Advertisement
Proudly Canadian, obsessively Toronto. Subscribe to Toronto Life!
City

Counting cars

By Philip Preville
Copy link

After yesterday’s lively discussion about the relationship between Toronto and its suburbs, along comes this clever little story in today’s Star. It’s clever because the story is based on a city report that’s nearly a week old, but that no one wrote about. It’s the Cordon Count report, which is actually a pretty important piece of paper, since it tracks the number of cars that move in and out of both the city’s outer limits and the downtown Central Business District, or CBD.

The Cordon Count report is strong on numbers but light on analysis, and somewhat self-serving. For instance, when the report states that traffic into the city has gone up, it happily points out that such traffic increases can be correlated directly with new employment. It fails to mention the same correlation with regards to the fact that daily commutes from the city centre to the suburbs have gone up by 38% in ten years. But what the Cordon Count does show is that we really are living in a city-region that’s much bigger in our collective reality than it looms in our collective imagination.

NEVER MISS A TORONTO LIFE STORY

Sign up for This City, our free newsletter about everything that matters right now in Toronto politics, sports, business, culture, society and more.

By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.
You may unsubscribe at any time.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Advertisement
Advertisement

The Latest

What's on the menu at Pii Nong, a 10,000-square-foot Thai restaurant, market and massage parlour
Food & Drink

What’s on the menu at Pii Nong, a 10,000-square-foot Thai restaurant, market and massage parlour

Inside the Latest Issue

The February issue of Toronto Life features Scottie Barnes, the new face of the Raptors—and the team’s best chance of salvation. Plus, our obsessive coverage of everything that matters now in the city.