Revisiting transit oriented development on the GO Train corridor
How the staggering growth in the adoption of TOD on the GO train network requires a re-evaluation of whether we are ready to handle it properly
Authors Note: This will be the last article published on Substack. The move to another newsletter service will be done later this week, along with finishing up the new home of Next Stop, Downtown Canada. For the time being this page will remain up so that all the old posts are accessible, but it will no longer be updated.
One of the first articles I wrote on this site, almost 2 years ago, was about the emergence of transit oriented development (TOD) next to GO train stations. It was fuelled by the fact that the transit agency, who for most of its life had only been concerned with commuters and parking lots, seemed to be undergoing a radical change in its philosophy. Metrolinx (the regional authority that operates GO) wanted to modernize the commuter system into a regional rail network. It wasn’t just the agency drawing pretty lines on a map. There was actual construction starting to happen. Concurrently, Metrolinx (probably in large part because of pressure put on it by the province) was starting to embrace TOD, or transit oriented communities as it often calls it. After 50 years of being one of North America’s largest parking authorities it seemed unlikely that a dramatic change could be afoot. But it turned out that was the case.
As of March 2022, within walking distance (800m) of the current and soon to be constructed GO stations, there were plans for 224,735 urban homes. This number included projects that were either under construction, in sales, or proposed and working there way through the development application process. Not an earth shattering number, but a decent showing. I even estimated that by 2040 this trend towards TOD could result in as many as 500,000 urban homes being built next door to all of the networks GO stations by 2040.
Over the past few months though I had come across a few articles and posts which made me wonder if TOD was actually starting to accelerate at a rapid rate across Canada. Since I already had data for the GO network I decided to go back and compile an updated list of projects so that I had an established data set to compare against. After some boring evenings and Xmas beverages I had the result. 392,501 urban homes, a 74.6% increase in just 21 months. And that number was only from a single source, the UrbanToronto project database. It didn’t include real estate websites or city/municipal development application portals as the initial data set did. The number might actually be a touch over 400,000 if a more comprehensive search was done (the UrbanToronto site is very good but doesn’t always catch everything right away).
The region wide number is pretty significant on its own. But even just a rudimentary breakdown of the data shows some very fascinating trends. Growth of TOD in the 905 as a whole has taken off, increasing by 136%. Across the whole network the number of stations with 0 TOD development planned went from 27 in early 2022, down to 15. All of them were in the 905 with about half a dozen of the remaining stations almost certainly set to see proposals within the year. Some stations, like Pickering, Hamilton central, and Brampton saw their numbers skyrocket. The future (more central) Oshawa Ritson station went from 0 to 6067 urban homes being planned. Even some of the wealthy municipalities like Oakville saw development increase at a rapid rate.
It is unequivocal that TOD growth around GO stations has some serious momentum. And the current development numbers represent just a fraction (1/5 - 1/4) of the development potential within walking distance of the GO stations. For a number of reasons I am holding off on making any kind of concrete estimates on how many new homes could be built from March 2022 to 2040. There are dozens of factors at play that could put that total between 500,000 on the low side and 1 million on the high end. A lot more data is required, but it is something I will explore when I do a much deeper drive into TOD on the GO network later this year.
2024 will be a critical year in seeing just where the TOD trend is heading. If more than 105,000 urban home proposals are added to the already long list, it would be an indication that growth of TOD is still accelerating. And there are two primary reasons why alarm bells should be triggered if that trend does emerge.
Lets start with the fact that there is also development that is still relatively close to GO stations (801m to 1.5km) where taking a bus, tram, or bike could get you there in 5 or 10 minutes, or where a walk might be 15 minutes but is considered acceptable. As of today, there are around 200,000 urban homes being proposed within 1.2km of a GO station, or within 1.5km of a GO station, but located on a tram, LRT or subway/metro line. When it comes to determining what kind of new ridership GO trains could capture, that group of people just outside the walking zone is going to heavily factor into the equation.
Secondly, future plans for GO do not seem to factor in this level of TOD growth. I have gone through a lot of very boring documents to try to see whether transportation visions are matching up with the kind of TOD dominance that is emerging. And I am willing to admit that maybe I have missed something along the way. Perhaps there is some obscure text that is ‘the true gospel’ by which transportation and urban planning is being done by. But, from the perspective of someone who is just a regular Joe Q citizen looking through whatever publicly available documents are out there, there seems to be a growing disconnect between the plans that Metrolinx has for GO, and the trends in TOD that are emerging. As big as the current batch of investments in the GO train network are, I think there is good reason to question whether they are able to accommodate the growth that could be seen in the next 18 years.
A quick side note. The acceleration of TOD development is almost certainly, to some degree or another, coming from the record breaking population growth that Canada is seeing right now. There is going to be a more detailed article on that topic in the coming weeks. But for now it is still worth mentioning because its impacts on city growth, across the whole of Canada, are going to be incredibly significant. And with the importance that is being placed on TOD to accommodate growth… well… I expect that a lot of projections from even just 5 years ago are going to be made irrelevant in short order.
If you want to plan for a possible scenario where from 2022 to 2040 there could quite possibly be as many as 2 million more people living within walking distance of a GO station (plus those people just a little bit beyond that zone) then planning has to be undertaken today. Right now we see lots of big projects going on, from electrification to double tracking, which won’t be complete until 2027-29. However, planning for those started in the mid-00’s, and a public codification of a long term vision in 2008 with the release of The Big Move. Maybe as Metrolinx acquires more knowledge and industrial capacity grows it won’t take 20 years this time around. But even if a similar campaign can be done in 15 years the clock is already ticking and shit needs to be happening right now.
In fairness to Metrolinx, I don’t think any transit agency in Canada is ready for the kind of TOD growth that could be possible. I don’t think most city departments, be they urban planners or those responsible for planning out future fire and education services, are ready either. And it is going to be tough trying to get people, be they politicians, bureaucrats, or advocates and supporters, to ramp up their efforts.
As it stands today, among the centrist, big ‘L’ liberal, small ‘c’ conservatives that dominate urban affairs and planning in Canada it is very rare you ever hear a critique that questions whether too much TOD could be problematic (outside of arguments based on trad adjacent, culture war type bullshit). Especially in this moment where there is a crippling housing crisis it is one of the policies that is held up high as being a key strategy for getting out of it, and has as close to non-partisan support as you can get. Politicians in the past year even seem to have doubled down on their push for more TOD. Getting past the blind optimism is going to be tough, but necessary if some of the potential side effects of its are going to be avoided in the not to distant future.
This quick revisit of TOD on the GO train network confirms a feeling that I have had for a little while… that the impact and embrace of this paradigm has been so wildly underestimated that it is about to catch a lot of people off guard. And, it is why over the course of this year I will be putting a lot of focus and research into the topic. Managed right it could be a genuinely exciting and pivotal turning point for Canadian cities and metro regions. Done poorly it could be a disaster.
If you want to find me on social media you can do so @Johnnyrenton on Bluesky or @itsjohnnyrenton on Threads (though I do not spend a ton of time there). If you have any thoughts or feedback let me know in the comments.
This was a very good piece. A few comments:
I see it as a very good thing that we are seeing so much TOD on GO - I'd like to see as high a proportion as possible, because I think scaling GO capacity long term will be much easier than scaling rapid transit capacity - especially on lines like Eglinton. Given a big portion of the Kitchener, Lakeshore West and Inner Lakeshore East corridors are quad track we really ought to be focusing density their, since the potential capacity long term is truly enormous, especially since the platforms are incredibly long. (Imagine a 12 car suburban EMU - that would be enormous even by international standards, but might be something we see in a few decades). While I see building new subways to meet transit demand as something which will face more political and cost barriers - scaling up GO capacity should not have this issue, and there is a lot of places where we can reuse that knowledge long term - midtown line, an improved Richmond Hill line with a better alignment, upgraded Milton Line and also perhaps in upgrading EXO.
Regarding the actual development of TOD around stations - I do wish we had a model like BC, so that density would be focused right at the station and taper as you travel away (how much it tapers is another question), I am not opposed to more density overall of course, but I want the densest development as close to the station as possible and a taper probably would look nice.
With regard to last mile access to GO stations, the removal of local transit fares within Toronto when connecting to GO, will probably have a big impact. And for what its worth, mode shift to GO for transit has doubled in the last 8 years or so - from 10ish% to 20ish% - we likely have Brampton to thank.
what an exciting time!