TORONTO
EDITION
Vol. 20 • No. 20
FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016
Getting ahead of technology
Protecting mid-century assets
CHANGING
LANES
ONTARIO’S
NEWER
HERITAGE
By Leah Wong
With autonomous vehicles expected to hit the road in North
America by 2020, city staff and councillors are trying to get a
head start and develop a policy for these vehicles before they
arrive. Experts say that, if it engages in the conversation now,
Toronto has the opportunity to use this new technology to
further its city building objects.
On Monday Public Works and Infrastructure Committee
requested transportation services general manager Stephen
Buckley to report back before the end of the year on ways the
city can prepare for the introduction of autonomous vehicles.
PWIC chair and Ward 25 Don Valley West councillor Jaye
Robinson told committee that it is important for the city to get
ahead of new technologies rather than react to them once they
are already in use. She noted the long debate over Uber shows
what will happen if the city waits to react after the fact.
“Whether you want to believe it or not, self-driving vehicles
will be a reality on Toronto streets very soon—some people are
predicting [they’ll hit the roads] in North America in 2020,”
said Robinson. When you don’t stay on top of new technology,
you are left scrambling and that’s not where we want to sit on
this issue. Let’s help shape the conversation and not react to it.”
By Leah Wong
Much of heritage preservation in Ontario has focused on
protecting the character of the 19th and 20th centuries. However,
the majority of the province’s building stock was constructed
after the Second World War and as redevelopment occurs, the
question as to whether these mid-century properties should
be protected is being asked more frequently.
Ontario Heritage Trust registrar Erin Semande said that
of the 7,000 individual properties on the Ontario Heritage Act
register, less than 1 per cent were built post-Second World
War. She told participants of the Ontario Heritage Conference
in Stratford last week that many people wonder if this era of
architecture, design and planning is worth protecting.
“It was an era of suburban sprawl, cookie-cutter architecture,
large arterial roads that we built to get to our suburban homes,
the hollowing out of our downtown cores with parking lots
and the demolition of heritage buildings to erect non-descript
glass towers,” said Semande.
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FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016
CITY OF TORONTO EDITION
CHANGING LANES
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
Last week at a Ryerson University City Building Institute
event on autonomous vehicles, Buckley said there is an
opportunity to align shared-use autonomous vehicles with
Toronto’s city-building objectives, including making it safe
for pedestrians and cyclists to travel around the city and
improving public transit service.
“I don’t see that we’re going to get huge capacity issues out
of [autonomous vehicles] out of the gate. I think the biggest
benefit we’ll see is safety,” Buckley told participants. “Over
the last decade we’ve had a massive shift. We’re very good at
keeping people in vehicles safe… Fatalities and serious injuries
[have] migrated towards the vulnerable road users.”
Given that between 85 and 90 per cent of vehicular traffic
fatalities are the result of human error, Buckley said it’s evident
that taking humans out of the driving equation would only
make roads safer. He said this would benefit cyclists and
pedestrians.
Munk School of Global Affairs Innovation Policy Lab
distinguished senior fellow David Ticoll told participants
that if the focus on creating complete streets and walkable
communities continues, autonomous vehicles could free up
space on roadways.
“We can free up a lot of parking spaces on residential
streets,” said Ticoll. “It might actually be conceivable that you
could have people walking and biking on the road and sharing
the road with self-driving cars that will be much more attentive
to safety than cars with drivers in them.”
If residents had access to shared, on-demand autonomous
vehicles there would be a reduced demand for parking. As
a result, on-street parking spaces would not be needed thus
freeing up space for other uses such as bike lanes.
“It creates a better environment for cycling and people will
feel safer,” said Buckley. “If we don’t need the parking on the
street it will open up additional space and we won’t have this
‘war on the [car or bike or] whatever’. Everyone will be able to
find their space in the city.”
If, as predicted, autonomous vehicles increase road
efficiency and reduce the space needed for cars it is important
to reduce road capacity, said DIALOG founding partner
Antonio Gomez-Palacio.
“As new capacity gets generated on the roads, we quickly
need to seize it up. Not to accommodate more vehicles, but
rather for walking, for cycling—bigger sidewalks and cycling
paths,” Gomez-Palacio told participants. “If we created the
capacity, within a year it’ll just be plugged up with vehicles all
over again and then it’s harder to take that space back.”
Modelling has shown that far fewer autonomous vehicles
will be required to achieve the same trips presently made by
drivers using personal vehicles.
OECD International Transit Forum transport analyst
Philippe Crist told participants that his organization has done
modelling for Lisbon, Portugal and found that if autonomous
vehicles replaced cars and buses, the same level of mobility
could be achieved with just 3 per cent of the vehicles.
We can free up a lot of parking spaces on residential streets.
It might actually be conceivable that you could have people
walking and biking on the road and sharing the road with
self-driving cars that will be much more attentive to safety
than cars with drivers in them.
• David Ticoll
“You can reduce the vehicle fleet… in Lisbon by 97 per cent.
That is a massive reduction of vehicles,” said Crist. “Of course
this is a model, but we can see what the magnitude of changes
could be with the arrival of these kinds of fleets.”
Both Crist and Ticoll said that autonomous vehicles have
the potential to transform public transportation systems.
Low-density bus routes could be replaced with modular, ondemand service.
“The thing about automated vehicles is that they can come
in all shapes and sizes,” said Ticoll. He suggests typical taxis
for one to two people will be the size of a golf cart, while an
automated mini bus could transport six to eight people.
The benefit of using smaller autonomous vehicles is that there
will be on-demand service for residents across Toronto. Ryerson
Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship senior
projects officer Jesse Darling told participants that autonomous
vehicles can be used to create better linkages for residents in
areas that are currently underserved by public transit.
“Having on-demand mobility increases the number of
transportation and commuting options for residents regardless
of where they live,” said Darling. nru