policies. Housing is often viewed through the lens of what bad things will happen if we build it. That's why we do shadow studies, force stepbacks, charge development charges (impact fees), and the list goes on.
What is harder to grasp is what happens when we don't build new housing. Most — or at least many — seem to agree that not building enough housing hurts overall affordability. But what this study also demonstrates is that not building enough family-sized housing is bad for making babies!
This has all sorts of socio-economic repercussions, one of which is that a country now has to rely more heavily on immigration in order to offset a shrinking population base. It becomes a larger economic problem. When framed this way, it makes me wonder: why do we tax new family-sized homes the way we do?
CoStar recently published an article titled “Architectural stars appear on the skyline of Canada's largest city — Toronto reaches a new level of global reach and ambition.”
What the article is talking about is a slew of iconic, under-construction projects designed by some of the world's most celebrated living architects. Namely, Forma by Frank Gehry (Los Angeles), One Delisle by Jeanne Gang (Chicago), KING Toronto by Bjarke Ingels (Copenhagen), as well as a handful of other noteworthy projects by some of the best local firms in Toronto.
It is no doubt an exciting moment. These are projects that, I think, the world will come to associate with our great city. They will strengthen the global brand of Toronto.
But let me also state the obvious: These projects are the result of a particular moment in time and a particular point in the last real estate cycle. They wouldn't exist today, irrespective of our level of ambition.
This is not to say that this calibre of project won't exist again in the future — it will. But for right now, these are special and differentiated architectural treasures that truly stand alone, showing us what is possible when we bet on the unknowable future.
An alternative approach to encourage more infill family housing might be to eliminate development charges, building permit fees, parkland fees, and as many other government fees as possible on all three-bedroom or larger homes. And the reason you would do this is because the economic and demographic cost of not building is even greater.
Based on the work of Couillard, we know at least one of the outcomes: more babies.
Cover photo by Lotus Design N Print on Unsplash
An alternative approach to encourage more infill family housing might be to eliminate development charges, building permit fees, parkland fees, and as many other government fees as possible on all three-bedroom or larger homes. And the reason you would do this is because the economic and demographic cost of not building is even greater.
Based on the work of Couillard, we know at least one of the outcomes: more babies.
Cover photo by Lotus Design N Print on Unsplash
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
