In-Between Mobility in Toronto’s New (Sub)urban Neighbourhoods

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss how infrastructure decision-making influences long-term inequalities in certain neighbourhoods of the urban region. The chapter contributes to the overall aims of the book by illustrating how transport mobility infrastructure is implicated in the unequal development of new suburban neighbourhoods. At the basis of our discussion is the case study of a complex area in Toronto, Canada. Using the conceptual framework of the ‘in-between city’ (Sieverts, 2003; 2011), we studied an area of 85 square kilometres that straddles the northern boundary of the core municipality and the southern boundary of the exurban ring. The constellation in this particular study area is symptomatic of the wider issues that plague mobility politics in post-suburban Toronto. It demonstrates that the urban region needs to recalibrate its transportation and transit systems in light of changing needs at various scales. Neighbourhoods are central hubs of that system as residents, workers, students, patients, recreation seekers, tourists and business travellers criss-cross Toronto in constant competition with the demands of moving large amounts of goods and services over long distances and into the capillaries of the urban fabric (Keil and Young, 2008).

Issues of movement, of too little movement or too much, or of the wrong sort or at the wrong time, are central to many lives and many organizations.

(Sheller and Urry, 2006: 208)

Roads are built for buses, cars and trucks. Not for people on bikes. And my heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed but it’s their own fault at the end of the day [ … ]Iama huge fan of subways and buses. Streetcars — I’m not in favour of streetcars.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford (The Unknown Torontonian, 2011: 48–49)