There has been a buzz on the forum recently about stats obtained from a certain website www.demographia.com. I went to this site and was amazed by some of the things this ravenously anti PT site has to say...I suggest people take a look at the Toronto section to see just how twisted his perceptions are.

http://www.demographia.com/rac-toronto.pdf

He compares Toronto to LA, and says that the LA area is the densest in NA, says that the GTA has no PT, which to a certain extent is true, but there is GO, then most towns have there own transit systems. The statement getting from one suburb to another is difficult isnt all that true, because the system is designed to take the masses to where they want which is Union station, and not some suburb. Densifying a already built up urban are is possible, and it is possible to build dense suburbs, look at Mississauga, it may have lots of single family homes, but overall the density of mississauga is rather high for a suburb at 2400 people per km2, that includes all of the city, if you got ride of the Airport from the city, it would be higher. He says that the sprawl of Toronto is bad, but when you ask people to think about sprawl, they think of LA, and its not a bad thing per se. They have the land to put each family in single family homes. People do not think of sprawl when they think about Toronto. Toronto isnt that large a city in area compared to many in the states. Atlanta, Houston, Cleveland, Detroit, all have larger land areas, but all are smaller except Detroit, which is larger, by a slight amount.

It's Wendell Cox :) . He's a pro sprawl, pro car writer and public speaker rumoured to be funded by a major car manufacturer. It looks like he's basing his argument mostly on irrelevent similarities between the two cities to point out how LA, despite it's lack of dependence on PT (which is opposite of Toronto), still works. In other words... no need to give up the car, LA - it still works!

My favourite bit is the one about the blackout... evidence this guy is severely out to lunch. Actually, this has floated around here before.

Whoever wrote that is basically an idiot.

Well, the trickery of Cox is incredibly simple....he just picks a selective group of statistics at a certain macro level that suits his purposes, and pretends things work that way...when they don't.






KGB

Uh actually toronto is larger in area than some american cities like Detroit, Chicago and a few others. Check www.emporis.com

^ If he's been in one of L.A's infamous traffic jams & compare it to Toronto, then maybe he'll realize what an effective PT system we have.

Uh actually toronto is larger in area than some american cities like Detroit, Chicago and a few others. Check www.emporis.com

Uh actually overall density is a poor judge of density. It fails to take into account such things as the roughly 20% of the overall land area of the city that is part of the Rouge River and other ravines that are unoccupied as well as say the now defunct CFB Downsview and the old portland. The list goes on.

Toronto's residential population only makes up about 30% or about 89 sq Mi of the entire city area.




Anyways, the website's numbers are strange anyways and do not stack up to what Statscan says.

Uh actually toronto is larger in area than some american cities like Detroit, Chicago and a few others. Check www.emporis.com

Also when I state area I mean the whole metro area, not just the city

and sorry for re-opening a dead thread

Using emporis as a source for city population and area is like using a second hand tampon.

Next time, use Statscan for population and area statistics. Thanks.

LOL! It is just Wendell Cox. No surprise there.
Hogtown... you are back after a long absence.

Check again, bud. ;)

^ If he's been in one of L.A's infamous traffic jams & compare it to Toronto, then maybe he'll realize what an effective PT system we have.

To be fair we aren't anywhere near as big or as dense.

LOL, we aren't as dense?

Dense (adj) Slow to apprehend; thickheaded.

Check again, bud. ;)

LOL! Just noticed that the thread is an old one! I was very shocked to
see Hogtown back making a post on SSC. I think he has a very good reason
not to! :lol:

Well, the trickery of Cox is incredibly simple....he just picks a selective group of statistics at a certain macro level that suits his purposes, and pretends things work that way...when they don't.


Also, Wendell Cox is the recipient of major automobile and oil industry money. He's almost a think tank for their interests, so his system is cherry picking evidence and aligning it with a pre-determined conclusion.

In addition to this, that article is so radically American-centric. He compares Toronto to American cities a little too much. In my opinion Toronto is quite different from any major American city.

In my opinion Toronto is quite different from any major American city.

Less crime, that's one thing for sure! Toronto's crime rate isn't near the rate of say NYC or LA, or even scary ridden Detriot. [no offence, I love the US and all but it's true]

Less crime, that's one thing for sure! Toronto's crime rate isn't near the rate of say NYC or LA, or even scary ridden Detriot. [no offence, I love the US and all but it's true]

Its okay, I'm desperately trying to move to Canada b/c I don't want to live in the US anymore.

"Wendell Cox"

Just hearing the name makes children cry.