Does your city feel significantly busier than it did 10 years ago?

[giallo]

After seeing that Canada welcomed another 400,000+ people last year it corresponded with how much busier both cities I've been in recently are compared to just 10 years ago.

Kelowna is a bit more obvious. The downtown has seen a dramatic rise in buildings and foot traffic. The amount of car traffic has spiked quite a bit as well.

As for Vancouver, the city itself is a bit less obvious than the suburbs. I was in Metrotown in Burnaby today, and it was legitimately busy. Crowds of people on the streets, in the mall and on the Skytrain. Metrotown is a busy area in general, but it's been feeling a lot more crowded than in the past.

So how about your city? Is there a noticeable uptick in foot traffic? Vehicle traffic? On the train? And in what areas are you finding the biggest change?

[SignalHillHiker]

10 years ago... 2003.

Hmm... it's mixed. In July/August when Water and parts of Duckworth are pedestrian-only, it's as busy on any random Tuesday at 11 a.m. as it ever was on a Saturday night when cars were always allowed.

But the rest of the time, to me, it feels slower. You used to be able to go down to George Street on a Monday right after work and there'd be dozens of people walking between the pubs, etc. We have always had a foggy, indoor culture, that's not new, but it is more severe now somehow. Now, there are long, dead periods downtown where the businesses are full but there's no one in the streets. You could walk the entire downtown and not see a dozen total, despite there being thousands in the buildings around you.

And that's it, really. Busier without cars, deader the rest of the year.

[Architype]

I'm not sure about Vancouver, I think I've heard that traffic has become less with better transit. I am sure however, that parking is more difficult since the city keeps gleefully removing parking spaces, and parking lots have disappeared. I had to run into a store the other day and had to put $6.00 in a meter ($7.00 per hour) to cover the time just in case; that always increases the stress levels, just as busier traffic does. I'd say that it depends on the area, some inner city areas are much more built up (i.e. around False Creek), so it's busier, and that goes for both pedestrians and vehicular traffic. Now since the pandemic, more people work at home, so I guess that should reduce traffic overall, especially downtown. I find the gridlocks are still similar to what they used to be, our bridge & road infrastructure hasn't increased for decades; i.e. gridlock traffic on Georgia Street almost all the time. I think the crowds in the entertainment district downtown have probably increased, but it's really hard to say. Conversely to being busier, Transit also just announced reductions on some routes due to lower ridership.

[giallo]

Originally Posted by Architype

I had to run into a store the other day and had to put $6.00 in a meter ($7.00 per hour) to cover the time just in case.

I had to park for an hour on Denman St, and the parking lot charged me $10 for that hour. Ugh.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by giallo

I had to park for an hour on Denman St, and the parking lot charged me $10 for that hour. Ugh.

It's not as bad as going downtown to shop in the evening for an hour, but having to pay the full overnight rates. For an occasional transit user who does not have a pass, transit fares cost almost as much, and for a quick trip the inconvenience makes it not worthwhile.

[ScreamingViking]

It depends. Downtown is getting more life year by year, after bottoming out with shuttered businesses and barren sidewalks in the late-1990s and early 2000s; and a number of condos under construction or planned will infuse the core with thousands more people in the coming years. There are still central sections that are dead zones (e.g., north-east of the traditional "downtown core") but things are planned to change there too. The area around the airport roughly south of the urban area has become much busier with more activity related to air freight and distribution.

Parts of suburban Hamilton are just as busy as they used to be -- upper Hamilton ("the Mountain"), Ancaster, Dundas, Stoney Creek. Those that have grown in the past 10-20 years are obviously more busy than before, when they were basically empty plots or farms on the periphery (such as the lands around the south-east "corner" of the urban area). Waterdown is much busier these days as well, having swollen with more subdivisions.

[thebasketballgeek]

Despite experiencing sizeable population growth Winnipeg doesn’t feel any busier and in certain segments of the city (Downtown and Osborne) it feels less busy.

The two areas it does feel noticeably busier is the area around U of M and to a lesser extent the Forks.

[niwell]

Honestly, yeah, at least for me. Toronto as a whole is much busier to be fair.

I miss things though. I loved Toronto then, and I do now, but it's quite different.

Late breezy nights in 2010 at the waterfront. Nobody checking our cans. Cycle up to Queen W- hey we can sneak this can of Tiger in as they sell it there. Seeing Crystal Castles in an abandoned theatre in Chinatown. Oh, they only come on at 4am? You still sell beers? Things were a vibe.

[manny_santos]

I was in London last week, and drove around west of the city. The amount of traffic between Byron and Komoka has increased significantly over the past decade or more.

[Phil McAvity]

no

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

10 years ago... 2003.

This is why people make fun of Newfies

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Phil McAvity

no



This is why people make fun of Newfies

We all missed that one. He's not a number cruncher, he's artistic.

[whatnext]

Downtown Vancouver doesn’t feel much busier than ten years ago. Obviously some arts of MetroVancouver do live Brentwood and the North Vancouver Shipyards district. Perhaps because as others have noted the City of Vancouver has made a fetish out of driving away (pardon the pun) those who might come by car by gouging for parking.

[Drybrain]

Without question in Halifax. Downtown office busy-ness may still be slightly below pre-pandemic levels, but overall street life is definitely up, which has got to be directly due to a development/population boom. The Halifax peninsula has grown by more than 10,000 people in the past five years, and nearby central parts of the city by still more.

There are times, particularly weekends, when you can wend your way for a good hour or more through contiguous but discrete downtown and downtown-adjacent areas and experience unbroken street life in a way that’s reminiscent of much larger cities. The city a decade ago was far from dead, but it wasn’t this healthy-feeling, either.

There are also new mixed-use and higher density nodes developing beyond downtown, and occasional downtown-ish crowded sidewalks beginning to spread farther, particularly into the North End. (Though it can also be pretty quiet up there at other times; it’s a bit unpredictable.)

The downside is that this is also true of vehicle traffic, and congestion on city streets is more common. But this doesn’t seem to be as pronounced as the increased pedestrian density.

[Innsertnamehere]

Covid has screwed with things a lot in Toronto unfortunately, but it was definitely way busier in 2019 then when I moved there in 2013. Even those 6 years made a huge difference in crowds, densities and amount of activities.

While for Hamilton I haven’t lived here for long, it’s improved a decent bit from a decade ago. I remember going to super crawl in 2013-2014ish, and the city seeming a lot less vibrant once you discounted the event related crowds. It’s still pretty sleepy overall.. but this next decade is when I think we are going to see some real dramatic changes with the amount of development in the pipeline for downtown.
Kitchener has changed a TON in a decade. That’s a city where you really see it.

[urbandreamer]

Kitchener Waterloo, especially in the past 5 years, has seen significant demographic change: tens of thousands of South Asian immigrants, students and TFW. It's really noticeable when Walmart, Best Buy, Dollarama, even my local SDM etc have replaced most of their workforce with what appears to be SA TFWs? I'm not certain I like this trend towards creating a modern form of a lower caste, almost slave worker.

Outside of the downtown peninsula, Vancouver reminds me of how Toronto felt in the mid '90s: vibrant but not overwhelming, lots of patios, mostly white and Asian.

[le calmar]

Ottawa is slowly going back to how things were pre-Covid, so it just seems like there’s still quite a bit of catching up to do before we can claim the city looks “busier”. In terms of demographics, it does seem like my neighbourhood has a lot more South Asians than even just 5 years ago. As a result many new Indian restaurants and grocery stores have opened shops. The number of amenities targeting South Asians has probably tripled in 10 years.

[OldDartmouthMark]

Drybrain covers Halifax fairly well. Definitely increased activity in the city core, but there has also been significant growth in outlying areas north of the city in areas which were previously mostly rural in nature. Many of these folks still commute to the city for work, which has resulted in increased commuter traffic, and no viable plan in place to serve these growing communities with rail service, unfortunately.

[acottawa]

Most parts of Ottawa are a pale shadow of what they were 10 years ago.

[electricmodes]

Originally Posted by niwell

Seeing Crystal Castles in an abandoned theatre in Chinatown. Oh, they only come on at 4am? You still sell beers? Things were a vibe.

THIS. I saw them in 2010 at Twist Art Gallery. It is one of the best memories I have from living in Toronto 2005-2010.

[MonctonRad]

In Moncton, traffic has certainly become a lot heavier overall, but the downtown core is less busy. This is mostly pandemic related with many workers choosing home work, and the subsequent starvation of downtown service businesses. There are more vacancies downtown than typical.

Residential densification in the core is occurring however, with a lot more apartment buildings under construction. This renaissance is mostly driven by the Avenir Centre. I would imagine that over the next decade that downtown residents will replace the former office workers as drivers of downtown vitality. In some ways this is a good thing.