It’s all relative – Toronto versus Atlanta; suburbs and cities; investment in transit (Dallas: 2015, construction)

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Only if NYC had the same population as metro Atlanta.

It's Canada's NYC. Meaning it's their version relative to their country. It's the largest metro in Canada, it's THE economic/commercial center of Canada. It has the five largest banks of Canada, etc.

[Tryska]

From the actual article:

“We have not invested in our transportation system for 30 years,” she said, receiving sympathetic sounds from the Atlanta group.
But politicians and the public understand the need to invest in transportation. All the candidates running to be premier of Ontario and Toronto’s successful elected leaders all ran on a platform of more investment in transportation, especially transit.
“We have spent a long time talking about transportation,” said Enid Slack, director of the Institute on Municipal Finance Governance for the University of Toronto. “The hardest thing is to pay for it. Nobody wants to pay for it. The backlog is so huge.”

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by sedimenjerry

It's Canada's NYC. Meaning it's their version relative to their country. It's the largest metro in Canada, it's THE economic/commercial center of Canada. It has the five largest banks of Canada, etc.

This. And just like NYC here, much of Canada has disdain for Toronto.

Considering the size of the Country, it's an outsized city. And I love it there. Anyone that has a chance to go should do so. It feels like a cleaner, greener and MUCH safer Chicago to me with stronger ethnic enclaves.

[stillinthesouth]

Originally Posted by Tryska

From the actual article:

Also from the article:

"Although the leaders complained that Toronto has not invested enough in transportation, its transit system is far more extensive than what exists in metro Atlanta. The Greater Toronto Area has a rail system, local buses, bus rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail and extensive plans to expand its transit system."

One thing that's interesting about their main highway leading to the city is that there are several parallel express lanes that bypass the city.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by demonta4

I think he's saying it's easier for Ontario to spend a massive amount of money on transit since it's Canada's largest province, gains the most money, and has the national capital (Ottawa).

Not sure how that makes it easier. Alaska is our largest state, why are they spending so little on transit?!

And if the capital got preference, wouldn't that money go to the capital, not Toronto?

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by demonta4

I think he's saying it's easier for Ontario to spend a massive amount of money on transit since it's Canada's largest province, gains the most money, and has the national capital (Ottawa).

Yup, that's it exactly.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Not sure how that makes it easier. Alaska is our largest state, why are they spending so little on transit?!

And if the capital got preference, wouldn't that money go to the capital, not Toronto?

Ontario is Canada's largest province in terms of population, not in the same way that Alaska is America's largest state in terms of land area.

Toronto is Ontario's largest city and metro area and is also the home of Ontario's provincial capital.

Toronto is also Canada's largest and wealthiest city/metro area and is Canada's financial capital....So just as it is in Canada's best interest to invest in the city/metro that is home to its national capital and seat of national government in Ottawa (which Canada does with an extensive Bus Rapid Transit system and continuing rail transit upgrades in Ottawa), it is also in both Ontario's and Canada's best interest to invest heavily in that nation's largest and most influential city/metro area in Toronto.

Though one important thing to note is that Canada's national capital of Ottawa only has about 1.2 million inhabitants in its metro (which is just larger than Birmingham) while Toronto has somewhere between 5.5 million and 6 million inhabitants in its metro (which is a population that is similar to that of Atlanta's metro area/region).

...So Toronto (roughly 6 million inhabitants) has a lot more transportation needs than Ottawa (1.2 million inhabitants) just like Atlanta (6.3 million inhabitants) has a lot more transportation needs than Birmingham (1.3 million inhabitants).

Like others have noted, it should be re-stated that Toronto is a much denser metro area/region than Atlanta.

Toronto's entire metropolitan urban core has a land area of about 243 square miles (an area that is smaller than DeKalb County, Georgia) while Atlanta's five-county metropolitan urban core (Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton, Cobb and Gwinnett counties) has a land area of 1,731 square miles....That means that Toronto's urban core has a population density of about 10,700 persons per square mile compared to Atlanta's urban core population density of about 2,060 persons per square mile.

Toronto has grown and developed as a fairly very dense metropolitan area which along transit lines which is why transit has been much more heavily utilized and invested in Toronto while Atlanta has grown as a sprawling metro with generally a super-low density of development on an increasingly inadequate road network with very little (if any) regard for transit connectivity.

[jsvh]

Cities grow the way they do because of transportation funding choices.

The suggestion that because Georgia is not the largest, most populous state, with the US capital it should not fund transit is a very shoddy idea. The same laws of physics apply in Ontario as Georgia.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Cities grow the way they do because of transportation funding choices.

No, that's really just a recent thing and only applies to a few cities. More often than not around the world, cities just kind of happened.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by jsvh

The suggestion that because Georgia is not the largest, most populous state, with the US capital it should not fund transit is a very shoddy idea. The same laws of physics apply in Ontario as Georgia.

This is a great point.

But even though Georgia may not be the most-populous state in the union (Georgia has grown from 10th most-populous state to the 8th most-populous in the last 5 years), Georgia is still an extremely important state.

Georgia is an extremely important state because it is home to the headquarters of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...an extremely important federal agency), is home to the world's busiest passenger airport and is home to a nexus of multiple major transcontinental railroad lines and superhighways.

Georgia is also considered to be a major logistical hub as well as a major hub of business, education, culture, entertainment and government for the entire Southeastern North American continent.

Georgia is an extremely important place....Which is the reason why the state (particularly the Atlanta metro region) is deserving of a massive amount of investment in its multimodal transportation network (including and especially transit).

Originally Posted by jsvh

Cities grow the way they do because of transportation funding choices.

Originally Posted by waronxmas

No, that's really just a recent thing and only applies to a few cities. More often than not around the world, cities just kind of happened.

That is an excellent point by waronxmas that cities have just kind of happened throughout world history for various reasons.

Many cities sprang up as trade posts around and/or next to major bodies of water.

Atlanta sprang up as a frontier town at the intersection of two railroad lines and just grew from there.

The biggest thing is that Atlanta did not experience most of its growth until the automobile-dominated post-World War II era (...roughly about 87% of the population growth that has occurred in the Atlanta metro region occurred in the automobile-dominated period AFTER World War II).

Atlanta went through its growth spurt right at the time that the U.S. was becoming an automobile-dominated society with a population that was mass-migrating to outlying low-density suburban and exurban areas in droves out of urban areas.

Because Atlanta hit its major growth spurt at this time that the American urban population was decentralizing from densely-developed central cities to sparsely-developed outlying suburban areas and exurban areas by way of the automobile, Atlanta has generally developed into an ultra low-density metropolitan area and region dependent almost solely upon the automobile to get around on roads and highways built from ancient Native American footpaths.

Basically all cities that experienced a major growth spurt before World War II grew up around either foot and/horse transportation (like in ancient and medieval cities) or transit.

If Atlanta had experienced much or most of its growth before the post World War II era of automobile domination, maybe the metro area might have grown differently (pedestrian-scaled development built around transit) instead of being built almost completely around the automobile on a largely inadequate road network.

But the reality is that the Atlanta metro region experienced the overwhelming majority of its growth in the automobile-dominated era after WWII....Which is why almost all of the region's transportation funding choices have been made with only automobile transportation in mind.