Quote:
Originally Posted by OldDartmouthMark
He said he was considering moving to Halifax as he is tired of the long commutes (1 hour to travel 20 km) and the hectic pace of life in Toronto.
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The commutes have a huge impact on quality of life. If you live at say Bathurst and Sheppard in Toronto, Google Maps says you can take a 48 minute transit trip or drive 35-85 minutes to Union Station. This is only a 15 km trip. There are definitely more convenient locations but they come at a premium. The reality is that in Toronto your reasonable commute radius from home is only going to be a small portion of the metro area. A given household can't easily take advantage of jobs all around the GTA.
Halifax isn't like this as much. You could commute anywhere around the metro area if you wanted. The "gap" in opportunities is not as big as it might look on paper, particularly if you take cost into account. The cheaper suburbs in Toronto or Vancouver are still more expensive than Halifax and they only have good access to 1/3 - 1/4 of their respective metro areas.
The commute time advantage is something Halifax should capitalize on and try hard to preserve. The ultra-low-hanging-fruit of bus improvement is mostly picked at this point but stuff like BRT, ferries, infill, and active transportation still help a lot. This is another inherent advantage. Infrastructure costs a lot more in the bigger cities. Consequently there will be a lot of economic pressure in the future to distribute economic growth among smaller cities.