TheStar.com - Flaherty backs `transitway'

link

The above linked Star article is found via the Spacing Wire.

I'm not sure what it proves more: that no-one is really serious about stopping the spread of urban sprawl, or that half the people at the Toronto Star are brain-dead.

The article is about plans to build new a highway across the GTA, north of the Oak Ridges Moraine.

Because the federal finance minister suggests any such highway should have a transit lane built into it, the Toronto Star tells us this will be "music to the ears of transit boosters".

Clue: the vast majority of the 905 region is so far from the density required for viable transit that it would take years and years of intensification of already-developed lands before many people there could reasonably think of relying on anything other than cars. Another ring of sprawling municipalities even further out will just mean more land covered by development that is only accessible by car.

Building a new highway would crush any pretentions to "smart growth". Maybe people don't care. But please don't bother with a "transitway" for buses to take people from nowhere to nowhere.