The death of the 905

The 905 area of Toronto is more then just an area code or a block of land.

Mississauga, Vaughan, Brampton, Pickering, Ajax, Whitby, Burlington, these cities and towns represent a belief that freedom and safety can be rolled into one.

It's a belief that parents can raise their children in an affordable single-family detached home, drive them to school and pick them up again without fear that they will be harmed.

That parent can then drive to work to a suburban office or factory with the knowledge that they will be able to find a parking spot and they won’t be charged by some Byzantine parking authority.

If they ever found themselves out of work they could quickly get a new, high paying job. The cheap land in the 905 would keep businesses flocking to the area, letting people stay employed.

If they need to go to Toronto they can take a GO train and avoid parking a car downtown.

The basis for this belief was laid down in the 1970’s with the creation of new cities and regional governments that allowed development to balloon outside of Toronto.

But now, nearly 40 years after the creation of the 905, this idea is dying as its flaws are coming home to roost.

The roads that permit cars to move freely have become clogged as more and more people want to be 905ers. The cheap land that made it affordable to build houses, factories and offices has become expensive, since there is only so much space to build on.

The GO trains that give us access to downtown Toronto have become clogged and overcrowded.

To make matters worse global events have driven up the price of gas making it more expensive to sustain a car-based culture.

The point when I knew that the “905” that I grew up in, was truly over, came in 2006.

The Ontario government released a regional plan under the “Places to Grow” act. I wrote a story on it for Planning, an American magazine.

The plan puts in strict population density levels, designated growth areas and public transit requirements. To sum up a complex law, the days of building single-family detached homes in the 905 are pretty much over.

Townhouses, condos and apartments, these will be the places where the next generation of parents will raise their kids. Farmland will be protected and the march of suburbia will ground to a crawl.

Instead of traveling to work in a car, people will have little choice but to take a bus or train.

New workplaces will be built closer to where people live. This will allow people to take short trips on local transit and avoid long drives and the crowded GO trains.

The downtown areas of Mississauga, Milton and the other towns and cities will resemble Toronto more then they resemble Chatham.

Don't get me wrong, many people are not ready to buy into the notion that the 905 must change and there will be resistance as seen here and here.

In the end the protesters may just as well howl at an incoming storm as government officials are forced to confront the problems mentioned in this blog.

After the "Places to Grow" plan was approved I wasn’t surprised when this transit plan was laid out and this light rail line proposed.

The 905 that we once knew is gone forever, it died of its own faulty planning and from a dream that turned out to be unsustainable.

Over the next 20 years it will be interesting to see what rises in its place.