Highway 401 Widening - Highway 8 to Townline Road

[tomh009]

No imagination is needed to understand that mobility is not, and never will be, the same without driving. Not even close. I'll give you 3 personal examples:

2) Say my buddy in Cambridge invites me over to his place after work, in order to go over to a close restaurant from his place. In this case, I can only do this when I have a day shift: Done work at 4:00 -- quickest method of transit gets me home by 4:45. I quickly shower and I am ready to leave by 5. Quickest route to his place gets me there at 7:21. Now, quickest route to the restaurant gets us there at 8:30. Stay for a couple hours, and head back to my place, and I arrive home at 12:20. With a car, I get home a 4:08, leave my place by 4:25, at his place by 4:45, at restaurant by 4:55, leave after two hours, drive him back to his place, 7:05, drive back home, 7:25. That's a 5 hour difference. (For those scenarios, I used the GRT trip planner).

Never will be the same -- and yet you justify this with the current GRT schedule.

Let me give you a counterexample. I have been to Japan dozens and dozens of times (for work). I have never driven while there, and never felt the need to. You consult your handy train/bus planner, and find a route to your destination, usually significantly faster than driving, and definitely more predictable. No need to park, pay tolls, find a parking space at the other end, or worry about traffic. This is what is possible. And, yes, both little kids and old people ride the trains and buses.

That's not to say that this is reality in our region today. But it certainly is possible, if we, as a society, decide to invest in transit rather than assuming that all mobility will always rely on a personal automobile.