Opinion: What kind of city does Toronto want to be?

Jennifer Keesmaat is chief executive of Collecdev-Markee, a member of the National Taskforce on Housing and Climate, and a former chief planner of the City of Toronto.

The City of Toronto finds itself at a crossroads – but the issues at play go far beyond bike lanes or traffic congestion.

For decades, a debate has been simmering about the very essence of Canada’s biggest city: who does Toronto serve, and what kind of city can it become? And at the heart of this debate lies a fundamental clash of visions on urban mobility – and ultimately, the city’s very purpose.

That conversation began in earnest in the 1950s, a time when entire neighbourhoods in cities across the world were razed to make way for highways and expressways. Cities faced a choice: would they follow Robert Moses’s vision, prioritizing cars, or Jane Jacobs’s vision, designing cities for people?

In most places, the Moses vision prevailed, reshaping streets to be faster and wider while communities bore the cost. In New York, the Cross Bronx Expressway displaced more than 60,000 residents, tearing apart vibrant working-class neighbourhoods and leaving behind decades of economic and social decline. In San Francisco, the Embarcadero Freeway severed the city’s connection to its waterfront, stifling local businesses and diminishing the area’s vitality until its removal decades later. And, of course, the proposed Spadina Expressway threatened to bulldoze culturally rich areas in Toronto like Kensington Market before public outcry stopped it.

City Space podcast: Was the Spadina Expressway a crisis averted, or a missed opportunity?

Today, with the benefit of hindsight, cities around the world recognize that prioritizing cars over people doesn’t create economic prosperity, health or happiness; instead, it leads to congestion, pollution, long commutes, induced demand and alienation. The vision of Jane Jacobs has clearly triumphed, standing the test of time in the cities where her approach was followed: places where expressways were dismantled, streets were narrowed and cycling infrastructure was expanded to support walkable, thriving local economies.

Over the decades, Toronto has largely chosen the Jacobs vision, prioritizing places for people, local main streets where it is possible to shop close to home, and communities where people know their neighbours. It’s a vision that strengthens local economies, with the Bloor Street BIA finding that cyclists spend four times more per month at local businesses than drivers do. And unlike in car-centric cities – and all the noise, pollution and potential danger that comes with them – infrastructure and maintenance costs are lower, public health is improved and demand drives investment in affordable, sustainable transit. At one time, Canadian conservatives understood this, too: it was Progressive Conservative premier Bill Davis who famously halted the construction of the Spadina Expressway in 1971, thus protecting the city’s heart from becoming a car-centric wasteland.

Over that time, Torontonians have themselves made clear that they want a city where people live, work, shop, learn and raise families in connected neighbourhoods. Data from Toronto Transportation Services shows a significant increase in cyclists on downtown routes, particularly after protected bike lanes were built; bike Share Toronto recorded more than 5.7 million trips in 2023; and data point to the fact that, in downtown neighbourhoods, more than 25 per cent of residents choose cycling as their primary mode of transport, a number that has doubled over the past decade. Those numbers show that bike lanes aren’t a trend or a fringe concern. And Torontonians have embraced density and rethought zoning, too: In the city’s 2023 mayoral election, voters overwhelmingly supported Olivia Chow, who is pro-density and pro-cycling, while rejecting anti-bike lane candidates who could barely secure 15 per cent of the vote.

The people of Toronto have spoken: they want their city to be livable, walkable and sustainable. So why do Ontario’s leaders continue to cling to car-centric policies, interfering with the trajectory that Toronto had been on for decades?

It’s rooted in two conflicting visions of Toronto. One envisions Toronto as a place where people have the freedom to walk, bike, take transit or drive when necessary, and where roads are reserved for trips that can’t be made in other ways, freeing them up for tradespeople and delivery workers, among others, who need to drive. The other vision sees Toronto as a place to drive through – a view that privileges convenience for the few, many of whom live outside the city but travel in for work or pleasure, at the cost of the many who call this city home.

This perspective, steeped in outdated ideas such as prioritizing the rapid movement of vehicles over the safety of pedestrians and cyclists or assuming that wider roads solve congestion problems, disregards the reality that the car-centric view is unsustainable. Toronto’s population is continuing to grow and to evolve as a dense, walkable urban centre. As other large cities have discovered before us, we simply cannot add more cars as we add more people – there’s only so much physical space.

This fundamental schism in urban visions has real consequences. Walkable and bike-friendly cities such as Amsterdam, London, Copenhagen and Paris are attracting talent, investment and tourism, particularly among young people, some of whom are choosing these cities because they don’t need to own a car. As a result, they’ve become hubs of innovation, and thus places where quality of life drives economic growth. Toronto has the opportunity to join their ranks by committing to sustainability and livability – but only if it aligns its infrastructure with the needs and values of the people who live here.

That means building out both regional and local transit networks, rather than constructing more roads like Highway 413, which The Globe’s editorial board has called a “sprawl accelerator” and will only worsen congestion, as we know from experience with the 400-series highways. In contrast, affordable, frequent and efficient transit would be transformative for regional commuters, allowing them to arrive in the heart of the city, where they can walk, cycle and take transit for the last leg of their commutes, or to explore the richness Toronto offers. Unfortunately, Ontario lags far behind in embracing high-speed, high-quality regional transit, with little provincial progress on this front over the past 20 years. Service levels remain substandard, and no new lines have been operationalized even though they were announced decades ago.

In every great city around the world, success is underpinned by a robust regional transit network that seamlessly connects surrounding areas to the urban core. Ontario, by contrast, suffers from a fragmented and underdeveloped system, leaving Toronto, as the province’s economic hub city, to bear the brunt of unchecked sprawl and car dependency. The result is an urban centre choked by congestion, wrought by an overreliance on cars fuelled by poorly conceived infrastructure policies.

This debate, then, isn’t just about bike lanes; it’s about the very identity and future of Toronto. Do we want a city that’s designed for people and fosters vibrant communities and sustainable mobility, or one overwhelmed by cars?

The decisions Ontario makes today will define Toronto’s livability for generations. Residents of cities should not shoulder the consequences of regional policies that prioritize sprawl over sustainable urban planning. While the manufactured crisis over bike lanes may serve as a convenient political distraction – drawing attention away from the $12-billion unused LRT tunnel, for instance – it perpetuates the illusion that accommodating more cars in the city is feasible. When suburban drivers are set up for frustration – driving into a city where the physical space simply cannot accommodate additional vehicles – it will prove to be a short-sighted narrative that will have long-term consequences.

Rather than perpetuating this unsustainable cycle by widening highways or building new ones, Ontario’s leaders must address the regional transportation shortcomings that are at the heart of Toronto’s challenges. This would not only provide more efficient, car-free access to Toronto, but also create opportunities for growth and vitality in other regional centres across the province – areas that are also congested with cars. By investing in high-quality, accessible transit solutions and advancing urban mobility systems that emphasize walking, cycling and public transit, Ontario can help preserve Toronto as a city for people.

Toronto is a great place to live. But our bike lanes are not the problem. The cars are.