Hope For Torontonians: MoveOntario 2020

The transportation system is the essence of every big city in the world and Toronto is no exemption. In the last four decades, Toronto has faced a population explosion: nowadays it has almost five times more citizens than in 1970. That’s why our transit system needs to change in order to be able to meet the changing demands. Only temporary solutions have been provided by a number of minor improvements in the past. Nevertheless, in the upcoming years, the character of transportation in south Ontario will be totally changed by a project known as The Big Move.

MoveOntario2020 is the name of the most important branch of this overall transportation outlook. It has been announced in June 2007 (is that a coindicence that liberals were reelected just in October after that?) and people are now impatiently awaiting the new reality. There are 52 projects, planned till 2020, with the budget around $17.5 billion ($11.5 billion covered by Ontario). 1. GO Transit upgrades and extensions; 2. Major municipal transit expansions; 3. Cross-boundary subway expansions; and 4. Rapid-rail link between Toronto Union Station and Toronto

Real estate and transit system

There are a lot of attributes that influence the sensitive mechanism of property market in Toronto, which makes this matter quite complicated. Even though we can’t always identify the effect of a particular change in the local or global economic environment, but some of them are more important than others. The transit system is one of the most important attributes.

Most people can picture themselves how the quality of living is positively affected by the transportation system. To mention just a few, it decreases the direct expenses on commuting, indirect expenses represented by time consumption, better accessibility of public facilities or healthier environment with cleaner air, with very minor negative short-term aspects.

There are a number of research papers trying to quantify the influence of various improvements in transportation system. One of the papers from Tinbergen Institute, dealing with railways, offers a number of 25% - that is how much the positive influence of railway accesibility on property price can be. If the public transport frequency grows twice, it causes 2.5% value growth for all homes in the region - just a year after finishing the works.

MoveOntario impact on the real estate in Toronto in upcoming years

Our possible outcomes can be based on a recent study made by REIN Canada. One of the most important means of transport to decrease the commuting time is a rail commuting system, in Toronto represented by subway and GO Train system.

The positively impacted areas lie in about 800m range from every station, with price maximization in 500m range. The areas that are impacted the strongest are older neighbourhoods or places where people earning less money live. Areas around Spadina and Younge subway lines extensions in Toronto can be named as examples of the effect on property prices. For GO Train it’s more complicated; there are 17 projects involving capacity expansion, new lines and/or lines extension and there are 9 more projects involving GO Bus Rapid. Similar impact will be caused by new light train transit lines, involving Waterfront and Eglinton neighbourhoods.

Conclusion

It’s of course impossible to pick all impacts of MoveOntario 2020 on Toronto housing in one article. Areas around Vaughan, Scarborough and Barrie will be the places that will be most positively affected, according to REIN. Milton, Brambton and Uxbridge&Stoufville are in the second group of regions that will be strongly influenced. In these regions, we can await the prices to rise by 10-20%. Thirdly, actually all Toronto regions lying around the new lines, or old lines with plans for increasing their capacity, are going to profit as well. The real estate prices are expected to rise about 1-3 years after the particular project is completed.

And that’s not all. Also the quality of life around the old parts should be improved by the new transit system, as more areas should enjoy easier access for people. Another positive impact on the real estate prices in the GTA is expected to come from the 175 000 jobs which are supposed to be created by MoveOntario. With well-functioning transit system we are going to attract more citizens, more investors and more business. The whole Toronto is going to profit and house values on the whole Toronto housing market may be positively influenced for the next decades.

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