Public transit is a very complex issue that is not easily mastered.

Congratulations! You’ve decided to run for council, maybe even for mayor. You hear that public transit is a hot item these days, something worth learning about. Transit is a big portfolio, an area of complex issues and big, big spending.

Knowing a little might get you through one press conference, but you need to know a lot and think hard about your positions.

The first, most important question, is this: Is public transit something for “us” or for “them”? Do you use it? Would you use it? Will you fight for and represent those who want more and better transit?

When you say you “support public transit,” what do you mean? What is transit? What does it do? Will it have priority in your budget?

Does “better transit” mean getting people off the road so that there’s more room for you to drive? Do you like “transit” as an idea, but want to rein in spending? Do you know where the money comes from, where it goes? Do you have an alternative model good for the long term, or only a quick fix good for a sound bite?

Public transit does not just move people around the city. Everyone knows that commuters, especially those on the subway and GO Transit, love a quick, traffic-free ride to work. There’s also big savings in avoided pollution and fuel consumption. But that’s not all.

Over half of the trips on the TTC are outside of the peak periods, and even in the peak, many people are not going downtown. All that transportation capacity avoids the space needed for cars – storage, driving lanes, and parking – plus the expense of owning them. That’s a huge public and private benefit all over the GTA, even if the auto industry might prefer that we all drive.

Will traffic congestion ever go away? Not likely. At current levels of transit market share (well under 10 per cent outside of the 416, and nowhere near 50 per cent inside of it), we would have to provide vast new transit capacity to make a serious dent in traffic. Much of the congestion is for travel that isn’t well-oriented to a transit network – the typical everywhere-to-everywhere suburban commuting pattern. Some of this can be captured for transit, but not all of it.

The real challenge is the growing demand for travel as the GTA population grows. New homes, offices, and industrial centres pop up everywhere, but not in a way that is easily served with transit. Try to constrain or redirect development, though, and you will meet howls of outrage from developers and politicians who want more of the same.

Toronto has the advantage of an Official Plan, presuming that council sticks with it and the city’s goal to increase density along major streets. However, many 416 residents, not to mention those from the 905 who travel through the 416 on their way to and from work, have a very road-oriented view of travel – it’s the only option that works for them.

Transit solutions that work within the 416, especially in the central area, are less viable the further out we go. If the reach of good transit expands, that boundary between inner and outer cities will move.

Do we let this boundary drift outward with small transit improvements here and there, maybe a new subway line every decade, or do we actively push it outward expanding the range of communities with good transit options?

Transit is all about choice – the ability to leave the car at home or to get by without one much of the time – and this choice only works if there is good service. Many of Toronto’s transit riders could drive, but don’t. Force them away with service cuts in the name of economy, and you may never get them back. You will, however, get the added congestion they bring to the city.

As the balance shifts, transit, pedestrians, and cyclists will take the lion’s share of road capacity and motorists will have to make do with the leftovers. That’s a very hard message for many to swallow.

Road space is finite. What do we use it for? In built-up areas where wider, let alone new roads, are out of the question, any improvement for one road user is at the expense of another. Even where space remains today, there will be no room left tomorrow.

Should transit get priority, and what, exactly, does this mean? Should half of the space on major roads be dedicated to parking? Where do bicycles fit? What happens in areas where “minor” roads for a parallel bike network separate from the arterials don’t exist? Should wide, fast streets be redesigned, “calmed,” or “tamed” to improve the lot of pedestrians?

As a candidate, do you look forward to see how the city would address limits on road space, or do you look back to an era when we could pretend car use would grow forever, and everyone else would just get out of the way?

This is the first in a series of essays by Steve Munro on public transit in Toronto.