About
Reverse Zone, weblog on urban planning, sustainability, and technology.
Martin Laplante
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Recent posts
- Canada and US Driving No Longer Dropping
- This Year Ontario No Longer Needs Coal
- Shaping the Public Realm
- The Days of Sprawl Are Officially Over
- The Telescope is Backward
- Stop The Earth
- Amazon CloudFront New Pricing, Cheap At A Million Dollars
- Canada Spends Billions in Energy INefficiency
- Density as Persons Plus Jobs Per Unit Area
- Now is the Time for New Transit Investments
- UNFCCC Confuses Journalists on Direction of Greenhouse Gases
- Canadian Business Prefers Carbon Tax
- Streets To Home: Down With Continuum of Care!
- Close Roads to Reduce Congestion
- Science and Economics of Climate Change
- Canada and US Driving Continue To Drop
- Alberta Overtakes Ontario in Coal-Fired Generation
- Everyone Not Living In The Suburbs Is Fooling Themselves
- Canada Almost Studies the Possibility of Eventual Road Pricing
- Rogers Messing with DNS
- Will Canada Reach Kyoto Targets With New GHG Inventory Figures?
- The Delicate Balancing Act of Downtowns and the Death of Griffintown
- Internet Identity Keystone Kops
- LA Transit Plan Aims to Save 725 Metric Tons of GHG Annually by 2030
- New York City's Congestion Pricing Plan Dies Yet Again
- New York Discovers Existing Direct Democracy Zoning Rule
- Driving is Going Down in the US
- The Commuting Turnaround in Canada
- Vancouver Churches Get a Licence to Break the Law
- Carbon Capture and Storage For Canada
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2005
Complete List of Posts
Top Posts
- Close Roads to Reduce Congestion
- The Delicate Balancing Act of Downtowns and the Death of Griffintown
- Places to Grow - Pictures Tell the Story
- Why We Still Need Separation of Uses
- Dense Condos Do Not Revitalize
- Hot Air - How to Beat Climate Change By Burning More Coal
- What's Best for Renewables, Merton Rule or Feed-In Tariff?
- LEED for Neighborhood Development Pilot Rating System
- Main Arterial Woonerf
- More on Which is Greener, Houses or Apartments?
- Which is Greener, Houses or Apartments?
- Zoning Exceptions and the Failure of Planning
- 18th Century Planning is Still the State of the Art
- Ontario Municipal Board Says City Can't Plan for Mix or Density of Mixed Use
- Brownfield Brutalism - Urban Planning for Sale
- The Causes of Sprawl
- Energy Star Sprawl
- Is High Density the Cure for Transportation?
- Why not Build Medieval Towns Here?
- Vancouver has it right - Ecodensity
- Ontario has it wrong - Places to Grow
- Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, and Barry Wellman
- Review of This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America
- New York's Downzoning Uprising
- Community Planning - are citizens powerless?
- Paris riots and urban planning
- Minimize Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Reverse Zoning
- Social Sciences: So Much Left Undone
The city of Vaughan, in Ontario, is opening up new subdivisions where houses will be
Energy Star rated,
with upgraded insulation and heating/cooling systems. They claim these houses will use up 40% less energy.
That's better than it could have been, but looking at a transit map of Vaughan, these houses are beyond the current range of all public transit, even beyond the "limited service" dotted lines. The houses are being built on what was farmland across from the Kortright Centre for Conservation, a pristine natural habitat 30 miles from downtown Toronto.
The story says that "some commercial development" is part of future plans. No matter how you dress it up, this is sprawl. The 40% savings in heating will be quickly consumed and then some by the fact that every single resident will need a car to drive long distances every day. What a waste of good efficiency investments.
The Energy Star rating system for houses should really take the location into account.
Tags: Transportation Urban Planning Sprawl Smart Growth