Road design, transportation and walkability

[plam]

At the end of the day though, I tend to believe that housing affordability becomes the main factor determining where one lives.

Housing affordability only comes into play once there is a way to get to the house. Pickering is 47km from Union Station. Another point that is 47km from Union Station but which has no way to get to it would be more affordable because it's less valuable. So building the road induces demand on the road, while building rail similarly induces demand. We've seen everywhere that building more (free) roads means more traffic on the roads.