American Block Redevelopment | 3 fl | U/C

[ijmorlan]

My biggest issue with drive thru's is actually not environmental, but with the built environment. They create a completely inhospitably pedestrian environment. Drive thru's require a larger site footprint and pretty much guarantees that all four sides of the building are dedicated to cars. They are also are almost always fast food chain restaurants that don't add anything to the urban environment. Look at roads like Victoria, Fairview or hespeler. Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto have all banned new drive thru construction. I think it is time for the cities in this region to start acting like urban cities and follow suit.  But I am an urbanest with very ideological views on how a city should be built. Obviously people that love the suburbs with strip malls and fast food drive-thru's will complete disagree with me and say that I am creating a war on their precious cars.

The entire Region is not urban.

In any case, I think it will, in the long term, be easier to make the case that there needs to be a carbon tax, congestion charge, etc., because of negative externalities which do in fact exist, than that drive-thrus should be banned essentially because you don’t like them.