Purpose
| Forecasted trends in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area* | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 2031 | |
| Population | 6 million | 8.6 million |
| Automobile trips | 2 million | 3 million |
| Congestion costs to residents | $3.3 billion†| $7.8 billion |
| Congestion costs to economy | $2.7 billion†| $7.2 billion |
The GTHA is Canada's largest and fastest growing urban region, with a population forecast to grow by 2.6 million people by 2031. The region is becoming increasingly dependent and designed for automobiles, and traffic congestion is already costing commuters and the economy billions of dollars every year. Nine individual local transit agencies and one regional transit agency exist, and are poorly integrated when one out of four trips crosses a regional boundary, making transit unattractive. Investment in transit has been relatively stagnant, causing roads, highways and transit vehicles to be crowded and pushed to the limit. In the face of climate change, increasing energy costs, peak oil, increasing urbanization, and an aging population, the RTP exists to alleviate these problems.
Read more about this topic: The Big Move
Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“I have always felt that the real purpose of government is to enhance the lives of people and that a leader can best do that by restraining government in most cases instead of enlarging it at every opportunity.”
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Science and art, or by the same token, poetry and prose differ from one another like a journey and an excursion. The purpose of the journey is its goal, the purpose of an excursion is the process.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing—he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)