Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[ijmorlan]

The Gardiner was just uploaded to the province, so yeah we did pay for its continued existence - and future generations will too as the price tag keeps growing and the benefits keep dwindling.

You know full well that the old lady without a driver's licence and the guy with the F350 are paying the same property taxes for maintaining roads and incurring quite different infrastructure maintenance costs on everyone.

And what’s hilarious is that many of the same people who vehemently proclaim their independence, self-sufficiency, and anti-socialism would have a heart attack if they thought they would be required to start paying each time they used the roads.

[bravado]

The Gardiner was just uploaded to the province, so yeah we did pay for its continued existence - and future generations will too as the price tag keeps growing and the benefits keep dwindling.

You know full well that the old lady without a driver's licence and the guy with the F350 are paying the same property taxes for maintaining roads and incurring quite different infrastructure maintenance costs on everyone.

And what’s hilarious is that many of the same people who vehemently proclaim their independence, self-sufficiency, and anti-socialism would have a heart attack if they thought they would be required to start paying each time they used the roads.

There’s nobody more aggrieved than the person who doesn’t even know they’re being subsidized - aka the average suburban voter.

[ac3r]

Ae someone who routinely uses the Gardiner, I can not imagine not having it.  It would be brutal without it.

At there's at least one other person here with sensibility.

Too many people here - or rather, armchair urbanists in general - really don't have the slightest clue what they're talking about. They are vehemently opposed to personal automobiles for whatever reason and that's it.

Important cities/regions need high capacity highways into, through and out of core areas and without them you run into complex problems. Yeah, roads and train tracks etc are unsightly but necessary. It is not possible to have a major city with hundreds of thousands to millions of people without such infrastructure.

We can certainly improve, rebuilt or replace many of them but it would be impossible to function without.

[neonjoe]

Ae someone who routinely uses the Gardiner, I can not imagine not having it.  It would be brutal without it.

At there's at least one other person here with sensibility.

Too many people here - or rather, armchair urbanists in general - really don't have the slightest clue what they're talking about. They are vehemently opposed to personal automobiles for whatever reason and that's it.

Important cities/regions need high capacity highways into, through and out of core areas and without them you run into complex problems. Yeah, roads and train tracks etc are unsightly but necessary. It is not possible to have a major city with hundreds of thousands to millions of people without such infrastructure.

We can certainly improve, rebuilt or replace many of them but it would be impossible to function without.

Toronto for its size is actually very highway light compared to other North American cities. At least the Gardiner was built in the industrial parts of the city rather than by cutting down neighbourhood.
Inter city highways are okay if they are built when demand is already there and they follow an existing demand corridor. It’s not going to encourage as much sprawl as a completely new build somewhere else. Our cities and the province have decent planning tools to prevent development as well. Often in smaller states a lot of the sprawl they see is in unincorporated areas with very little in the way of restrictions about what can be built.

[Bjays93]

At there's at least one other person here with sensibility.

Too many people here - or rather, armchair urbanists in general - really don't have the slightest clue what they're talking about. They are vehemently opposed to personal automobiles for whatever reason and that's it.

Important cities/regions need high capacity highways into, through and out of core areas and without them you run into complex problems. Yeah, roads and train tracks etc are unsightly but necessary. It is not possible to have a major city with hundreds of thousands to millions of people without such infrastructure.

We can certainly improve, rebuilt or replace many of them but it would be impossible to function without.

Toronto for its size is actually very highway light compared to other North American cities. At least the Gardiner was built in the industrial parts of the city rather than by cutting down neighbourhood.
Inter city highways are okay if they are built when demand is already there and they follow an existing demand corridor. It’s not going to encourage as much sprawl as a completely new build somewhere else. Our cities and the province have decent planning tools to prevent development as well. Often in smaller states a lot of the sprawl they see is in unincorporated areas with very little in the way of restrictions about what can be built.

This precisely. Toronto effectively has 3 East/West Highways, and 4 North/South ones, we'll ignore the 412 and 418 for the sake of this conversation. For reference, Rochester, NY has a similar number of controlled access highways. I think that speaks for itself (not that we should be trying to emulate U.S. city design of course.

[danbrotherston]

At there's at least one other person here with sensibility.

Too many people here - or rather, armchair urbanists in general - really don't have the slightest clue what they're talking about. They are vehemently opposed to personal automobiles for whatever reason and that's it.

Important cities/regions need high capacity highways into, through and out of core areas and without them you run into complex problems. Yeah, roads and train tracks etc are unsightly but necessary. It is not possible to have a major city with hundreds of thousands to millions of people without such infrastructure.

We can certainly improve, rebuilt or replace many of them but it would be impossible to function without.

Toronto for its size is actually very highway light compared to other North American cities. At least the Gardiner was built in the industrial parts of the city rather than by cutting down neighbourhood.
Inter city highways are okay if they are built when demand is already there and they follow an existing demand corridor. It’s not going to encourage as much sprawl as a completely new build somewhere else. Our cities and the province have decent planning tools to prevent development as well. Often in smaller states a lot of the sprawl they see is in unincorporated areas with very little in the way of restrictions about what can be built.

Toronto is highway light compared with US cities...but I'd rather compare with contemporary Canadian cities, of which there are few...it's probably comparable to, or worse than Montreal, and much MUCH worse than Vancouver.

As for inter-city highways. They aren't inherently bad...no, but they aren't built in a vacuum...they are usually built instead of building effective transit...or competing with transit....

As for sprawl...the last 50 years of 90% suburban development along highway corridors in Canada would like to have a conversation with you. The fact is, comparing us with the US will usually make Canada look good...but we should probably aim higher than the single worst western nation on Earth.