Where do the cars in Toronto come from? Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

The fourth post of this series will have a few more assorted maps.

First, car ownership, in terms of cars per adult (aged 16+).

It seems like much of Toronto's inner suburbs have car ownership rates closer to those of the more close-in neighbourhoods than those of the outer suburbs. SE Scarborough is one exception, but that shouldn't be too surprising since it is far flung with mediocre transit and a relatively middle class population. The Bedford Park and York Mills areas, and Central and Southern Etobicoke also have higher car ownership, despite being better located, and in some parts, having subway access, so wealth probably a major factor there.

In fact, car ownership patterns follow income patterns quite closely outside of the urban core (Old Toronto).

The rate of car-free households follows a slightly different pattern:

 

Many outer suburban wards have large household sizes, often with more than 2 adults per household, up to an average of 3 adults (aged 16+) per household in Markham's wards 7 & 8 on the Scarborough border. Car free households are rare but most households have just 1 or 2 cars. Older suburban wards might have a bit fewer cars per household and more car-free households but also have fewer adults per household.

Next, a map showing the ratio of trips to individual wards to trips taken by ward residents.

This shows that Downtown has a lot more destinations like workplaces, shopping, entertainment and education than you would expect based on the number of local residents. On the other hand, wards east and west of downtown have relatively few destinations, so residents of these neighbourhoods probably go to downtown quite frequently.

That's not too surprising, more interesting is that there's quite a lot of destinations in the working class areas in the NW of Toronto. This supports my suspicion that part of the problem in these communities is not necessarily a lack of jobs, shopping, etc compared to other suburban communities, but that there are more low-income residents that have less access to cars. Since these communities have mediocre transit, that means residents that have to rely on transit are at a disadvantage compared to suburban residents that have good access to cars.

Next is a dot map to show the combination of trips made to and from each ward by car (drivers only).

Although there seems to be a greater density of auto trips in more central neighbourhoods (note that this doesn't take into account trips that pass through a ward), the difference is much smaller than the difference between the density of transit trips in downtown vs the more suburban wards.

With roadways in central Toronto and even many suburban areas at capacity, at least during peak periods, this shows just how much more development can be allowed to occur thanks to transit.