Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.
In today’s post I’d like to focus on the second tweet I embedded in yesterday’s piece about downtown Toronto. Specifically, the fact that almost 75% of downtown residents walk, cycle, or take transit to work, leaving drivers firmly in the minority.
For me, this then makes me question whether or not we’re optimizing well enough for the majority. However, it’s often not that simple. And that’s because the downtown core is clearly regional in its draw, and the further you move out from the downtown core, the more the modal split flips. In the suburbs, driving is obviously the majority.
And herein lies the tension and the reason for all this “war on the car” rhetoric: We have a downtown core with completely different mobility preferences than the rest of the region.
But as Toronto continues to intensify and grow (the population of the Greater Toronto Area is projected to reach almost 9 million by 2036), I truthfully don’t know how we could reasonably expect to (efficiently) move that number of people in private cars. I’ve just never seen it done before.
Some people think that if we simply got rid of all those damn streetcars on our city streets, that we’d be doing a lot to eliminate traffic congestion. But it’s not that simple. The Highway 401 here in the city is already 18-lanes and one of the widest in the world. And yet it’s perpetually clogged. No streetcars there.
So I look at this tension as a growing pain. Sooner or later I think we’re going to realize that this war should really be a war on inefficiency. How do we move lots of people around big cities while minimizing waste, maximizing economic output, and enhancing quality of life?
If you’re a regular reader of Architect This City, you’ll know that I’m a big supporter of public transit. And that’s because, as far as I can tell, it’s the most efficient way of moving lots of people around a big city.
But more and more I’ve been thinking about how technology might change, or even disrupt, this school of thought. Which is why when I wrote this post a few days ago, I was careful to say that private cars aren’t the mobility answer. Because in reality, cars likely aren’t going to go away. We’re just going to use them differently.
Here are the two things I’m thinking about most:
1. Driverless cars
I’ve written about driverless cars before in terms of how they might be used as a form of public transit. But I think it’s worth revisiting them for a moment. There are lots of driverless car critics out there and they usually fixate on the fact that a car is still a car, whether or not you happen to be driving it. It still takes up the same amount of space in our cities. Or does it?
The key thing to keep in mind is that when we’re not longer driving the vehicle, it opens up lots of different possibilities in terms of how they might be used and also how they might be designed. I was watching this fireside chat with the founders of Google the other night and, for them, driverless cars offer the possibility of solving two big problems: traffic and parking.
We know that parking takes up a lot space in our cities. But that’s really symptomatic of the fact that the utilization rate for most people’s cars is incredibly low. Most of the time a car is sitting parked and idle. But with driverless cars, they’ll be able to drop you off at your destination and then continue on to pick up their next ride–thereby minimizing the need for all that parking.
This would bring the utilization rate way up for each car, which would also minimize the number of absolute cars that we’d need to have in our cities to move everybody around. Of course, this would mean that we’d be sharing cars. People wouldn’t own cars; they would be an on-demand service.
2. Networked vehicles
This brings us to my second point: driverless cars will be networked cars. Again, I’ve written about this before, but I specifically wanted to raise it again because of a new service that Lyft just launched in San Francisco called Lyft Line.
The way it works is simple. You input where you’re going and Lyft will match you up with others who are going to more or less the same destination. The routes get shared and this brings down the costs to everyday use. It runs on the same principles as the on-demand minibuses I wrote about in Helsinki.
But if you combine this with driverless cars, you’re starting to get at something incredibly interesting. Now all of sudden you’re getting the door-to-door convenience of private cars with many of the efficiencies of public transit.
So in my mind, it’s very possible that platforms like Uber, Hailo, and Lyft could became major infrastructure backbones in a world of driverless cars. And if you think about it in this context, then I don’t think the valuations for these companies should seem all that surprising. These are potentially huge innovations.
In the end, I don’t know how this will all shake out. I don’t think anybody does. I believe that strong public infrastructure (such as subways, light rail, and so on) will still be needed in big cities, but I’m starting to think that mobile apps and driverless cars will also form a big part of how we get around. Probably more so than most people think today.
Traffic is a big deal when it comes to real estate development. Residents are almost always concerned about the additional traffic that a development might bring to their community. And who can really blame them. They’re frustrated by traffic as it is in the city and so they naturally assume that more residents in their community will translate into more cars on the road.
But as natural as this reaction might seem, I don’t believe that opposing intensification is the right long-term solution. In fact, I would argue that the question of traffic is a bit of a red herring. Because as Toronto’s Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat explains in this blog post, density can actually go a long way to reducing traffic congestion. And it does that by placing people closer to where they work, and by creating an environment that’s more conducive to other forms of mobility: walking, biking, and public transport.
So instead of becoming fixated on traffic, I think there’s another, perhaps more relevant, question that we should be asking ourselves: Will this development, over the longer term, help to encourage a modal split that leads to more transit usage and less driving?
Because if it doesn’t, well then we’re not doing anything to correct the problem we already have. In fact, if we don’t allow intensification to happen, it means we’re simply pushing demand outwards, horizontally. And the more you push people out of a city, the more likely they are to drive. In which case we’re only delaying the inevitable – which is more traffic.
I was out for a bike ride last night and, on my way home, I decided to try out the new dedicated bike lane on Adelaide Street. Usually I would take King Street, but it was completely full because of Caribana parties.
For those of you who may not be aware, the city of Toronto is currently piloting two dedicated bike lanes on Adelaide Street and Richmond Street in the downtown core. Both streets are one-way and because the lanes were so big to begin with (highway-like spacing), I’m told that these new bike lanes didn’t even eat up a driving lane.
Here’s a map of the pilot area:
Given that dedicated bike lanes are a scarce resource here in Toronto, I have to say that it was rather luxurious having my own piece of road. And because there’s no longer any fear of parked car doors swinging open, I was able to ride a lot faster than I normally would.
But as my friend Evgeny pointed out earlier this week, there’s a big difference between dedicated and grade separated bike lanes. Indeed, on my trip from Bathurst Street to Church Street last night, I encountered 3 cars parked in my lane.
So, I hope that these bike lanes become a permanent fixture downtown, but that the city makes them grade-separated. I’m sure people will use them. At the same time, I think they could also act as a catalyst for more pedestrian life along both of these streets.
If you haven’t yet tried them out, I would encourage you to do so. The city is tracking usage and so you would be supporting the cause. And if there’s anybody parked in your lane, below is one way to handle it. It’s a video by Casey Neistat out of New York. If you can’t see it below, click here.
Last night my father and I were walking to dinner and he commented to me that he thinks my generation will be a lot healthier than his–at least on average–given how much more my generation walks. I responded by reaffirming to him how little I drive these days and how much I enjoy that.
Then today, I was watching this short clip of the The High Road with celebrity chef Mario Batali, where he interviews venture capitalist Fred Wilson. During their tour around New York City, Mario asks Fred what he thinks the future of transportation will be. Fred responds by saying that nobody will drive anymore. He then went on to say that the technology for driverless cars is already ready, but that we as a society just aren’t ready for it, yet.
Finally, on my way home from wakeboarding today, I stumbled upon this Guardian Cities article talking about Helsinki’s ambitious plan to make owning a car pointless. By 2025, the goal is have a “point-to-point mobility on-demand system” that will integrate all forms of mobility into one booking and payment platform. Think everything from public transit to carpools to taxis.
As I read on, I then discovered that Helsinki is already offering on-demand public minibuses that allow people to specify their own routes on their smartphone. The system then aggregates all of the requests and establishes the most efficient route based on the immediate demand. Coincidentally enough, it’s quite similar to a use case I wrote about for driverless cars.
All of this got me thinking that one day we’ll probably look back at that time when people used to drive their own vehicles around as some antiquated and hilarious moment from the past.
One of the things that many city planners, transportation experts, and municipalities are trying to figure out is how to successfully shift people away from driving towards alternative modes of transportation, such as biking and transit. Now, this is no easy task. There are a myriad of factors that influence a person’s decision to drive or not drive–or if they should even own a car in the first place. Though, land use and density are, in my opinion, probably the biggest.
But of all the solutions thrown around, mobile apps are typically not within the playbook. However a recent New York Times article is making the argument that it should be, because car-sharing services and apps like Uber seem to be indeed having an affect on people’s decision to own a car. And that’s because in some cities it’s actually cheaper to use Uber every day (than to own a car) and because taxi use has been shown to correlate with other (non-driving) forms of mobility.
Paradoxically, some experts say, the increased use of ride-sharing services could also spawn renewed interest in and funding for public transportation, because people generally use taxis in conjunction with many other forms of transportation.
In other words, if Uber and its ride-sharing competitors succeed, it wouldn’t be a stretch to see many small and midsize cities become transportation nirvanas on the order of Manhattan — places where forgoing car ownership isn’t just an outré lifestyle choice, but the preferred way to live.
And to be honest, I don’t think this is all that far stretched. More and more I find myself wondering why I even own a car. It’s not appreciating sitting downstairs in my garage and, given the frequency in which I use it, I would definitely be better off financially if I simply used an app like Uber or Hailo more often. About the only thing those apps aren’t great for are trips to Home Depot and snowboard trips to the mountain.
I’m a big believer in public transportation. I generally believe that the only way to build a big, efficient, and sustainable city is on the backbone of a good transit system. But at the same time, I’m open to fresh ideas. And I’m concerned with the inability of most cities to actually build transit in a way that meaningfully responds to demand.
So what are the alternatives?
The first thought that comes to mind is the delivery system itself. Some cities, such as Hong Kong, have successfully combined transit delivery with real estate development as a way to improve the economics behind building transit. And I think that makes a lot of sense.
But my other thought is that maybe the solution to urban mobility is something completely new. Maybe Google is on to something with their driverless cars. Is that the future? Many would disagree.
We’ve established that cars don’t work all that well for getting people around in big congested cities. So what difference would it make whether or not the cars have a driver or not? Well, I was thinking about this last night and there are some meaningful differences.
A network of driverless cars would give us perfect information about all to the cars on the road. Similar to to how Google’s Waze navigation app feeds off user input (both active and passive), we’d know the exact number of cars on the road and the precise point in which additional cars would cause a drop in efficiency (i.e. a reduction in vehicle speeds).
At the same time, it could enable a powerful sharing economy. In a recent study done by MIT’s Senseable City Lab, it was found that roughly 80% of New York cab rides could be shared. That is, 80% of the time there’s somebody else who’s also traveling from roughly the same point A to the same point B.
So here’s what I’m thinking.
You use Google’s driverless car technology and the perfect information you get from the networked vehicles to create a fluid and ever-evolving transit network. What I’m imagining is that the driverless vehicles don’t operate based on a model of individual mobility; they instead operate on a principle of batched mobility.
Let’s say for example that there are critical mass of people who want to leave Liberty Village between 8:00am – 8:30am to travel to the Financial District. What they would do is enter this itinerary and then a “station” would get formed somewhere nearby. Users would get notified of the station’s location, which would be determined based on proximity to the highest concentration of “riders.”
The driverless cars would then get notified and would begin assembling the appropriate number of vehicles at the selected station location. As is the case with conventional forms of public transportation, most people would need to walk to the station. But never that far.
In essence, it would function as a cross between private and public transportation. You would get the economies of scale generated by public transit, with some of the individual conveniences of private transportation.
This past Sunday night I was out for a bike ride with a few friends all around downtown Toronto. According to Strava, we did almost 22 km. Click here to see our route. During the ride, one of my friends said something to me that stood out. He said that when he’s on a bike he wants all cars off the road; but when he’s in a car, he wants all bikes off the road.
Now, this may seem like a fairly banal statement, but I think it demonstrates a number of things about people and the way we interact with cities. First, we’re all probably pretty selfish. We want what we want at a specific moment in time and we easily forget what it’s like to be on the other side of a situation.
Second, I think it reinforces what I wrote a month ago in a post called: Every street can’t be everything to everyone. If we want to improve the user experience for a variety of different use cases (driving, biking, walking and so on), we should decide when and where we’re going to optimize for each.
The reason my friend said what he said was because we were riding on a road with no bike lanes. We were swerving in and around cars. And when the street is shared like this it naturally becomes a competition of who can be the most aggressive and dominate the road–bikes or cars. But as exciting as that might be, it’s probably not an ideal way to build our cities.
I just got home from the 34th annual BILD awards. It’s late and I’m tired, but I had a good time. TAS won a few awards, including green builder of the year, and I saw a lot of old friends and familiar faces.
For those of you not in the industry, BILD is the Building Industry and Land Development Association. And every year a gala is held where a bunch of awards are given out for things ranging from the best marketing brochure to the best suite design under 750 square feet. If you’d like to get a feel for the event, check out #BILDAWARDS.
It was held out in Woodbridge, which is a suburb of Toronto. So today, I did something that I don’t do all that often or even every week: I drove my car. That’s fine, but it reminded me that one of the perks of living in a dense and transit oriented area (like downtown Toronto), is that you never have to worry about drinking and driving.
I’m really disciplined about not doing that, but it’s nice not to have to worry about it. It can make driving feel like a liability. So there’s another reason to love cities. You can drink whenever you want.
If you’ve ever ridden a busy Toronto streetcar, you’ll know this story:
You’re waiting outside in the cold for a streetcar. When one–actually 4–finally arrive all bunched up together, they’re so packed with people that you’re not actually able to get on. You try one anyways and the driver makes an announcement for everyone to “move back” so that more people can onboard via the front door. After a few minutes of people shuffling to try and get further back, you’re finally able to squeeze on–even if you are virtually sitting on the driver’s lap. You then travel about 2 blocks before the streetcar stops and the same thing repeats. The result is an absolutely infuriating mobility experience that usually makes walking the preferred choice. Who said that downtown already has enough subways?
Over the weekend, I was watching this TED talk with Charlie Rose interviewing Larry Page of Google. One question that Rose asks Page is about why he’s so fascinated with transportation and mobility. That is, why is Google so committed to driverless cars? Page then talks about his experience of waiting for buses when he was a student at the University of Michigan and how he would think about all the inefficiencies in the system. He also talks about how half of the urban fabric of Los Angeles is made up of roads and parking lots and that this is a terrible outcome of the mobility choices made in that city.
I’ve said before that transportation is one of the biggest challenges facing Toronto today. And I truly believe that. But that’s probably the case in most, if not all big cities. Getting people around a city efficiently is such a fundamental need. It stimulates economic growth and it improves quality of life. And those are typically the reasons why people choose to live in cities: to make money and to have a better life.
Now, I’m a big proponent of public transportation, but I’m also excited by the advances being made outside of mass transit. With driverless cars, electric cars, networks such as Uber and Hailo, and the emergence of the sharing economy, you could easily imagine a bunch of different ways in which mobility could be improved in our cities. Take, for my example, my own driving patterns. I probably drive my car 2, maybe 3 hours per week these days. That translates into a weekly utilization rate of roughly 1.2%! (2 hours / 168 hours week). That’s terribly inefficient. We can do better. And I think we will.
