10-20-2025, 07:29 AM
(10-19-2025, 11:55 PM)plam Wrote:(10-18-2025, 08:19 AM)nms Wrote: I couldn't tell from my albeit quick read of the study, but it would be interesting to see if there has been any shift in North American transit habits have changed in the last 20 years or so since there has been incremental investment in transit and active transportation improvements (at least in Waterloo Region's case). If 20 years ago, the number was 4% and today it's 5%, that's a big proportional increase. Over time, the incremental improvements will add up and suddenly driving isn't the default transportation mode.
The University of Waterloo Sustainable Transportation people feel like they haven't made headway on shifting modeshare over the past 20 years. They would really like to---but then the question is how empowered are they to make the actual changes that are needed.
If they keep developing on the parking lots they certainly will, you can only drive if you've got a place to park. The key to that however is to not expand parking lots (like they did with Lot A) or building any parking garage. Once you do that you'll make driving more difficult and will inevitably get a switch in mode share.
In reality as a society we just need to make parking and driving more difficult to get a significant switch. One could tax parking lots to a degree that it hurts to have acres of parking which would incentivize the removal of parking for other uses. The other way would be putting a strict cap on the number of parking spaces with zoning, instead of minimums which create acres of unused parking (look at Sunrise Centre for example). Both of those would force different mode share because no ones going to be glued to their cars once you make something difficult.