[LINK] "Tunnels and Transportation — how commuters get downtown"

[rfmcdonald]

I've made a couple of posts about ill-fated Toronto mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi, most recently on his rather ill-judged mafia-themed radio, video, and print ads, the first on his remarkable plans to build a very long, and very expensive, tunnel through downtown Toronto. Spacing Toronto's Dylan Reid has posted this morning about how this project doesn't even speak to the needs of the large majority of downtown commuters.

it's also worth looking at Rossi's underlying assumption about why the tunnel is needed. More car access to downtown Toronto is required, he says, because people have such a hard time driving to jobs in the downtown core. “Companies and workers would rather establish in the 905 than fight their way into downtown Toronto every day,” said Rossi. “I want our kids to have a chance to live and work at good jobs in the city of Toronto.”

The fact is, however, that despite the presence of both the Gardiner and the DVP feeding cars into the downtown core, only a minority of people who work downtown drive there. The vast majority -- 71% -- of people who travel into work downtown don't have to fight their way through car traffic -- they take GO Trains, the TTC, or they walk or cycle.

Here's the breakdown for people commuting to Ward 28 (which includes most of the downtown business district) from outside the ward (all figures are from the Transportation Tomorrow Survey, 2006 (PDF)).

Local transit (TTC): 38%
GO Train: 26%
Walk/Cycle: 7%
Car driver/passenger: 28%
Other: 1%

The numbers are similar (more TTC, less GO Train) in Wards 27 and 20, which border the business district.

There's no doubt that driving into downtown during rush hour is a pain, but if there is concern about commuters having a hard time getting downtown to work, it would benefit far more people -- and increase the overall capacity of the transportation network much more -- if the tunnel money was spent, instead, on enhancing rapid transit options to the downtown.