299 bloor call control.
Senior Member
Western urban dwellers love their cars
REBECCA DUBE
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
January 23, 2008 at 11:15 AM EST
City living doesn't mean a car-free existence - in fact, 69 per cent of people living in Canada's largest cities travel everywhere by car, according to a Statistics Canada survey released yesterday that details urban driving habits.
Most likely to buckle up are baby-boomer men in Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg, while Montreal women aged 18 to 24 are least likely to drive downtown.
But the biggest predictor of your driving habits is not who you are, but in what kind of neighbourhood you live.
"The way our cities are built has a huge impact on our dependency on cars," says Martin Turcotte, the study's author and a social-science researcher with Statscan.
Canadians increasingly depend on cars, despite growing concerns about pollution from auto emissions and even though we're steadily congregating in cities with public transit.
The proportion of adults who travel exclusively by car increased from 68 per cent in 1992 to 74 per cent in 2005, according to Statscan. Meanwhile, the proportion of Canadians who cycled or walked at least one trip a day fell to 19 per cent from 26 per cent during the same period.
The aging of the population may be partly to blame, Mr. Turcotte says, but the type of neighbourhood influences driving and walking decisions even more strongly than creaky knees. More people want to live in cities, but most new houses are built in low-density neighbourhoods far from the city centre, where people live a more suburban and car-dependent lifestyle.
"Many neighbourhoods are designed in such a way there's no other possibility than travelling with your car," Mr. Turcotte says.
Car culture influences everything from zoning rulings to the decision many cities make to plow snow off streets before they clear the sidewalks, says Preston Schiller, a professor with Queen's University's school of urban and regional planning.
"If we want to take this issue seriously, we need to start with feet first; we need to make communities more walkable," Dr. Schiller says. "You can't just plop down a high-rise condo out in the middle of nowhere and expect miracles to happen."
Mr. Turcotte found a huge difference in the composition of urban neighbourhoods across Canada. In Montreal, for instance, 93 per cent of inner-city neighbourhoods are high-density, defined as mostly multifamily homes and apartment buildings rather than detached single-family houses. By contrast, only 30 per cent of Calgary's downtown housing is high-density.
The different types of housing translate directly into different ways of travelling, Mr. Turcotte says. Only 29 per cent of downtown Montreal residents made all their trips by car, compared with 66 per cent of Calgary's inner-city dwellers.
Statscan looked at driving patterns gleaned from the 2005 general social survey, which asked Canadians about the trips they made on one particular day. Trips were defined as travel with a practical purpose - cycling or walking for exercise or pleasure did not count.
REBECCA DUBE
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
January 23, 2008 at 11:15 AM EST
City living doesn't mean a car-free existence - in fact, 69 per cent of people living in Canada's largest cities travel everywhere by car, according to a Statistics Canada survey released yesterday that details urban driving habits.
Most likely to buckle up are baby-boomer men in Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg, while Montreal women aged 18 to 24 are least likely to drive downtown.
But the biggest predictor of your driving habits is not who you are, but in what kind of neighbourhood you live.
"The way our cities are built has a huge impact on our dependency on cars," says Martin Turcotte, the study's author and a social-science researcher with Statscan.
Canadians increasingly depend on cars, despite growing concerns about pollution from auto emissions and even though we're steadily congregating in cities with public transit.
The proportion of adults who travel exclusively by car increased from 68 per cent in 1992 to 74 per cent in 2005, according to Statscan. Meanwhile, the proportion of Canadians who cycled or walked at least one trip a day fell to 19 per cent from 26 per cent during the same period.
The aging of the population may be partly to blame, Mr. Turcotte says, but the type of neighbourhood influences driving and walking decisions even more strongly than creaky knees. More people want to live in cities, but most new houses are built in low-density neighbourhoods far from the city centre, where people live a more suburban and car-dependent lifestyle.
"Many neighbourhoods are designed in such a way there's no other possibility than travelling with your car," Mr. Turcotte says.
Car culture influences everything from zoning rulings to the decision many cities make to plow snow off streets before they clear the sidewalks, says Preston Schiller, a professor with Queen's University's school of urban and regional planning.
"If we want to take this issue seriously, we need to start with feet first; we need to make communities more walkable," Dr. Schiller says. "You can't just plop down a high-rise condo out in the middle of nowhere and expect miracles to happen."
Mr. Turcotte found a huge difference in the composition of urban neighbourhoods across Canada. In Montreal, for instance, 93 per cent of inner-city neighbourhoods are high-density, defined as mostly multifamily homes and apartment buildings rather than detached single-family houses. By contrast, only 30 per cent of Calgary's downtown housing is high-density.
The different types of housing translate directly into different ways of travelling, Mr. Turcotte says. Only 29 per cent of downtown Montreal residents made all their trips by car, compared with 66 per cent of Calgary's inner-city dwellers.
Statscan looked at driving patterns gleaned from the 2005 general social survey, which asked Canadians about the trips they made on one particular day. Trips were defined as travel with a practical purpose - cycling or walking for exercise or pleasure did not count.
