Lorenzo Mele is willing and ready to be part of the solution to Toronto’s road congestion problem. But a lack of frequent, fast transit means that he ends up driving from his Danforth-area home to his job in Mississauga most days.

As Mississauga’s transit demand co-ordinator, Mele spends his days encouraging people to consider car alternatives and he uses transit himself when he can. He carpools when he can’t. But he knows most car commuters won’t search out solutions.

“There’s no point in trying to convince someone who’s got a 30-minute car commute to take 1 ½ hours on transit,” says Mele.

That, in essence, is the problem with fighting congestion in the suburbs, where commuting patterns are expanding from the traditional downtown routes, plugging once-quiet streets.

Cozy, traditional downtown neighbourhoods have become the inspiration for new models of the sustainable mobility urbanists believe could save us from total gridlock.

“But you go to Oakville and Mississauga, and it’s not so clear. You can’t just throw money at the problem,” says Eric Miller, director of the Cities Centre at the University of Toronto.

In places where homes, jobs and shops are far apart, “It creates a landscape that is exceptionally difficult to service for transit, especially with a model of 40-foot buses that run not often enough,” said Michael Roschlau, president of the Canadian Urban Transit Association.

“For transit to be effective or attractive it has to run every 10 to 15 minutes. We need to find a way of making this quantum leap in suburban areas,” he said.

Forty per cent of commuters surveyed would like to use transit, but only 7 to 8 per cent actually do so, Mele said. He believes, however, that Mississauga is uniquely positioned to capture that demand.

It has moved to paid parking in the city centre, and a still-unfunded plan to build light rail on the central spine of Hurontario St. will encourage the kind of vertical development that stems sprawl, he said. A new Sheridan College campus ensures there will be people on the streets.

But Mele also believes regional transit agencies have to reconsider their operating model and fill their buses.

“The Americans treat a transit seat like a perishable commodity. If you’re going to have an empty seat going through a neighbourhood, it’s better to get something for it,” said Mele.

In other words — lower the price on some routes for some hours, the way airlines and inter-city bus operators do.

Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman agrees that regional transit connections have to improve. When GO restored train service to his town in 2007 after a 15-year absence, it immediately filled to capacity.

“Anybody who can take the train will do it,” he said. However, “if you get off a GO train and you’ve got an hour’s bus ride, you’re not going to do that. But three stops on a light rail vehicle, and you might do that.”

About 8,000 of Barrie’s 140,000 residents work in Toronto. Another 20,000 people work somewhere between Toronto and Barrie, areas the GO train doesn’t serve.

But Lehman doesn’t support road tolls that would force those commuters to pay to drive to work and school. And he’s clear that his constituents aren’t interested in paying for Toronto area transit upgrades.

Instead, he would like to see developers pay for new transit lines. “When we’re creating millions in property value and not capturing anything, that is a missed opportunity,” Lehman said.

Eighteen per cent of Oakville commuters use transit. Oakville is the second-busiest GO station. About 22 per cent of Oakville Transit’s 10,000 daily rides are GO commuters, but that’s down from 30 per cent since GO put more free parking in the stations. The local bus system’s ridership has grown overall, however, by about 17 per cent since it put its routes on a grid, rather than the old radial system.

“We’ve done all the things people said it takes to make transit popular,” said Burton.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The town is also planning to transform the land surrounding the GO station into a mobility hub — a destination, as well as a transfer point. In 15 years, Burton jokes, “it will be a mini-Manhattan,” with 12,000 residents and 8,000 jobs.

“Half the land is owned by the province and town, so we have a huge amount of leverage in making things happen. We try to direct all intensification there,” he said.

Still, he doesn’t believe congestion is a key concern among municipal voters. It may have been in the background, “but it hasn’t been the front-of-mind issue,” he said.

Read more about: