How the highway-dependency of Canadian cities can be seen today
And why mixed-use zoning doesn’t always make sense in North American cities and suburbs.
A few weeks ago when I was aimlessly panning through Apple Maps, I noticed how within much of the Greater Toronto Area, there were long strips of pale white that surrounded major highways. The most observable case of this phenomenon can be seen alongside the 403 and QEW that passes through the middle of Burlington and Oakville.
As I began to notice these forms of zoning in the GTA, I started observing how many other cities follow this very same format. When zooming in, I noticed how these are almost always composed of office parks, industrial and shipping buildings, and oftentimes leisure and shopping as well.
Why is this the case? I wondered.
As I thought and researched more about this situation, I noticed how this was due to car dependency in North America and the importance of highways in connecting these types of buildings.
Offices
With suburban sprawl present in many Canadian (and American) cities, many people do not work close to home and resultantly may need to commute via car over long distances. With highways serving this exact purpose of long commutes, this results in the extensive use of these massive freeways. According to Statistics Canada, more than 800k in 2016 commute at least 60 minutes to work each day. With 17.2 million employed people in Canada in May of 2016 (also sourced from Statistics Canada), this accounts for a pretty large proportion of the population. As a result, if offices are built near highways, this would be very convenient for distant commuters to access these office spaces. If they had been tucked away into the corners of suburban neighborhoods, this would not only produce an extensive amount of externally-sourced traffic, but would also involve an even longer commute time.
Industrial
With industrial buildings with the purpose of shipping and transportation, it should be pretty obvious why building them near highways is crucial. Large amounts of trucks need to move to and from these buildings to distant towns, provinces, or even countries. Ensuring that they are nearby highways will not only ensure they do not disturb the calmness of suburbs, but also to ensure easy transport distances to highways
Leisure and shopping
Additionally, leisure and entertainment buildings can often exist in these zones, especially if they are particularly unique options like trampoline parks. This is due to, again, people potentially needing to travel long distances to arrive at these places. Placing these leisure buildings near highways can even be a key marketing strategy! Who would want to spend gruesome time searching for the location when you can arrive at your destination immediately off highways?
Now, why exactly do I believe this makes sense in North American contexts, and why should we learn to appreciate (or at least tolerate) the use of single-use zoning?
There are many factors why this spread-out, segregated zoning design makes sense here in Canada. The factor that I will mainly be analyzing is the perception and understanding of cities and daily lifestyles. With our everyday lives, people are often willing to trade some additional time and gas money for shopping or working at a more desired location that is further from home. Even if a local Food Basics was to be built near someone’s home, many may still be willing to travel the extra kilometer or two to a Whole Foods.
The amount of sprawl seen in Canada doesn’t help this case either, with large open distances between major destination points. However, many people enjoy the more isolated, grouped environments in Canada, and enjoy living in calm suburbs away from the hustle and bustle of offices and leisure. You can imagine the amount of backlash that would be received if we started building office parks and nightlife near tranquil neighborhoods. Here, many would gladly trade accessibility to major amenities for a quieter living environment.
At this point, you might be questioning the environmental impacts of these sprawling neighborhoods, and how European cities quite clearly have a smaller environmental impact.
And, I would strongly agree with this point. With massive distances between amenities, this does result in high car dependency and significant negative impacts to our planet. However, I believe that there are still many ways to allow Canadian cities to become climate-conscious while still maintaining their unique urban design characteristics. For example, carpooling is a fantastic way to reduce our carbon footprint while still getting to where we need to be.
In fact, Statistics Canada reports that within the group of people who spend over 60 minutes commuting to work, more than 20% of those people carpooled with others. Similarly, we can implement shuttle or bus services that travel through major commute paths from suburbs to central business districts on major highways. This would be much cheaper to implement in comparison with building new train or subway lines, and would still serve the purpose of providing a mode of transit that is better for the environment.
To sum up my ideas, I believe that the isolated zoning in Canadian and American cities is often what makes them unique, and sets them apart from European cities. Although the environmental sustainability of these towns must be questioned, I believe the more pressing issue in North America should not be to completely redesign the entire fabric of our city, but rather to improve small threads of our already-established system.
Daniel Sun is a Co-President of 1UP Toronto
