{"id":3448,"date":"2014-01-07T17:20:52","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T22:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vivanext.com\/blog\/?p=3448"},"modified":"2014-01-07T17:20:52","modified_gmt":"2014-01-07T22:20:52","slug":"agglomeration-the-value-transit-brings-to-a-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/2014\/01\/07\/agglomeration-the-value-transit-brings-to-a-city\/","title":{"rendered":"agglomeration – the value transit brings to a city"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It\u2019s pretty much accepted wisdom these days that transit is something we need more of as a key requirement to healthy cities. We need it to reduce gridlock, get cars off the road, and save on polluting emissions.\u00a0 But according to an article I read recently in The Atlantic <\/em>magazine, as important as those benefits are, there is also solid evidence that transit is great for a city\u2019s economy and productivity beyond transportation-related considerations.<\/p>\n

The Atlantic<\/a> article cites a recently published study<\/a> done by Daniel Chatman – a scholar who specializes in planning at the University of California.\u00a0 His paper focuses on \u201cagglomeration\u201d and how transit achieves this important planning objective.\u00a0 Agglomeration is a fancy term for what happens when people are brought together in any significant number, for example in a city.\u00a0 And according to the article and the research it quotes, agglomeration benefits can be worth a lot of money \u2013 enough money to encourage us to think very seriously about why we should be expanding transit, especially rapid transit.<\/p>\n

So what are \u201cagglomeration\u201d benefits?\u00a0 Think of what happens when a new community is built out on vacant lots, similar to the development that is increasingly taking place along the corridors in York Region.\u00a0 Where there used to be undeveloped property, there are now increasing numbers of new high-rise condominiums and businesses.\u00a0 Those buildings all have resulted in more people living in one area, which in turn will lead to new businesses and business opportunities.\u00a0 Those new businesses, whether they\u2019re corner stores or restaurants or bigger operations like grocery stores, home improvement centres and offices, all provide new employment opportunities.\u00a0 Having more employment clustered in one area means more people are coming together every day, sharing ideas and expertise, developing new ideas and innovations, and creating yet more business opportunities.\u00a0 Soon, larger businesses will move in to take advantage of the numbers of potential workers wanting to live in the area. Before you know it, those vacant lands have become thriving hubs of people living, spending money, and investing in future growth.\u00a0 That\u2019s how agglomeration benefits a community.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the link between transit and agglomeration?\u00a0 It\u2019s actually a very direct one.\u00a0 Plenty of research \u2013 including the findings of the paper described in The Atlantic<\/em>, shows that new transit leads to agglomeration.\u00a0 Simply put, if a transit line is built, especially rapid transit, agglomeration – more population, more employment, and growth in other economic measures – will quite naturally follow along the line and at key nodes. \u00a0The paper then goes on to demonstrate how transit-led agglomeration benefits the local economy as well as individuals and households, including leading to higher per capita income levels.<\/p>\n

This paper provides a fascinating analysis of the benefits that will come from all the development, including both residential and employment, and we can see this taking place along York Region\u2019s corridors.\u00a0 What is so exciting is the knowledge that vivaNext benefits York Region in ways that go well beyond providing great rapid transit.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s pretty much accepted wisdom these days that transit is something we need more of as a key requirement to healthy cities. We need it to reduce gridlock, get cars off the road, and save on polluting emissions.\u00a0 But according to an article I read recently in The Atlantic magazine, as important as those benefits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,62,30],"tags":[39,18,8,350,14,61,939],"class_list":["post-3448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-live-work-play","category-rapidways","tag-bus-rapid-transit","tag-city-planning","tag-connections","tag-growth","tag-rapid-transit","tag-richmond-hill","tag-urban-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3448"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3451,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3448\/revisions\/3451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yrrtc.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}