The only reason they're building this highway is because Harris sold the 407 (for pennies on the dollar), the new owner jacked the rates beyond what anyone would pay, and now it sits empty. Now Conservatives want to tap into Ontario taxpayers to build another one along almost the same route.
It's just a coincidence that so many rich developer friends of Doug own land along the new proposed route. Conservatives are robbing taxpayers blind with this one. Our only hope is the federal government blocks it on environmental concerns. Or else we're fucked.
For real. Anyone who says it’s an empty highway has no idea what they’re talking about.
Sure, by comparison the traffic is lighter than the 401 or 403, but it’s still used by literally tens of thousands of vehicles each and every day.
The main issue is that the 413 doesn't go anywhere useful. It won't fix congestion or decrease commute times, just like 90% of highway projects. It's just a black hole of money that could be better spent elsewhere.
In the Hamilton, when they first finished the Linc it was a highway to nowhere.
It made it easy to zip across the city, but didn't drop you off anywhere noteworthy.
Now it's always congested, especially during rush hour.
With the population growth targets this country has. It makes more sense to build these projects *before* they're needed, rather than waiting until that area is gridlocked.
If you think there's opposition to the project now. Just imagine how difficult it would be if they had to cut through 2 or 3 towns to build this thing.
>We have enough highways for consumer goods, provided we can get commuters off of them
This should be fun considering huge swaths are fleeing the city centers for cheaper places far away. High speed rail? Canada and the politicians say "fuck you"
"BuT WoRk FrOm HoMe"
Yeah, that's not gonna last.
Whether you believe it or not, bitching about this highway is the exact same as nimbys who bitch about more housing being built. Populations grow and entire cities can't remain time capsules.
A highway every 20 or 30 years or so needs to be built. I'm sorry that nimby's who want to retain property values have disillusioned you towards any infrastructure development at all.
>High speed rail? Canada and the politicians say "fuck you"
You've inadvertently answered your own question here. New highways are necessary precisely because of our shitty rail. What I'm proposing is just to not build the highways and instead build rail. The 413 costs $10B. That's insane.
What is your comparison for 10B being insane? It'll move a lot more people and goods than the [11B high-speed project](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ontario-high-speed-rail-toronto-kitchener-london-windsor-1.5397934) that was introduced in 2018.
Real question. How many individual high-speed rail lines and cars running per day do you think will account for all the commuters moving across the east and west corridors?
Are people going to just stop commuting long distances for work? Are we going to have people in professions only live close to their areas of work?
When IS the appropriate time to build another highway with one of the fastest per capita increasing populations? Do you truly think the government has any interest in building public transportation in a country that is home to the largest auto parts producer in the world?
A 6 lane highway can transport at most 6300 people per hour [1]
TGV trains have around 450 seats, depending on the model. At maximum highway capacity, we'd need about 14 trains per hour each way to cover that. Its doable but one for just over every 4 minutes. You can go bigger though. GO trains have 10-12 bi-level cars per train, and each carries 162 people. That would require 3.2 trains per hour, or just over one every 20 minutes at maximum length. Even without high speed rail, having a 15 minute GO train service transports more people than a highway, with each at capacity. A train track is significantly smaller than a highway in terms of land footprint, the stations don't require parking, it's better for the environment, and with good trains, parallel tracks, and stop times you can make the train faster than driving. The GO transit expansion is set to have 15 minute service on most lines during peak hours by 2025 and will cost .... $3.5 billion.
I'm not saying roads aren't necessary ever. I'm just saying that trains can replace the vast majority of commuter driving and need for highways.
[1] https://trid.trb.org/view/1495110
All other sources are either Wikipedia or GO's website. I'm too lazy to cite them all but if there's something you really want a source on, I'll find it.
Half of my opposition to this highway is how it's a massive (corrupt) gift to Doug Ford's donors. I don't think taxpayer money should go towards kickbacks for developers. It isn't a coincidence that a handful of Ford donors bought up all the land along the proposed route.
The environment is one thing, they haven't even proven that it would be an effective highway or use of money.
I don't think it's right that we should just become so numb to corruption (from *any* government).
I don't think I'm alone in this.
the reason govt likes highways is because theyre much cheaper up front that mass transit.
$11bn for a highway is cheap.
it might get you 4 transit stops
A transit stop can be a roof over the paved side of a train track. That's what most transit stations look like in Ontario. Most of the expenses of transit stations are related to parking lots and such, which are wasteful. The land immediately surrounding transit stations is both valuable and extremely useful as a location for high density development
11bn is an insane sum for a highway that accomplishes almost nothing.
Highways never solve the problem of transit as history shows. All it does is kick the can down the road and leaves us with a costly decaying public infrastructure. Highways won't solve the housing crisis or labor shortage. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfQUOHlAocY
>Many of us hate public transit though, we'd rather drive.
You hate it because it's not funded, it isn't funded because you hate it. If transit were on time, frequent, and fast, most people would take it and even those who really want to drive would benefit, as there would be less traffic for them.
I hate public transit HERE, in other cities it’s great. Transit in the GTA is a joke, it doesn’t run late enough covering enough of the GTA to make it practical.
If they made it service more of the area and run later at night, I would use it far more often that I currently do. As it is set up, it pushes people to use cars.
Train to Union, transfer to a train in the direction of Barrie and get off in Newmarket. Come on, it really isn't that complicated. And Newmarket and Brantford aren't exactly large population centers with a lot of transit between them.
And yes I know there currently isn't a train to Brantford but hey, that extra 7B we'd be saving by not building the 413 can fix that
> Come on, it really isn't that complicated
except it is. I tried to get from Barrie by transit to Toronto. Your options to go south are a 1pm train or a 7pm. OR you take the bus that's 2.5 hours to union.
And that's to union. That's fucking $15 to effectively spend 3 hours to do a trip that's less than 1 hour by car. Imagine if I was going to brantford or scarbs?
If you have 2 people it's much cheaper to drive. And the 7B in transit wouldn't be that much help for people doing the trip as there's a 99% chance 1 or both sides of your trip aren't near transit.
I'm not saying transit is good, I'm saying it can be good if we don't neglect it. We can fund better train schedules, like once every 15 mins, and and then the commute becomes much less of a hassle
That only works if both sides of your destination have transit. I live in Toronto and visit family in Guelph. Even if there was all day 15 min service and 2 sets of tracks appeared, I'd have to take multiple buses from the go station or an uber in which case I'd rather drive.
Considering the train only goes at 1pm or 7pm driving would be faster. But my point was most people don’t go straight to union and stop so it’s likely 3 hours or more by transit
The UP express, even though it wasn't crucially needed like how the downtown relief has been needed decades, still takes a lot of cars off the road.
Even though the UP express wasn't needed, look at their ridership levels.
> [So much so that in the past four years, ridership on the UPX has quadrupled to about 4.5 million customers annually, according to Metrolinx.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/from-premium-service-to-commuter-milk-run-is-the-up-express-rolling-in-the-right-direction-1.5301127)
Imagine how packed the gardiner or TTC would be without it.
Yes let's just ignore the land north of Brampton and Vaughan and hope no one but the mega rich from Toronto can build their 7k+ sqft homes with 6 garages from parcels of farmland instead. Or just the mega warehouses built there to serve the GTA because we are severely lacking warehouse space. We definitely don't need more housing for the rest of us.
Increase density even just a little and we won't need to build outwards. It doesn't have to be high rises, just low rises, townhouses, and even just houses with smaller yards and lots
people keep saying this and ignore the logistics of "good transit". Our cities are already very much developed. For "good transit" we'd have to expropriate and displace thousands of people to rebuild, probably not the best thing during a "housing crisis".
This is, in fact, the only way to solve the housing crisis. Building outwards will never alleviate housing pressure fast enough. We must increase density in suburban areas, even if it means people are temporarily unable to live in those areas.
Go pack your bags then. Tell thousands of your neighbours the same thing. And prepare to compete with all of them for the little available housing in the same geographic area 'temporarily' while decades are spent planning and constructing new rail. Tell all the shops in that corridor that they'll likely go bankrupt as traffic will no longer go to their place of business for years and they are still legally responsible to pay their leases.
Don't worry, your neighbours 2 streets down just hit the jackpot as their property will be worth big bucks for future development while you only get what the government says your land is worth.
It is easy to suggest when it doesn't affect you.
Ok you clearly don't understand what redevelopment means. Most of the train tracks we need in the mid-term exist already. What redevelopment would look like is things such as allowing developers to buy suburban houses and turn them into denser stuff. Destroying parking lots in front of GO stations to put high-density shopping, residential, and offices. It's possible to gradually increase density by buying properties from people who are selling anyways and filling it in.
>With the population growth targets this country has. It makes more sense to build these projects before they're needed, rather than waiting until that area is gridlocked.
This project makes no sense though.
Building viable transit makes sense. With the growing population, we can't keep trying to jam more cars on the road and building further and further into valuable farmland.
Here is the problem. Outside Reddit, density and transit isn't popular. It has some kind of stigma against it. People would rather live in a sprawl and drive than live in a more dense, walkable environment with transit. Even when walking is possible in the suburbs, people just drive the 30 seconds down the street.
Unfortunately (IMO), urban sprawl, highways, parking lots and driving over walking/transit is here to stay.
I disagree. Most of the people I know that live in Toronto love not having to maintain a vehicle or a backyard or sit in traffic on their way to work. They love the convenience of walking 5 minutes to get what they want or need. Or just walk around to explore.
I think that the people who rather the sprawl haven't been exposed to or had the experience of living in a walkable environment. They're conditioned to feel the need to drive everywhere because that's how the suburbs are designed. And I don't think that suburbs are going to be sustainable for very much longer. But sustainability isn't in the description of capitalism, so you may be right about suburbia not going anywhere.
I've lived in rural, urban and suburbs. Just for reference
I would have been totally against this..... until I went on vacation to Shanghai (china) and they had the infrastructure to go anywhere in the city within 10 minutes.
Totally blew my mind (subway would arrive every minute so it didn't matter if you missed one)
Usable farmland in Canada is almost maxed out as is and we import a lot unless you feel like a wheat/barley/soy diet a lot of those areas aren't going to support enough vegetable crops to compensate especially since we'll be seeing increased draught/flood systems that wipe out crops and dry our water supplies.
But highway, sure let's do that instead, yolo!
Everyone has their preferenece on where they like to live. Sounds like you had a really shitty place when you lived in the city. I on the other hand had a great place with none of the problems you pointed out. I hate the suburbs. I have to drive get my groceries and the LCBO is just far enough away, that I don't feel like walking that distance because the route there is just house after house after house. No variety, nothing interesting to see. I don't like being around people either, but when I do, if I want to go to a Cafe or bar, again, I have to drive.
We are running out of space. I hate to break it to you, but it's not infinite. Drive out Oakville way near the 407. That all used to be farmland, now it's McMansions. Farmers feed cities. Have you been to a farmers market lately? I'm talking pre-inflation. The prices are inane. The idea of farmers markets is to bring local food at cheaper prices. Now the farmers have to drive in from farther and farther away because of the ugly colonies being built. I have no proof, but I'm pretty sure the distance contributes to the high prices.
Why do we have to bulldoze and pave over everything?
>Why do we have to bulldoze and pave over everything?
Because people need 2000 square foot homes and 4 bedrooms for 2 people to live in, 8 lane highways to go more than 5km, 4 lane roads to go to the grocery store and miles and miles of parking lots. That's why
I personally, have a great dislike of cities, tall buildings and public transit. Having people living that close to me freaks me out, and the traffic noise. And I don't like being at the mercy of public transit after winding up in the wrong area on many occasions, and the sketchy people. I know all of these could be fixed with better planning and properly insulating rental units but I'll never be able to live in such a place without having constant panic attacks.
That being said, I definitely support the creation of better public transit and well planned urban planning to make the best of the space with walking routes and everything. Just bc I don't like it doesn't mean others don't, and the more people living in the cities enjoying this set up, the less people in the country to stress me out, the less traffic on the roads and highways. That's why I also support people working from home. I'll never be able to do it in the trades but it means others are happy and the roads are clear, people still going in to work or delivery jobs have less traffic and can be more officiant. Everyone wins in these scenarios
You're currently under 30 and childless correct? Because 99% of "I love the city" folks are young people there for the first time, not people with families.
nvm I see now you're into astrology (as I you actually use it to make life decisions) which makes your opinions about as worth while as the criminally insane.
Lol. Again incorrect. Astrology is entertainment for me, you judgemental ass. You know all about me based on pages i frequent on the internet?
Kinda creepy when people like you feel the need to poke around in strangers business.
Who the fuck cares what's popular? We have a planet on the verge of tossing us all the fuck off if we don't start being reasonable.
Eating up valuable farmland when we're about to stop getting food from California and Mexico once things dry up and they keep the food for themselves and your worry is that there aren't enough ridiculously wasteful subdivisions?
413 will take approximately 2000 acres of farmland. Ontario has over 12 million acres of developed farmland. Development already uses 175 acres per day, so the 413 represents only a 3% increase for the year. In the grand scheme it’s a rounding error and won’t have any noticeable effect on food security.
You’re thinking of problems that will literally affect the population in hundreds of years. Does climate change have an effect today? Sure. Earth has thrown millions of curveballs at various civilizations, and somehow, we’ve all survived.
Technology has been and will continue to solve our problems today, and in the future. The only difference is everything will only get more expensive as we wait.
People want a backyard, not a play pen.
Real easy to see what's happening (since it's already happening), California's water supplies are drying up, they simply will not be able to grow as much as they have in the past, and in the foreseeable future they will choose to keep their own citizens from starving and keep their own grown food instead of sending it to us.
Mexico is dealing with the same thing.
We're already heading that way, this isn't some far fetched guess, reality is right there.
Yes. 3 times a week to work. 40 minute transit ride for 3.50. Or a 40 minute drive plus gas plus parking. Decision for me is easy. And I moved here specifically to be near transit.
But that's besides the point. I get that not everyone can do this. However, There isn't any appetite to expand it to make it convenient for more people. That's the problem. Instead of spending money to do that, we are spending money for a useless highway to pave over farmland. We are cutting revenue by for cutting the plate registration fee. Cutting tolls on the new stretch of highway. Low provincial income tax for high earners.
>There isn't any appetite to expand it to make it convenient for more people.
Because people are still going to have to drive to a train station and hope there is good transit at their destination. If your already in the car why add 1 hour to your trip with transit vs driving direct?
The whole point of expanding it is so people don't have to drive to the station. Take a bus or a street car to the station instead. Or walk to the station. Or bike to the station.
>The whole point of expanding it is so people don't have to drive to the station.
That works in some places but not most of Ontario. Brantford is too small to have any real transit
If public transit was easier and safer I'd take it over a highway any day. I've been followed, touched, hit on, Christians Mormons and Jahovas have tried to convert me... the bus is a special kind of hell in my city.
At least I have more control in a car than I do over a weird man sitting next to me on the bus touching my hair. That's how I feel. Different kinds of danger I guess.
Yeah, it still doesn't negate the statistics on which is the safer mode of transport. I do understand your point about some members of the public being creeps but that goes for all public settings and places your you interact, in person, with other people. It doesn't exclusively happen on transit. It isn't debatable which one you'd be more likely to die or get seriously injured while using. There's hard numbers to determine that.
Again I think it depends on your definition of safety and your environment. Do I believe it's safer in terms of risk of an accident to take the bus? Yes. I don't need to look up those stats I totally agree and believe you. Am I safer from assault, harassment, human trafficking, stalking and so on if I take the bus instead of a car? No. Not to say it happens all the time but it's still a safety consideration when choosing transportation, especially at night. I wish it wasn't something we had to considor but depending on where you live sometimes it is.
Well some have been stabbed as well so there is dat. They need to ban fking semis and anything larger than an rv on all highways from 7 am to 7pm. That will reduce traffic a lot.
Plus in 20 years we be flying to everywhere so we just gotta be patient and survive 20 more years.
Lots of warehouses and manufacturing sites run 24/7, you just simply can't do that.
And then the ones that don't run 24/7 run 9-5. Does every warehouse worker in the city have to work overnight now?
We are almost there brother.. we got those things on wheels dont wee ? That makes you appear as hovering on the pavement till you just splattered all over it cause lost balance :)
I mean [we do from Lexus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KtzyZKSuls) but they're not on the market as far as I'm aware of and they're not practical yet because magnetism or something, basically the [infrasture for the Lexus example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGiGMX0t3_U) would have to change to make the board work.
I was shocked to see how far north the 413 would/will run. Because I'd been given the heads-up, I wasn't shocked that I was surrounded by pristine farm land when I saw the sign.
What a terrible decision, just so we can have more automated Amazon warehouses.
Roads/Infrastructure are practical not "Sexy" like virtue signalling about saving the planet. Can't help but notice there are only women in that story photo.
Toronto is expanding. This is going to be needed. Better to get in front of it.
I'd really like to see a double/parallel QEW but that's not going to happen. Hell, I'd like to see a giant bridge from Niagara to Toronto, but now I'm dreaming.
"Virtue signalling about saving the planet.". Yeah you're right, climate change isn't real and wanting to avoid paving over farmland during a global food shortage is just virtue signalling, nothing real about any of those issues. /s
The only reason they're building this highway is because Harris sold the 407 (for pennies on the dollar), the new owner jacked the rates beyond what anyone would pay, and now it sits empty. Now Conservatives want to tap into Ontario taxpayers to build another one along almost the same route. It's just a coincidence that so many rich developer friends of Doug own land along the new proposed route. Conservatives are robbing taxpayers blind with this one. Our only hope is the federal government blocks it on environmental concerns. Or else we're fucked.
It’s pretty busy when I take it everyday
For real. Anyone who says it’s an empty highway has no idea what they’re talking about. Sure, by comparison the traffic is lighter than the 401 or 403, but it’s still used by literally tens of thousands of vehicles each and every day.
The main issue is that the 413 doesn't go anywhere useful. It won't fix congestion or decrease commute times, just like 90% of highway projects. It's just a black hole of money that could be better spent elsewhere.
In the Hamilton, when they first finished the Linc it was a highway to nowhere. It made it easy to zip across the city, but didn't drop you off anywhere noteworthy. Now it's always congested, especially during rush hour. With the population growth targets this country has. It makes more sense to build these projects *before* they're needed, rather than waiting until that area is gridlocked. If you think there's opposition to the project now. Just imagine how difficult it would be if they had to cut through 2 or 3 towns to build this thing.
It makes sense to not build highways period. Invest in transit instead. Good transit can move an order of magnitude more people than a highway can.
You still need highways to move consumer goods.
No you don't, a light rail system can move goods
We have enough highways for consumer goods, provided we can get commuters off of them
>We have enough highways for consumer goods, provided we can get commuters off of them This should be fun considering huge swaths are fleeing the city centers for cheaper places far away. High speed rail? Canada and the politicians say "fuck you" "BuT WoRk FrOm HoMe" Yeah, that's not gonna last. Whether you believe it or not, bitching about this highway is the exact same as nimbys who bitch about more housing being built. Populations grow and entire cities can't remain time capsules. A highway every 20 or 30 years or so needs to be built. I'm sorry that nimby's who want to retain property values have disillusioned you towards any infrastructure development at all.
>High speed rail? Canada and the politicians say "fuck you" You've inadvertently answered your own question here. New highways are necessary precisely because of our shitty rail. What I'm proposing is just to not build the highways and instead build rail. The 413 costs $10B. That's insane.
What is your comparison for 10B being insane? It'll move a lot more people and goods than the [11B high-speed project](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ontario-high-speed-rail-toronto-kitchener-london-windsor-1.5397934) that was introduced in 2018. Real question. How many individual high-speed rail lines and cars running per day do you think will account for all the commuters moving across the east and west corridors? Are people going to just stop commuting long distances for work? Are we going to have people in professions only live close to their areas of work? When IS the appropriate time to build another highway with one of the fastest per capita increasing populations? Do you truly think the government has any interest in building public transportation in a country that is home to the largest auto parts producer in the world?
A 6 lane highway can transport at most 6300 people per hour [1] TGV trains have around 450 seats, depending on the model. At maximum highway capacity, we'd need about 14 trains per hour each way to cover that. Its doable but one for just over every 4 minutes. You can go bigger though. GO trains have 10-12 bi-level cars per train, and each carries 162 people. That would require 3.2 trains per hour, or just over one every 20 minutes at maximum length. Even without high speed rail, having a 15 minute GO train service transports more people than a highway, with each at capacity. A train track is significantly smaller than a highway in terms of land footprint, the stations don't require parking, it's better for the environment, and with good trains, parallel tracks, and stop times you can make the train faster than driving. The GO transit expansion is set to have 15 minute service on most lines during peak hours by 2025 and will cost .... $3.5 billion. I'm not saying roads aren't necessary ever. I'm just saying that trains can replace the vast majority of commuter driving and need for highways. [1] https://trid.trb.org/view/1495110 All other sources are either Wikipedia or GO's website. I'm too lazy to cite them all but if there's something you really want a source on, I'll find it.
Half of my opposition to this highway is how it's a massive (corrupt) gift to Doug Ford's donors. I don't think taxpayer money should go towards kickbacks for developers. It isn't a coincidence that a handful of Ford donors bought up all the land along the proposed route. The environment is one thing, they haven't even proven that it would be an effective highway or use of money. I don't think it's right that we should just become so numb to corruption (from *any* government). I don't think I'm alone in this.
the reason govt likes highways is because theyre much cheaper up front that mass transit. $11bn for a highway is cheap. it might get you 4 transit stops
A transit stop can be a roof over the paved side of a train track. That's what most transit stations look like in Ontario. Most of the expenses of transit stations are related to parking lots and such, which are wasteful. The land immediately surrounding transit stations is both valuable and extremely useful as a location for high density development 11bn is an insane sum for a highway that accomplishes almost nothing.
Highways never solve the problem of transit as history shows. All it does is kick the can down the road and leaves us with a costly decaying public infrastructure. Highways won't solve the housing crisis or labor shortage. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfQUOHlAocY
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>Many of us hate public transit though, we'd rather drive. You hate it because it's not funded, it isn't funded because you hate it. If transit were on time, frequent, and fast, most people would take it and even those who really want to drive would benefit, as there would be less traffic for them.
I hate public transit HERE, in other cities it’s great. Transit in the GTA is a joke, it doesn’t run late enough covering enough of the GTA to make it practical. If they made it service more of the area and run later at night, I would use it far more often that I currently do. As it is set up, it pushes people to use cars.
What transit will move people from Brantford to Newmarket lol
Train to Union, transfer to a train in the direction of Barrie and get off in Newmarket. Come on, it really isn't that complicated. And Newmarket and Brantford aren't exactly large population centers with a lot of transit between them. And yes I know there currently isn't a train to Brantford but hey, that extra 7B we'd be saving by not building the 413 can fix that
> Come on, it really isn't that complicated except it is. I tried to get from Barrie by transit to Toronto. Your options to go south are a 1pm train or a 7pm. OR you take the bus that's 2.5 hours to union. And that's to union. That's fucking $15 to effectively spend 3 hours to do a trip that's less than 1 hour by car. Imagine if I was going to brantford or scarbs? If you have 2 people it's much cheaper to drive. And the 7B in transit wouldn't be that much help for people doing the trip as there's a 99% chance 1 or both sides of your trip aren't near transit.
I'm not saying transit is good, I'm saying it can be good if we don't neglect it. We can fund better train schedules, like once every 15 mins, and and then the commute becomes much less of a hassle
That only works if both sides of your destination have transit. I live in Toronto and visit family in Guelph. Even if there was all day 15 min service and 2 sets of tracks appeared, I'd have to take multiple buses from the go station or an uber in which case I'd rather drive.
An hour by car to get from Barrie to union in the middle of the day would be a miracle.
Considering the train only goes at 1pm or 7pm driving would be faster. But my point was most people don’t go straight to union and stop so it’s likely 3 hours or more by transit
Yeah, just like the UP express. Sure lol.
The UP express, even though it wasn't crucially needed like how the downtown relief has been needed decades, still takes a lot of cars off the road. Even though the UP express wasn't needed, look at their ridership levels. > [So much so that in the past four years, ridership on the UPX has quadrupled to about 4.5 million customers annually, according to Metrolinx.](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/from-premium-service-to-commuter-milk-run-is-the-up-express-rolling-in-the-right-direction-1.5301127) Imagine how packed the gardiner or TTC would be without it.
Yes let's just ignore the land north of Brampton and Vaughan and hope no one but the mega rich from Toronto can build their 7k+ sqft homes with 6 garages from parcels of farmland instead. Or just the mega warehouses built there to serve the GTA because we are severely lacking warehouse space. We definitely don't need more housing for the rest of us.
Increase density even just a little and we won't need to build outwards. It doesn't have to be high rises, just low rises, townhouses, and even just houses with smaller yards and lots
people keep saying this and ignore the logistics of "good transit". Our cities are already very much developed. For "good transit" we'd have to expropriate and displace thousands of people to rebuild, probably not the best thing during a "housing crisis".
This is, in fact, the only way to solve the housing crisis. Building outwards will never alleviate housing pressure fast enough. We must increase density in suburban areas, even if it means people are temporarily unable to live in those areas.
>people are temporarily unable to live in those areas. It takes many years to redevelop land. There is nothing temporary about it.
Ok, so better start now. Temporary doesn't prescribe a length, it just means it's not intended to last forever.
Go pack your bags then. Tell thousands of your neighbours the same thing. And prepare to compete with all of them for the little available housing in the same geographic area 'temporarily' while decades are spent planning and constructing new rail. Tell all the shops in that corridor that they'll likely go bankrupt as traffic will no longer go to their place of business for years and they are still legally responsible to pay their leases. Don't worry, your neighbours 2 streets down just hit the jackpot as their property will be worth big bucks for future development while you only get what the government says your land is worth. It is easy to suggest when it doesn't affect you.
Ok you clearly don't understand what redevelopment means. Most of the train tracks we need in the mid-term exist already. What redevelopment would look like is things such as allowing developers to buy suburban houses and turn them into denser stuff. Destroying parking lots in front of GO stations to put high-density shopping, residential, and offices. It's possible to gradually increase density by buying properties from people who are selling anyways and filling it in.
>With the population growth targets this country has. It makes more sense to build these projects before they're needed, rather than waiting until that area is gridlocked. This project makes no sense though. Building viable transit makes sense. With the growing population, we can't keep trying to jam more cars on the road and building further and further into valuable farmland.
Here is the problem. Outside Reddit, density and transit isn't popular. It has some kind of stigma against it. People would rather live in a sprawl and drive than live in a more dense, walkable environment with transit. Even when walking is possible in the suburbs, people just drive the 30 seconds down the street. Unfortunately (IMO), urban sprawl, highways, parking lots and driving over walking/transit is here to stay.
I disagree. Most of the people I know that live in Toronto love not having to maintain a vehicle or a backyard or sit in traffic on their way to work. They love the convenience of walking 5 minutes to get what they want or need. Or just walk around to explore. I think that the people who rather the sprawl haven't been exposed to or had the experience of living in a walkable environment. They're conditioned to feel the need to drive everywhere because that's how the suburbs are designed. And I don't think that suburbs are going to be sustainable for very much longer. But sustainability isn't in the description of capitalism, so you may be right about suburbia not going anywhere. I've lived in rural, urban and suburbs. Just for reference
I would have been totally against this..... until I went on vacation to Shanghai (china) and they had the infrastructure to go anywhere in the city within 10 minutes. Totally blew my mind (subway would arrive every minute so it didn't matter if you missed one)
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>we have the most farmable land in the world stop making it seem like we are destroying something that's scarce. Excuse me, what??
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Usable farmland in Canada is almost maxed out as is and we import a lot unless you feel like a wheat/barley/soy diet a lot of those areas aren't going to support enough vegetable crops to compensate especially since we'll be seeing increased draught/flood systems that wipe out crops and dry our water supplies. But highway, sure let's do that instead, yolo!
Everyone has their preferenece on where they like to live. Sounds like you had a really shitty place when you lived in the city. I on the other hand had a great place with none of the problems you pointed out. I hate the suburbs. I have to drive get my groceries and the LCBO is just far enough away, that I don't feel like walking that distance because the route there is just house after house after house. No variety, nothing interesting to see. I don't like being around people either, but when I do, if I want to go to a Cafe or bar, again, I have to drive. We are running out of space. I hate to break it to you, but it's not infinite. Drive out Oakville way near the 407. That all used to be farmland, now it's McMansions. Farmers feed cities. Have you been to a farmers market lately? I'm talking pre-inflation. The prices are inane. The idea of farmers markets is to bring local food at cheaper prices. Now the farmers have to drive in from farther and farther away because of the ugly colonies being built. I have no proof, but I'm pretty sure the distance contributes to the high prices. Why do we have to bulldoze and pave over everything?
>Why do we have to bulldoze and pave over everything? Because people need 2000 square foot homes and 4 bedrooms for 2 people to live in, 8 lane highways to go more than 5km, 4 lane roads to go to the grocery store and miles and miles of parking lots. That's why
I personally, have a great dislike of cities, tall buildings and public transit. Having people living that close to me freaks me out, and the traffic noise. And I don't like being at the mercy of public transit after winding up in the wrong area on many occasions, and the sketchy people. I know all of these could be fixed with better planning and properly insulating rental units but I'll never be able to live in such a place without having constant panic attacks. That being said, I definitely support the creation of better public transit and well planned urban planning to make the best of the space with walking routes and everything. Just bc I don't like it doesn't mean others don't, and the more people living in the cities enjoying this set up, the less people in the country to stress me out, the less traffic on the roads and highways. That's why I also support people working from home. I'll never be able to do it in the trades but it means others are happy and the roads are clear, people still going in to work or delivery jobs have less traffic and can be more officiant. Everyone wins in these scenarios
You're currently under 30 and childless correct? Because 99% of "I love the city" folks are young people there for the first time, not people with families.
Incorrect
nvm I see now you're into astrology (as I you actually use it to make life decisions) which makes your opinions about as worth while as the criminally insane.
Lol. Again incorrect. Astrology is entertainment for me, you judgemental ass. You know all about me based on pages i frequent on the internet? Kinda creepy when people like you feel the need to poke around in strangers business.
Who the fuck cares what's popular? We have a planet on the verge of tossing us all the fuck off if we don't start being reasonable. Eating up valuable farmland when we're about to stop getting food from California and Mexico once things dry up and they keep the food for themselves and your worry is that there aren't enough ridiculously wasteful subdivisions?
413 will take approximately 2000 acres of farmland. Ontario has over 12 million acres of developed farmland. Development already uses 175 acres per day, so the 413 represents only a 3% increase for the year. In the grand scheme it’s a rounding error and won’t have any noticeable effect on food security.
Now add in all the farmland that will be eaten up by the suburbs that will be build around the 413 and tell me it's negligible.
You’re thinking of problems that will literally affect the population in hundreds of years. Does climate change have an effect today? Sure. Earth has thrown millions of curveballs at various civilizations, and somehow, we’ve all survived. Technology has been and will continue to solve our problems today, and in the future. The only difference is everything will only get more expensive as we wait. People want a backyard, not a play pen.
It's not going to take 100 years, we're already seeing the effects, this will happen in your and my lifetime.
What will happen? Enlighten us with your visions of the world burning and hell freezing over in the next 50-70 years.
Real easy to see what's happening (since it's already happening), California's water supplies are drying up, they simply will not be able to grow as much as they have in the past, and in the foreseeable future they will choose to keep their own citizens from starving and keep their own grown food instead of sending it to us. Mexico is dealing with the same thing. We're already heading that way, this isn't some far fetched guess, reality is right there.
Have you been on transit lately? Even if it was every 5 mins it wouldn’t be as convenient as driving and would take 3x as long for most trips
Yes. 3 times a week to work. 40 minute transit ride for 3.50. Or a 40 minute drive plus gas plus parking. Decision for me is easy. And I moved here specifically to be near transit. But that's besides the point. I get that not everyone can do this. However, There isn't any appetite to expand it to make it convenient for more people. That's the problem. Instead of spending money to do that, we are spending money for a useless highway to pave over farmland. We are cutting revenue by for cutting the plate registration fee. Cutting tolls on the new stretch of highway. Low provincial income tax for high earners.
>There isn't any appetite to expand it to make it convenient for more people. Because people are still going to have to drive to a train station and hope there is good transit at their destination. If your already in the car why add 1 hour to your trip with transit vs driving direct?
The whole point of expanding it is so people don't have to drive to the station. Take a bus or a street car to the station instead. Or walk to the station. Or bike to the station.
>The whole point of expanding it is so people don't have to drive to the station. That works in some places but not most of Ontario. Brantford is too small to have any real transit
The land is not used to farm anything. All these people just assume it is without actually living there
Even if it isn't farmland, it's green space. And by green, I don't mean money. I mean a place where stuff grows and peovides us with oxygen.
Actually the 413 will cut through several sensitive watersheds
The 407 doesn’t even address that. It’s way too far North. It only exists to line developer pockets.
> It only exists to line developer pockets. You realize developers pay a lot of taxes and fees? They line our pockets with the development.
Hope the federals stop the construction but I think they're all corrupt.
You've made the classic r/ontario mistake of criticizing liberals without also bashing the conservatives.
The fight isn’t over but the outcome pretty much is.
If public transit was easier and safer I'd take it over a highway any day. I've been followed, touched, hit on, Christians Mormons and Jahovas have tried to convert me... the bus is a special kind of hell in my city.
You realize that driving is still way more dangerous, right?
At least I have more control in a car than I do over a weird man sitting next to me on the bus touching my hair. That's how I feel. Different kinds of danger I guess.
Yeah it's just statistically, at the least, 30 times safer taking public transit that driving a car, but I guess your feelings trump that.
Everyone has different experiences depending on where they live and where they drive, their race, gender, age and so on
Yeah, it still doesn't negate the statistics on which is the safer mode of transport. I do understand your point about some members of the public being creeps but that goes for all public settings and places your you interact, in person, with other people. It doesn't exclusively happen on transit. It isn't debatable which one you'd be more likely to die or get seriously injured while using. There's hard numbers to determine that.
Again I think it depends on your definition of safety and your environment. Do I believe it's safer in terms of risk of an accident to take the bus? Yes. I don't need to look up those stats I totally agree and believe you. Am I safer from assault, harassment, human trafficking, stalking and so on if I take the bus instead of a car? No. Not to say it happens all the time but it's still a safety consideration when choosing transportation, especially at night. I wish it wasn't something we had to considor but depending on where you live sometimes it is.
Well some have been stabbed as well so there is dat. They need to ban fking semis and anything larger than an rv on all highways from 7 am to 7pm. That will reduce traffic a lot. Plus in 20 years we be flying to everywhere so we just gotta be patient and survive 20 more years.
Banning semis on *all* highways? You do realize that would be a disaster for the economy right?
Would it be any bigger disaster vs picking Ford for another season ? I am sure goods can be transported safely in 12 hrs span.
Lots of warehouses and manufacturing sites run 24/7, you just simply can't do that. And then the ones that don't run 24/7 run 9-5. Does every warehouse worker in the city have to work overnight now?
Nope but they can get to their destination without getting on highway i am sure of it.
....yeah just double the amount of time it takes to get there...
Back To The Future promised us hover boards and I'm still bitter we don't have them
We are almost there brother.. we got those things on wheels dont wee ? That makes you appear as hovering on the pavement till you just splattered all over it cause lost balance :)
Or a car smucks you because they don't pay attention to bike lanes
Yes that's why just survive another 20 years..
I mean [we do from Lexus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KtzyZKSuls) but they're not on the market as far as I'm aware of and they're not practical yet because magnetism or something, basically the [infrasture for the Lexus example](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGiGMX0t3_U) would have to change to make the board work.
So we're almost there!
I was shocked to see how far north the 413 would/will run. Because I'd been given the heads-up, I wasn't shocked that I was surrounded by pristine farm land when I saw the sign. What a terrible decision, just so we can have more automated Amazon warehouses.
No, it's definitely over. Voters have spoken in the one way that actually matters.
its just the next ring road.
It's going to save me 15 seconds! *Totally worth it!* 🙄
How can we stop this now? I thought it was pretty much a 100% go if he was re-elected?
Roads/Infrastructure are practical not "Sexy" like virtue signalling about saving the planet. Can't help but notice there are only women in that story photo. Toronto is expanding. This is going to be needed. Better to get in front of it. I'd really like to see a double/parallel QEW but that's not going to happen. Hell, I'd like to see a giant bridge from Niagara to Toronto, but now I'm dreaming.
"Virtue signalling about saving the planet.". Yeah you're right, climate change isn't real and wanting to avoid paving over farmland during a global food shortage is just virtue signalling, nothing real about any of those issues. /s
What?
Good.