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Aurora might be at a breaking point: reader

November 10, 2016   ·   0 Comments

(Re: Inside Aurora, November 3, 2016)

Scott, I just read your piece about the suggestion by York Region that 25,000 more people need to live in Aurora over the next number of years.
This will pose some substantial and significant challenges to the Town…er, city!
Already I think we are at some form of breaking point with regards to traffic and the serious congestion at certain times of the day. As I am sure you are aware, the GO Station parking is now maxed out and full, often by the time of the last train south in the morning! What will happen when they add all day GO service on the line?
A wonderful and welcome addition, but where are all those additional and new people using the GO Train service going to park?
Part of the issue in Aurora is the classic spread-out suburban infrastructure of the way the place has been built out. The other is behavioral and cultural – because of the infrastructure, people drive everywhere, for everything!
Now, some do need to drive, but I am sure that there are many who, based on being a reasonable distance away, could walk, or cycle to where they are going. How many of those people who are parked at the GO Station live within, say a 2 km catchment area of the GO Station?
I always get a bit of a chuckle when I see Aurora being billed as the Most Active Community in Canada! Active how? Few walk or cycle anywhere! As mentioned, everyone, drives, everywhere for everything!
You are right: with the buildable land gone, the only way that we can take those 25,000 people in, will be to become more dense. That is going to meet with significant resistance – at a bunch of levels. And for sure, those extra 25,000, and the tens of thousands that already live here, are going to have to undergo some major behavioral and cultural changes in their choices and actions on mobility and how they get around!

Steve Fleck
Aurora

         

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