Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford
Well, yeah. Households in multifamily are more likely to need public transit.
But they're not living in multifamily due to public transit. That doesn't make much sense. The most transit-rich corridor in Canada (Yonge) has tons of SFH right on the subway, while there are giant multifamily complexes in exurban Toronto, with relatively poor transit.
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People definitely value good transit access in Toronto, even in the suburbs. Transit is an important part of the electoral platform for most politicians, even for conservative politicians running for office in suburban municipalities.
The majority of people commuting to downtown Toronto from what you seem to call the "exurbs" take transit (mostly GO train), at around 80%. Downtown Toronto is where most of the growth in well paying jobs is happening. People definitely value living near transit that provides good access to those downtown jobs.
Out of the 248 highrises under construction in the Toronto area, 145 are in Old Toronto, mostly in downtown, with the midtown areas near the Yonge Subway being the second largest node.
I think the connection is a bit loose. People aren't primarily opting to live in a condo in Mississauga instead of a SFH because the condo has better access to transit. Access to jobs is definitely a factor though, and that's mostly focused on access to downtown Toronto with access to the Hwy 404 employment corridor and Mississauga job centres being secondary drivers. Downtown Toronto's large number of jobs is definitely strongly tied to the fact that much of the metro area has good transit access to it.
I'd also say that if you are going to live in a condo in Toronto, and you can't afford downtown, there's still a preference for condos in areas that have both good transit access to downtown, and good transit/highway (yeah, maybe mostly highway) access to the suburban job centres. There is quite a lot of condo development around commuter rail stations (and the Vaughan subway station), and much of the rest is around shopping mall bus terminals in suburban areas relatively close to the suburban job centres, and to the suburban GO stations. I would not expect much condo development (esp highrise) in East Gwilimbury, Castlemore or northern Whitby.