However some people are feeling a little differently about it
Meanwhile Metrolinx is doing little to make alternative modes of travel more appealing.
GO Transit is a rare example of a public transit operator that has somehow managed to
perpetuate urban sprawl, rather than reduce it. Every one of these spots just represents one more person that can now live in a sprawling suburb, clogging up our roads daily. It's totally anthietical to the model used by Toronto and the TTC, where damn near every single subway rider either walks, bikes or uses the TTC's incredibly robust bus network to access the TTC's rapid transit network. You'd be hard pressed to find any suburban areas in North America with a better transit network than Toronto's inner suburbs. Totally different story in the 905 though.
Sometimes I question if these parking spaces have done more harm than good. With our highways at capacity, if these parking spaces never existed, would we have seen denser development around these GO Stations, allowing people to conveniently walk, bike or bus to the GO train? Would the 905 outer suburbs more resemble the 416 inner suburbs, rather than being the sprawling, inefficient mess they are now? Would more people have chosen to locate in North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough, where public transit is more robust?
The inability of the provincial government to get more than a tiny fraction of GO commuters to GO stations via public transit is a huge public policy failure. And the 905 suburbs are laid out so inefficiently that I don't know that the problem of low transit ridership to GO stations ever can be corrected. At this point I'm just hoping that a capping the number of GO parking spaces will force denser development around GO stations, as the people will no longer have the option of driving to the GO stations. And hopefully more of the GTA's growth continues to be concentrated on the 416 suburbs, where public transit is more effective
Charging for parking is a good move. This should've happened decades ago