Quote:
Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
At least in Toronto, driving remains almost always the faster option even in the peak of rush hour, with a handful of exceptions. The only time transit is faster for a round trip is more or less travelling exactly at each peak rush hour right into downtown. Otherwise, if one of the two trips is made outside of rush hour, or the trip is made elsewhere in the city, even at rush hour, it's faster to drive.
So yea -most rich people drive. Many rich people also live in locations which are best served by car infrastructure - The wealthy areas north of Downtown Toronto have fast arterial road connections to the core which avoid the congested freeway network and create much faster trips than transit.
Cars are no doubt insanely expensive on their lifecycle costs, especially if you buy a larger, nicer vehicle. But they also create immense value as they are vastly faster and more comfortable forms of transportation for the vast majority of situations, even globally where public transit is far better than it is in North America. Their only biggest disadvantage is that you are required to focus on driving vs. being able to do other tasks when travelling.
purchasing a car, even when you live in a fairly urban neighborhood in Canada / the US, is one of the single largest quality of life items you can buy, and I'm not going to debate that. It can suck to operate them in certain unique situations and in the peak of rush hour right downtown, but generally they allow just such an insane degree of additional mobility for someone it's not funny.
What does suck about most north american planning is that because cars are generally so efficient, infrastructure has been designed so that you basically need a car to do anything. That isn't the right approach either, as it's not always desirable to have the absolute most efficient method for everything. There is a lot of value in a certian level of walkability for neighbourhoods.
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I mostly agree with everything except for the bolded part. I wouldn't actually call Toronto a transit city at this point, More of a hybrid car-transit city as large parts of the metro area is suburbia dominated by wide stroads and seas of parking while the suburban rail is lines are far apart and mostly infrequent outside of peak. The bus service is still decent in the suburbs, but buses aren't really great for longer distances.
However, the choice to promote cars and their infrastructure wasn't about their "efficiency" but rather about normative cultural value judgements.