Driving vs transit

[creative]

It comes down to convienience for us. It is a 5 minute drive or 25 minute bus ride from our house.

[SF22]

It comes down to convienience for us. It is a 5 minute drive or 25 minute bus ride from our house.

And that's fine! Transit doesn't always work for every person. But if we could get other people who are directly on the 4 and 20 routes onto a bus (or even the 8 and 1, which stop less than 500m away from CITS), that would free up parking spots for you, and lessen that godawful traffic jam that always happens at the end of a show.

[danbrotherston]

It comes down to convienience for us. It is a 5 minute drive or 25 minute bus ride from our house.

And that's fine! Transit doesn't always work for every person. But if we could get other people who are directly on the 4 and 20 routes onto a bus (or even the 8 and 1, which stop less than 500m away from CITS), that would free up parking spots for you, and lessen that godawful traffic jam that always happens at the end of a show.

"free up parking"...charging more for parking would ironically also free up parking.

[Acitta]

It comes down to convienience for us. It is a 5 minute drive or 25 minute bus ride from our house.

I don't understand how a 25-minute bus ride is a problem.

[Kodra24]

There's not enough time in the day to voluntarily lose it on transit

[bravado]

It comes down to convienience for us. It is a 5 minute drive or 25 minute bus ride from our house.

I don't understand how a 25-minute bus ride is a problem.

It’s only a problem if you view a 5 minute drive with free vehicle storage as a normal and reasonable thing - which just isn’t true in most of the world and won’t be true here for much longer…

[Kodra24]

It's all good to charge for parking but it is a fine line in terms of how much
Although downtown residents don't want to admit it they need the suburbanites coming down to help their business succeed - and if it isn't easy/convenient/accessible they simply won't - Guelph is a great case in point, it essentially has 2 downtowns now with the node in the South End (residents there rarely head to downtown)

[taylortbb]

Although downtown residents don't want to admit it they need the suburbanites coming down to help their business succeed - and if it isn't easy/convenient/accessible they simply won't

This really isn't supported by the evidence. That was the urban planning philosophy of the 60s and 70s. Build big expressways and lots of parking so that the suburbs can easily access downtown. It failed all over North America and lead to declining downtowns. The cities that resisted this ended up with the most successful downtowns.

This was an issue in uptown before the streetscape project. Store owners thought that a large part of their customer base drove, and reducing parking would drive them away. Actual surveys showed the majority of patrons didn't drive, and the businesses mostly served those that were local.

DTK needs more people living in it, it doesn't need any more accessibility for suburbanites.

[dtkvictim]

Parking is our culture.

You need to get out more.  There's chamber music at the Maureen Forrester tonight.  No car required.

Sorry friend, I forgot to denote my tongue-in-cheek sarcasm.

[creative]

The problem with a 25 minute bus ride is the it is 40 minutes round trip longer than driving. And like I previously indicated it is all about convenience. I think that it is great that people choose to not own a car and make it work for them.

[plam]

The problem with a 25 minute bus ride is the it is 40 minutes round trip longer than driving. And like I previously indicated it is all about convenience. I think that it is great that people choose to not own a car and make it work for them.

(1) in a real city it often takes at least 20 minutes to get from place to place no matter how
(2) transit is often slower than cars; cars are just too convenient
(3) having said that, in a real city it can be hard to find parking, and the parking/walking can be a large fraction of the time "saved"
(4) bikes are often fastest

[dtkvictim]

The problem with a 25 minute bus ride is the it is 40 minutes round trip longer than driving. And like I previously indicated it is all about convenience. I think that it is great that people choose to not own a car and make it work for them.

Worse when accounting for dead time after arriving and before departing, since our infrequent bus schedules almost never align with our own schedules.

The problem with a 25 minute bus ride is the it is 40 minutes round trip longer than driving. And like I previously indicated it is all about convenience. I think that it is great that people choose to not own a car and make it work for them.

(1) in a real city it often takes at least 20 minutes to get from place to place no matter how
(2) transit is often slower than cars; cars are just too convenient
(3) having said that, in a real city it can be hard to find parking, and the parking/walking can be a large fraction of the time "saved"
(4) bikes are often fastest

Transit is not only slower than cars, but I often find it slower than walking on trips I take. My parents live about a 1 hour walk away, and I'll almost always arrive sooner walking than if I took transit (about 45 minutes on transit, with transfers, and delaying departure depending on when I wanted to leave). Plus walking is free.

On topic here, someone within a 5 minute drive should be within about a 7 minute bike ride. Generally a wash once you consider parking time, or at least a negligible different. But this depends on safe cycling infrastructure and bike parking being present and safe.

[danbrotherston]

It comes down to convienience for us. It is a 5 minute drive or 25 minute bus ride from our house.

I don't understand how a 25-minute bus ride is a problem.

Compared with a 5 minute car ride, I can understand why someone would drive.

But it's also a tragedy of the commons. Should we pave our entire cities so that people can enjoy a 5 minute drive? What happens when there is congestion? Pave more?

This is why pricing parking (and driving in general) is the solution. Add a small amount of parking so that we can still have nice places to be, but those who want the convenience of a 5 minute drive can pay for that privilege, and those who don't mind a 15 minute bus ride can enjoy that (15 minutes because better, less car dependent cities, inherently have better transit).

[ac3r]

It comes down to convienience for us. It is a 5 minute drive or 25 minute bus ride from our house.

I don't understand how a 25-minute bus ride is a problem.

It's a lot of wasted time, that's why it's a problem. Let's say a person has a 55 minute bus commute each day. Let's say they commute a total of 260 weekdays a year just for work. Let's also say they never choose or are able to drive, so they do this for 55 years of their life. That comes out to...well...a heck of a lot of days in your life wasted not only ON the bus, but waiting for the bus and going to and from the bus.

Now sure, for a one off thing a couple times a year - a concert at CITS or a sports match - that may not seem like a big deal. But for most people, they sure as heck don't want to waste months to years of their time on earth riding around on some bus to get where they need to go. Unless someone is a fan of buses, I don't see why anyone would choose this over owning a personal vehicle (even if it's just a bicycle). One could make the argument that it's still preferable for many reasons - environmental, safety - but at the end of the day unless someone has nothing better to do, they aren't going to want to use public transit if they don't have to...at least in a city like ours. If we had the sort of transit system in Berlin or Kyoto then sure, it makes more sense but even there people want to drive.

Of course there is a ton of nuance to all of this and the choices we make, either at a personal level or because the city in this region really sucks all things considered. Regardless, convenience is going to triumph. Maximizing our time and making it faster to get from A to B has been something that we as a species have always strove to achieve. Automobiles may come with a lot of problems, but they're here to stay and save having some sort of pro-car authoritarian government rule us and ban personal automobiles, we're going to continue to use them. We CAN absolutely make improvements, though, but it has to be done right.

Anyway this is all a bit off topic.

[tomh009]

But for most people, they sure as heck don't want to waste months to years of their time on earth riding around on some bus to get where they need to go.

And yet, many people spend 3h+ per day commuting to Toronto. That's a month/year if you prefer to count that way.

I'll relocate this discussion to a more relevant thread ...