The following paper will explore the theories and policies behind both automobile use and bicycle use. The paper will examine the underlying theories of what makes drivers choose to drive, while also shedding light on what implements are able to compel people to ride bicycles. In the second part of the paper, policies from around the world will be examined in contrast to Toronto’s, helping us to see if Toronto is headed down the right road in its professed desire to decrease automobile use and promote active transport for it citizens (Strategic Plan, 2013).
Health care costs attributed to inactivity and obesity have skyrocketed in the GTHA, with estimates placing the amount as high as $4 billion per year (TPH, 2013). Active transport has been cited as a means to achieve the daily exercise required in combating the plethora of diseases that inactivity causes, as well as lowering the risks of obesity (TPH, 2013). On the opposite end, car use has been associated with increased levels of obesity, as well as contributing to air pollution, which has been estimated in causing upwards of $2 billion dollars a year to the GTHA in health care costs (TPH, 2013). While exercise is the key to avoiding these diseases caused from inactivity, studies have found that individuals have a much better chance of sticking to a daily exercise routine when it is incorporated into active transportation (Cole, Burke, Leslie, Donald & Owen, 2010).
To reduce the use of automobiles and promote active transport there are a number of proposed solutions, such as building more compact, mixed-use developments, or increasing public transit coverage. Both of these efforts are expensive or nearly impossible to implement depending on the specific area in question. Promoting bicycling is a much cheaper and easier method to filling the role currently held by the automobile. Bicycling can work with existing public transit to bring travelers the last mile of their journeys, or for others it can provide the only means of transport necessary for entire trips. Car use is linked with bicycle use in two ways. Studies have found that many potential cyclists are deterred because of car traffic on roads (Parkin, Wardman & Page, 2008). People have also shown to be much less likely to ride bicycles once a car has been purchased, a trend that has been increasing in North America since 2001 (Pucher, Buehler & Seinen, 2011). As well, considering transit users have been shown to use various forms of active transport, such as bicycling, and considering that people in Toronto area are clearly more comfortable using public transit than bicycling, it would seem that the most plausible solution to reduced car use and increased bicycle use would be to come up with deterrents to car use that would at the same time promote the adoption of public transit in its place. Then by providing more attractions to bicycling, there would be fewer drivers on the road, as well as transit users in need of vehicles to take them the last mile of their journeys.
Theories For Automobile Use
To begin with people will often misjudge the cost of using owning an automobile as the costs associated with this are spread out over the duration of ownership in a variety of areas such as upkeep, parking, and fuel consumption (Innocenti, Lattarulo & Pazienza, 2012). Once a car is purchased, it rapidly becomes a necessity and the feeling is reinforced over time (Cullinane and Cullinane, 2003).
It appears that people over time will increasingly be unable to process travel information regarding their transit options for a given trip due to travel mode patterns setting in and biasing their judgment (Innocenti, Lattarulo & Pazienza, 2012). At this point travel habits often take over and guide all decisions in subsequent trips (Innocenti, Lattarulo & Pazienza, 2012). Moreover, other studies have shown that many drivers actually enjoy the time spent in their vehicles (Poudenx, 2008), which biases them further from being able to rationally consider the best travel options available to them (Innocenti, Lattarulo & Pazienza, 2012).
With these entrenched preferences built up over time for automobiles, other opinions are consequently formed for other modes of transportation. Studies conducted by Beira & Sarsfield Cabral (2007) found that people who are not familiar with using transit typically hold negative opinions of such services, and so choose to drive over taking transit as they consider it a far superior option. This has led to automobile drivers forming misconceptions about their actual travel times when using their vehicles, and further attribute much longer travel times for public transit under false perceptions of the extent of time such users waste as they wait for buses to arrive, as drivers often assume that public transit is unreliable (Van Exel and Rietveld, 2009).
When drivers actually do try using public transit, their negative opinions and false assumptions are laid to rest; research by Outwater, Spitz, Lobb, Campbell, Sana, Pendyala & Woodford (2011) has revealed that once a former automobile user becomes comfortable and accustomed to the schedule and routine of using public transit, many would consider switching travel modes. The added relaxation of not having to navigate a vehicle through traffic was further cited as a benefit that was revealed to former drivers once they were able to adjust to using public transit (Outwater et. al., 2011).
The trouble it seems is persuading drivers to actually try using public transit, as studies have shown that potential transit users will likely only search out information regarding public transit, such as schedules and route locations, if they are already willing to use public transit (Farag & Lyons, 2010). As such, it seems clear that incentives or disincentives are needed to push drivers out of their cars to try out transit, as they are unlikely to do so on their own volition.
Further exacerbating the modal preference for the automobile is the workplace. Studies by Van Exel and Rietveld (2009) reveal that when commuters are subsidized by their employers they are much more likely to only consider using an automobile for their travels, which highlights the importance that employers have in the transit mode choice of their employees. This further suggests that perhaps local policy makers should consider offering incentives for companies to promote public transit use with their travel subsidies (Van Exel and Rietveld, 2009).
Lastly, the modal choice of automobiles is of course greatly effected by having a place to park once you've arrived at your destination; a study by Kenworthy & Laube (1996) found that creating parking spaces in cities increases car use while at the same time reducing the ridership levels for public transit.
While studies have shown that increasing fuel prices has the effect of switching a relatively small amount of drivers into transit users (Haire & Machemehl, 2007), artificially raising fuel costs through taxes has proved to be a very politically contentious issue for North American governments.
Theories For Bicycle Use
While automobile use has been previously cited as having increasingly habitual tendencies, so too does active transport. Studies have revealed that commuters who use public transit, walk, or bicycle are much more likely to also choose active transport for other activities such as dining out, grocery/miscellaneous shopping, and other such utilitarian purposes (Lachapelle & Noland, 2012). This is great news for people who already bicycle, however the problem that remains is how to get more people out riding their bikes.
People seem to be much more willing to bike if they have their own designated lanes to ride on as studies have found that after controlling for multiple variables, increases in cycling are realized as the amount of bike lanes/paths are increased (Pucher, Buehler & Seinen, 2011). Experiences from London have shown that adding bike lanes throughout the city has decreased the number of cycling accidents while simultaneously encouraging 58% more people to cycle in the 3.5 years since the bike lanes were installed (Pucher, Dill & Handy, 2010).
But bike lanes/paths are only the beginning as studies by Rietveld & Daniel (2004) have found that bicycling is made even more attractive as a transit mode if direct routes with fewer barriers to continual travel are created, as reduced travel time has been indicated as a determinant of whether cycling would be considered among the options available. The placement and condtion of these lanes/paths are also important as studies by Parkin, Wardman & Page (2008) have found that degraded roads containing potholes or other obstructions, as well as roads that carry a high volume of automobile traffic, are both deterrents to bicycling activity.
While bicycle lanes/paths are key to encouraging cyclists out onto the roads, intersections can often pose great risks for accidents to occur between automobiles and cyclists, thus discouraging people from cycling. Change is on the way it appears, as cities in Europe over the past few years have been implementing bike specific traffic lights. One study by Korve and Niemeier (as cited in Pucher, Dill & Handy, 2010) found that by installing traffic signal phases for bicyclists, the intersection in question went from having 10 auto-bicycle collisions in the prior 35 months to having none 35 months later.
Another area that needs to be considered in attracting potential cyclists is how to accommodate them once they’ve arrived at their destinations. If cycling is to become a serious competitor for the automobile, the commute into work needs to be addressed, which will likely be deterred if someone is to become drenched in sweat and if there is no place to store their bikes away from the elements in case of changing weather conditions throughout the workday. These needs have been noticed as studies have found that constructing showers and indoor bike parking increases the number of cyclists in an area (Wardman, Tight & Page, 2007).
Aside from infrastructure, increasing the actual amount of available bicycles is of great importance to further reduce the deterrents to its uptake. Studies have found that bike-sharing programs have increased the number of cyclists in the cities in which they exist (Pucher, Buehler & Seinen, 2011).
Once these aforementioned implementations have been created there is good reason to believe that bicycling will slowly propel itself into a greater and greater mode share once a certain threshold is passed in the number of cyclists on the roads. There have been correlations shown in cities between the higher bike use and higher safety for bicyclists, which has been interpreted as a ‘safety in numbers’ scenario; increases in the amount of cyclists on the road creates greater safety for them (likely from motorists becoming more familiar with watching out for them as they drive), and as the streets become safer for cyclists it attracts more people to engage in this mode of travel (Pucher, Buehler & Seinen, 2011).
Policies For Automobile Use
Overall, Europe has made driving less attractive than Canada by increasing the costs of driving. This has resulted in gasoline prices to be nearly twice the amount compared with Canada, with very high fuel taxes responsible for nearly all of the difference (Pucher & Buehler, 2006). As well, licensing, vehicle registration, and vehicle purchase taxes are all priced much higher as well. Parking is also much less in abundance in European cities than in Canadian cities (Pucher & Buehler, 2006).
Germany has been at the forefront in making private automobiles less attractive by greatly increasing their costs. Drivers in Germany pay 2.5 times the actual cost of roadways (Buehler & Pucher, 2012) compared with drivers in Ontario who have been estimated as paying about equal to the costs incurred (Babbage, 2013). Germany goes even further to diminish the role of the automobile where its cities are concerned, by establishing car free zones, segregating most roadways to the outer boundaries, and by reducing parking spots while increasing prices charged (Buehler & Pucher, 2012).
Asian cities have also made substantial efforts to inhibit the use of automobiles. Singapore instituted a number of measures to curb automobile use beginning in the 1970s, which included costly licenses to drive in the city, high taxes on automobile purchases, high parking charges, registration fees, and expensive import duties (Poudenx, 2008). While these policies did bring reductions in rush hour traffic by as much as 45%, and further reduced the number of accidents by 25%, on top of providing funds for an expansive public transit network built in 1987, car demand continually went up (Poudenx, 2008). In 1990 the right to buy a car was turned into an auction, with a limited number of certificates made available each year (Poudenx, 2008). This eventually had the effect of pricing a Toyota Corolla at US$64 900, which only a third of the population could afford (Poudenx, 2008). Further, electronic road tolls were introduced in 1997, and together these policies helped to reduce traffic on roads by 40% and sped up public transit vehicles by 16% (Poudenx, 2008).
Back in Canada, such radical policies against automobile use seem highly unlikely, despite much rhetoric tossed about by local administrations. Although in Toronto’s official plan it clearly states that reducing the dependency of car use by implementing Travel Demand Management measures is a sought after goal (Official Plan, 2010), it seems difficult to see just how much has actually been done to accomplish this, as increasing the cost of driving in Toronto has been proven to be quite difficult. One example being increasing fuel taxes, which has proven to be politically unpalatable as recently Ontario’s Premiere Kathleen Wynne has removed this option that was posed as a recommendation among many to help fund the upcoming Big Move transportation plan that has yet to take root (Morrow, 2014). As well, in 2010 just after the new mayor Rob Ford took office, Toronto’s vehicle registration tax was repealed (Doolittle, 2010).
Another way of deterring automobile use is to decrease the amount of parking available to vehicles, as ample parking in cities leads to more car use, a point mentioned earlier in this paper. Some US cities have been engaging in this method. In Portland, Oregon, for example, local officials have removed all parking requirements for any sites within 500 feet of public transit that has a minimum of 20-minute rush hour service (Engel-Yan & Passmore, 2010). Even automobile-dependent Los Angeles has instituted reductions in its minimum parking requirements allowing just 0.5 spots per affordable housing unit, and further reductions if sites are within 1, 500 feet of rapid transit routes (Engel-Yan & Passmore, 2010). For decades now, Toronto has been subsidizing the costs of parking with the plethora of cheap municipally-owned Green P parking spaces that offer below-market rates, as well as upholding the current by-law that restricts all on street parking spaces to no more than $3.50 per hour (McGrath, 2011). However, there has been some positive change as of late to Toronto’s parking policies. In 2013 City Council altered some of the by-laws surrounding the levels of required parking for buildings by lowering the minimums in some key areas (Very, 2013). One area is that of grocery stores, retail, and restaurants of sizes smaller than 200 square meters no longer require any mandatory parking spaces (Very, 2013). Under the old by-law this same size spaced would have required 21 parking spots, so this would appear to be of significance in Toronto’s push to relinquish cars from the city (Very, 2013).
Private parties have also been at work in reducing the amount of parking offered in Toronto as developers over the past few years have been starting a new trend in building condominiums without parking spaces, or in other cases offering significantly fewer spots (Mills, 2013). City by-laws require certain amounts of parking for such structures; developers have just been choosing to ignore such policies, taking their chances that the city will be persuaded later, and many it seems have had success thus far (Mills, 2013). Developers often cite lack of car ownership and locations well served by transit, but residents of the areas are protesting these decisions, complaining that the precious few parking spots on their streets will be used instead, causing them to have to park further away (Mills, 2013).
Lastly, there has even been hope of outright automobile bans in certain parts of Toronto. The idea of prohibiting all vehicles from King Street during rush hours has been entertained by TTC officials and endorsed by various city council members (Alcoba, 2013). A pilot of the proposed ban during the Pan Am games in 2015 has been suggested by councilor and TTC chair Karen Stintz, but whether this will actually happen is doubtful considering that there actually already exists a ban on portions of King Street, east of Jarvis and west of Spadina, during rush hours, although police have chosen not to enforce the policy (Alcoba, 2013).
Policies For Bicycle Use
In Canada, unlike Europe or the US, no federal level funding is made available for the creation of cycling infrastructure (Pucher, Buehler & Seinen, 2011). Federal funding has been key for many European countries to establish their extensive cycling infrastructure. From 1980 to 2000, Germany spent over a billion euros doubling bikeways along its highway system, and since then has earmarked around 2 billion euros a year from what it collects in fuel taxes to match 70-85% of local bicycling infrastructure initiatives throughout the country (Pucher & Buehler, 2008). Germany’s cycling infrastructure expenditures have helped to vastly increase the lengths of their cities bike lanes/paths. Berlin, a city with approximately 50% more people and land, but containing roughly the same proportions in population density as Toronto, has constructed the times more bicycle paths/lanes than Toronto (Pucher & Buehler, 2008). While Toronto has roughly 11 km of bike paths/lanes per 100,000 people (Pucher, Buehler & Seinen, 2011), the German city Muenster has 13 times this amount at 115 km per 100,000 citizens, despite that its ¼ the density of Toronto (Pucher & Buehler, 2008). The Netherlands have also been busy as they doubled their bicycling lanes/paths from 9282 km in 1978 to 18 948 km by 1996 (Pucher & Buehler, 2008). European cities such as Copenhagen and Amsterdam have created approximately 400 km each of completely separated bike lanes/paths, despite their much smaller populations of 504 000 and 735 000 respectively (Pucher & Buehler, 2008), compared with Toronto’s much larger population of 2,615,060 with only 281 km (Pucher, Buehler & Seinen, 2011). These vastly superior bicycling networks have helped these cities to climb to the high bike modal shares they now command: 27% in Amsterdam, 29% in Copenhagen, 10% in Berlin, 27% in Munster (Pucher & Buehler, 2008), compared with only 0.8% in Toronto (Pucher & Buehler, 2006). Car ownership differences between these European cities and Toronto are not to account for these differences, as they are all quite similar: there are roughly 457 cars per 1000 in the GTA (Wong, 2004), 413 for Amsterdam (City of Vienna, 2013), 394 for Copenhagen (Statistical Yearbook, 2012), 576 for Munster, and 360 for Berlin (Scheiner, 2012). Nor are safety levels between these two countries as Canada actually has slightly less fatalities per 100 million km cycled than Germany does - 2.39 vs. 2.43 (Pucher & Buehler, 2006). Even within North America Toronto has been shown to be slow in its creation of bike lanes/paths. Chicago, a city that is nearly identical in population, size, and density, built 54 kilometers in 2013, while during this same period Toronto was bale to construct just 2.4 kilometers (Kolb, 2014)
As was mentioned earlier, traffic calming has been shown to encourage cycling activity. While Toronto does have a few traffic-calmed neighbourhoods, Vancouver has many more, and both cities greatly trail Europe in their adoption (Pucher, Buehler & Seinen, 2011).
Toronto has, however, made significant headway in at least one aspect to promoting bicycling in its city, namely providing plenty of parking through its installations of nearly 15,000 bike posts scattered throughout the city (with an additional 1000 or so per year), as well as installing bike parking infrastructure at most of its railway stations (Pucher & Buehler, 2006). Further to Toronto’s credit, the city has created a cycling promotion initiative called the Cycling Ambassador outreach program, which teaches skills courses and bicycle safety by expert cyclists, and some schools offer optional training on bicycle safety, though it is limited in its scope (Pucher & Buehler, 2006). While this is definitely a start, it is still not as good as many countries in Europe, such as in Germany, The Netherlands and Denmark, who all provide their children extensive bicycle training as part of their school’s curriculums before they reach grade 4 (Pucher & Buehler, 2008). All of these implements have no doubt helped these European countries to achieve very high percentages of bicyclists, as Germany has 10%, The Netherlands 27%, Denmark 18%, and Canada a mere 2% (Pucher & Buehler, 2008). Comparisons between these European countries and Canada are strengthened as they all have average incomes roughly equivalent to each other (OECD, 2012), along with population densities in the European countries mentioned being far lower than those found in the GTHA. These European countries are further made comparable as their levels of car ownership are roughly equivalent (World Bank, 2013), as Denmark has 480 cars per 1000 inhabitants, Germany 572, The Netherlands 527, while the GTA only has around 457 (Wong, 2004).
While Toronto may be lacking in its amount of bike lanes/paths, it has been active in increasing the number of bicycles available for its citizens. Toronto’s bike sharing program, named Bixi, came to the city in 2011, but has had difficulties paying off its loan it had received from the city since it began (Bowerman, 2013). Toronto city council has thankfully voted to save the company by paying off its remaining debt, and is now looking into expanding the program as many had cited the low number of bikes (1000) and centrally located stations as limiting the potential success of the program (Bowerman, 2013).
Politics have played a substantial role in Toronto’s adoption of bicycle friendly policies, as well as their timelines. Toronto’s mayor Rob Ford and his brother councilor Doug Ford have voiced their opinion numerous times of their love of the automobile. Recently they even went so far as to insult Toronto’s medical officer of health, Dr. David McKeown, after he made recommendations of reducing speed limits throughout Toronto (Warzecha, 2012). The Chief Coroner of Ontario further trumpeted these same recommendations as he conducted a study that found by reducing speed limits from 50 km/h to 30 km/h, mortality rates from crashes can be reduced by 80% (Kolb, 2014).
Since mayor Rob Ford has come into office he has removed bike lanes from Jarvis Street, Birchmount Road, and Pharmacy Avenue, while upgrading the Sherbourne lanes into separated tracks (Kolb, 2014). However, aside from removing lanes, the city has also been slow to create any new ones. Back in 2011 Toronto’s city councilors voted to install bike lanes on Bloor Street East, from Sherbourne Street to Broadview Avenue, as well as on Wellesley Street, Harbord Street, Hoskins Avenue, with further studies to commence as to the feasibility of separated lanes on Richmond Street and Adelaide Street. None of this has even begun (Kuitenbrouwer, 2013).
One of the most sought after streets to install a bike lane has been on Bloor Street. City council has debated for years on what to do about this street, and in 2011 put on hold a study of what the impact of bike lanes would do to the street until further notice (Dale, 2013). But now it seems the council members are ready to look at the project once again (Dale, 2013), although opposition exists between committee chair Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong and Councillor Adam Vaughan, who oppose each other’s bike lane locations – Vaughan has voiced concern over the creation of them in his ward (Kuitenbrouwer, 2011), and Minnan-Wong doesn't think bike lanes belong on Bloor Street (Dale, 2013).
Aside from city council’s mood shifts, there does appear to be hope for Toronto’s cyclists. Recently Toronto acquired Stephen Buckley as the new general manager of Transportation Services, who has a history of building bicycling infrastructure with his experiences in Philadelphia, where he constructed 250 miles of trails and doubled the level of bicyclists while halving the traffic accidents involving riders (Kuitenbrouwer, 2013). Philadelphia achieved these dramatic results in part by reducing speed limits throughout the city, adding 2500 bike posts (1500 are metered), and by redesigning streets into “complete streets”, where all users are taken into account and safety is a priority (Buckley, 2013). Buckley says that the reason his department is behind on constructing more of the proposed bicycling lanes is due to a shortage of employees, where currently only 1% of staff is assigned to bicycling infrastructure (Kuitenbrouwer, 2013).
Conclusion
As we have seen, though Toronto deserves praise for some of its bicycle infrastructure initiatives, it clearly could benefit from the type of federal funding that has helped many European cities to grow their bicycling networks. Politics as well seem to be a great deterrent in Toronto’s bicycle lane extensions. As to automobile deterrence, it would appear that with Toronto’s mayor and his professed love for the car it may be a long while yet before anything substantial is done that would change peoples travel behavior. As has been previously revealed, the determinants to car use and the behavior and attitudes of drivers are both greatly ingrained and beyond logic, which should inform future policies if any real change is to be witnessed. It would seem that what is needed to switch car users to transit riders are the creation of incentives to give transit a try, and it would also appear that employers could be of valuable help to accomplishing this. Though Toronto has shown some positive change in its efforts to reduce car parking in the city, there is much room for further improvements. Beyond all else, there appears to be a lack of political will to see through the changes Toronto officials claim to propose. Lastly, while this paper’s focus was on the city of Toronto, it seems that further focus should be placed upon the creation of bicycle lanes in suburban locales within the GTHA that lead to rapid transit, for example to GO train stations, which are already well equipped with bicycle parking. The trouble it seems is reaching these stations by bicycle, through streets clearly made for driving.
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