Older millennials, adults aged 35 to 44, had debt-to-disposable income ratios around 250 per cent in 2019, while Freestone noted that metric was roughly 150 per cent for the same age group in 1999.
Can confirm we’re sitting around 250% but this is after exercising significant restraint to not take on as much mortgage as the banks would have given us. Everyone I know who bought over the last couple of years went all out and I can’t imagine them being any lower than 300-350%.
It isn’t just mortgages. I read just a few days ago that the average price of a new car in Canada is $66k. I’m not sure I’ve spent that much on all of my vehicles combined since I bought my first car at 17.
And a good used bike is $150.
People, we need to start looking for alternatives that won’t make rich people richer. Buy a *used *car if you must have a car, but don’t keep filling the pockets of these greedy bastards by buying new.
I’m super into urbanism and love my bike, but unless there’s good bike infrastructure in your area, you’re risking your life. I know and keep riding anyways but most people aren’t willing to take that risk. What we need to do is organize to push our governments to provide safe infrastructure for all road users.
i’d settle for more sidewalks in my town
on some streets they just paint a line down the road and call it a sidewalk - one of these is on a road touching an elementary school
I understand the sentiment, but I’m willing to bet that it’s more likely that the average person will die in a car than on a bike.
Yes, there are risks, and yes cycling infrastructure can absolutely help to reduce those risks, but in the greater context I think cycling is still the better option in more ways than one.
For instance, cycling can reduce the chance of the #1 cause of death (heart disease), while cars increase that risk. That alone would make cycling better for health and longevity, even with less than perfect cycling infrastructure. 😀
The amount of stress and risk riding a bike next to 60+ km/hr traffic with 4+ foot hood heights is simply not worth it to most people. Cars are the only method of travel prioritized in most Canadian cities while pedestrians and cyclists aren’t even a third or fourth thought. We need dedicated and seperated/protected bike/ped routes so everyone can feel safe.
I agree that there are barriers to cycling that need to be addressed, and safety (or perceived risk of injury) is one of them.
We need to consider that most trips by car are very short (<5km), and if a bike can be used, then it should. Longer trips can use public transportation.
I’d say that anyone living in any Canadian city with a population over 100,000 will have “good enough” cycling infrastructure to replace a good chunk of their car trips. And that would be great.
Even in these smaller municipalities, new development seems to get cycling infrastructure baked in, so things are always improving.
If you live in a city like Toronto, Montreal, or Calgary (three largest population centers in Canada), then you already have a vast cycling infrastructure network available.
More realistic barriers to cycling are often practical things: how to deal with sweat, how to deal with bad weather, where to park the bike, etc., and those come with experience and planning.
If we keep waiting for cycling infrastructure to be perfect, it’ll never happen. One cyclist on the road = one less car, and infrastructure won’t be built unless we have more cyclists asking for it.
Those are my 2 cents as someone who has replaced the majority of my own car trips with a bike, throughout the entire year, living in a Canadian city that doesn’t have ideal cycling infrastructure, but “good enough” cycling infrastructure.
I live in a city with more than 100,000 people and do not at all feel safe biking on the major roads, which are the main option for most travel as their is poor side road connectivity.
A lot of the new developments I see have painted bicycle gutters, which is barely even infrastructure and this point an insult to cyclists. One recent development in my home town has a painted bicycle gutter along a 6 lane road and it passes directly under a bridge and in front of a highway entrance. I have literally never seen a bike on this section because it is borderline suicidal. You may be comfortable in a painted bicycle gutter, but many people are not and it is a massive barrier to cyclists and especially younger ones.
Those “more realistic barriers” like weather and sweating exist everywhere else, including Sweden and Norway which have climate similar to ours. But people in those countries are able to bike year round on safe and maintained bicycle infrastrure that is so safely seperated from cars that kids commute to school on these routes.
The quality and connectivity of good bicycle infrastructure is the biggest hurdle in the majority of Canadian cities for cyclists. Sure people could probably make their commute on their bike, but until it feels easier and more pleasant than driving we won’t see mass shifts into cycling.
Have a look at Strava, Garmin, RidewithGPS “heatmaps” and see where other cyclists are riding. You may be surprised at the creative routes people use to avoid major roads (which I also tend to avoid completely).
That’s a real damn shame. I live in Oshawa, and all our north development has full multi-use paths, as well as bike lanes. Whitby has been adding mutli-use paths and separated (but painted) bike lanes like crazy, which have been great to ride on. Ajax is also well ahead of the curve. All three municipalities have < 150,000 people
I’d suggest having your municipal or regional active transportation committee follow up with your city to see what the hell is going on with their planning. Sounds like nobody who’s in a position of influence is putting cycling on their priority list.
I have to reiterate that driving is still more likely to get someone killed, as is inactivity (from driving). So we have to put things into perspective. There’s often a gap between perceived barriers and actual barriers, so some of the perceived barriers disappear once someone is riding regularly. Some new barriers may pop up, especially after a negative experience, but often times cycling strengthens our resilience and ability to adapt.
I’m not suggesting that someone bike on objectively dangerous roads or piss-poor bike gutters (which probably have parked cars in them anyway), but cycling requires different route planning, and there is often good cycling infrastructure that’s unknown to the average driver, which becomes “discovered” once someone takes up cycling.
Heck, we have an intersection around here that I’d use for at least 75% of my rides because there are bike lanes in all directions, which has been completely closed off due to construction all summer. This has forced me to seek alternate routes. And while my first few detours were on less-than-ideal roads, I’ve since found alternate routes that are even more efficient (and arguably safer) than the bike routes I was taking.
I would urge anyone who’s interested in cycling to connect with a local club or group to ask what the actual experience of cycling is. I’d hate for someone to not take up cycling in their city, because they don’t *feel * it’s safe, even when it could be.
I’m super confused, why is everyone bringing up such ridiculous car prices? Both Canada and the US have cheaper cars too. For example a KIA Rio (5 door) is around $17-23k new in Canada. It’s $16k in the US.
Are Americans only considering massive SUVs when they talk about new car prices?
You are talking about least expensive, they were talking about average.
Where are you getting $17K from? According to Kia’s website, they start at $19,933. And that’s pretty much the cheapest new car in Canada. That’s way out of reach for many people, and the used market is insane.
Earlier this year, my 2005 Civic with 301,000km was totaled. I bought it in 2013 for $5,000 with 121,000km. From my research, if I had sold it before it was totally, I probably could have gotten more than $5,000 for it, even with the extra decade and 180,000km.
Ah, from Google (and the MSRP), now it’s $20k on their site directly. See: https://blog.clutch.ca/posts/6-cheapest-new-cars-in-canada
There are cheaper options actually. My Kia Rio cost 14k€ (and that was with a deal) back in 2015. So it’s not that far off I guess. But that was actually the new price, with navigation, camera for driving backwards and so on with 7 years warranty on top.
Prices suck of course, but on the low end they are still affordable. Mid-tier is probably a lot of leasing (as you’d have to spend a big chunk of life savings on a direct buy) and high tier is only for rich assholes (or company cars).
How many Rios do you see on the road for every F-150?
I see a RAM for every 2 F-150s. 🥲
It was like 12 years ago I was looking at $10k new Kia rio.
My best bud dated this girl that drove one of those basic Kia 4 doors, I think it was the Rio. This was back probably 2003, 2004. If I remember correctly she paid like $12k for it. That thing would shake every filing you had loose. It didn’t have suspension, it had decorative struts that held the wheels on. What a piece of crap. I’ve heard people swear by them, and I know they’ve come a long ways since, but I always think of that POS when I think of Kia.
It’s getting hard to find cars period. I forget where I read this stat, it was only in the last day or two too, but the number of cars being made, and sold for under $30k, it’s like a small handful of models in total. And good luck actually finding many of said models on local lots, the factory production numbers of these cheaper models is super low.
Also you drove by a Kia lot lately? I ride by one near us fairly regularly on my road bike, and that lot is sparse. The only vehicles on it are SUVs, and there isn’t even very many of them. So yeah the internet says the Kia Rio is $17k, but can you actually get one in your hands for that?! I mean sure, maybe one or two. But remember, we are talking averages here, for the whole marketplace.
$60k average price is definitely in line with the observations I’ve been able to make, and it definitely reflects the laneways on my block. You are right, monster trucks and SUVs, but that reflects the current market. I’m the only person on my block that only has cars in their garage.
I’m from Austria, we don’t have that issue in Europe. But people here (luckily) are a lot less into monster SUVs. If I see even one of those taking up the entire lane or blocking my sight at an intersection I’m getting annoyed.
Going to the Kia website I can actually view cars in stock in the entire country. So I could immediately pick a Kia Picanto (that’s the cheapest one) up for €15,840. Or a Kia Rio for €17,440. Though I just saw on the Kia page, they discontinued the Rio (No more new cars coming).
Don’t forget the cost of insurance, maintenance, fuel, etc. According to TechAltar it costs about half a million euros to own something like a VW Golf at the low end, 1.5M euros on the higher end. It’s estimated that the average person spends 30-40% of their lifetime income on their car.
People only see the initial purchase price (which is often ignored because of various deferred payment offers that further increases the price), and the price of gas. Gas alone is starting to reach the price of renting an apartment, yet somehow people still can’t see themselves living without a car.
Insane.
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True. I don’t own a car so this completely escaped me.