Is Toronto’s condo boom causing too much density?

[marmar]

from the Toronto Star:



Is Toronto’s condo boom causing too much density?
Urban density is recognized by planners as the best way to combat sprawl. But is Toronto’s downtown condo boom too much density?

By: Antonia Zerbisias Feature Writer, Published on Fri Mar 22 2013


[font size="1"]GALIT RODAN / For the TORONTO STAR
Toronto's condo boom is supposed to stop urban sprawl, but a growing population is also taxing roads and transit.[/font]


Predrag Kalinic only partly jokes when he says that every time he gets stuck on the Gardiner Expressway, he sees condo dwellers “just three metres away, eating, drinking and making love” in their suites.

“I don’t know what those people were thinking buying those condos,” the independent cabbie says, adding that tourists laugh when they peer into their glass cubbies.

As downtown city blocks become more densely packed, so too have Toronto streets. Which is why the 25-year veteran road warrior, like many taxi drivers in the GTA, doesn’t like otherwise lucrative airport fares to or from Concord CityPlace, that warren of 15-and-counting condo towers bounded by Lakeshore-Spadina-Front-Bathurst.

Flat rate is $53, whether it takes 45 minutes or, more likely, 90 minutes, just because it takes so long to get in and out of the downtown during peak times. ........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/03/22/is_torontos_condo_boom_causing_too_much_density.html

[BVictor1]

1. NO, the density isn't a bad thing.

However, keeping the public transportation system expanding in order accommodate the growth is key.

Look at how many more people live in NYC, but they have the best public transit system in N.A.

Other modes of grade separated transportation needs to be built.

[marmar]

3. "but they have the best public transit system in N.A."

Probably true if you live on the west side of Manhattan. Less so for the east side, and much less so for the outer boroughs.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Japan is constantly building new rail lines

They have three more subway lines in the central city than they did when I lived there in the 1970s. In addition, they have built rail lines to growing exurban areas and handy links between existing ones.

I remember coming back in 1985 after an eight-year absence and being told, "To get there, you take the Hanzômon Line to Kôjimachi..." and responding, "Wait a minute, the Hanzômon Line? Never heard of it."

When I lived there, they had one Shinkansen line from Tokyo to Hakata, on the northeastern edge of the island of Kyushu. Now they have extended it all the way to the southern end of Kyushu, as well as adding lines to Niigata, to Nagano (for the 1998 Winter Olympics), and Aomori (on the northern tip of the main island). They are extending that line into Hokkaido, are planning a second "back door" line from Tokyo to Osaka, and plan to link up some of the other lines.

If oil shortages ever hit (and they were caught short during the oil crisis of the early 1970s), they'll be readier than most countries. (Their rail system is all electric, and in addition to their now decommissioned nuclear power stations, they have hydroelectric stations and ones that burn urban trash)