In February 2023, the concept of “15-minute cities”—cities where everything from health care to education is accessible within an approximate 15-minute walk—became the subject of international conspiracy theories alleging people would be confined to their respective districts and restricted from relying on car use.
However, in the push for greater infrastructure sustainability, research has shown more walkable communities bring a host of benefits. A 2021 research paper found that transitioning from car-dependent neighborhoods to walkable neighborhoods may hold the key to unlocking sustainable growth as well as promoting livability and health.
The cost of student car ownership
A car owner since the beginning of her third year, Tatum Malone, ConEd ’26, has had a mixed experience navigating the streets of Kingston. While she’s enjoyed the ability to get groceries more quickly and attend to extracurricular commitments, she doesn’t know if she would still buy a car if she could go back to the start of her third year.
She believes she still could’ve easily done grocery shopping or her extracurriculars using public transport or walking.
She doesn’t use her car as much as she expected.
“I probably don’t spend over $200 on gas for one semester, but I’m only driving short distances and not very often. I probably fill up on gas like once a month,” Malone said in an interview with The Journal.
When it comes to other car-related costs, Malone is grateful for her parental which helps cover insurance expenses. However, there remains the financial strain of unexpected maintenance costs—her windshield recently cracked, and she has to get it replaced as soon as possible.
Her parking situation also leaves much to be desired. She pays $85 monthly in parking fees, a significant cost to her, and her parking space is rarely maintained. She doesn’t have winter tires, meaning she’s had to avoid driving for a month at one point in the winter.
Tierney Farmer, ArtSci ‘25, has had a car since the beginning of her second year. For her, the primary convenience of owning a car has been the ability to travel to destinations without extensive planning.
“Just being able to go home on a weekend and not plan a whole train or Megabus [trip] and then having friends who just want to be able to go for a hike outside of Kingston or need to go to the mall. It’s a lot more convenient for those reasons,” she said in an interview with The Journal.
Farmer found owning a car in Kingston to be a significant expense. For one, she pays just over $100 monthly for a parking permit from the City of Kingston.
Just like Malone, a key frustration for Farmer is managing parking in Kingston. Before she moved into her current house, she was put on an eight-month waiting list for the parking spot at that house. She strongly encourages students to research parking options before bringing a car to Kingston.
Walkability in Kingston
Both Malone and Farmer pointed out that they don’t use their cars as regularly as anticipated due to Kingston’s walkability.
“In of gas, I would say I actually save a fair amount of money on gas because you can walk more places in comparison to where I grew up,” Farmer said.
Farmer appreciates that she can walk throughout campus and Kingston’s downtown area within a 10-to-15-minute span. She believes this walkability makes the city a more attractive place for students.
At the same time, she believes some essential places for students—particularly cheaper grocery stores like Walmart—aren’t within walking distance.
While Malone doesn’t find all of Kingston to be walkable, she believes parts of the city frequented by students are.
Malone hails from London, Ontario—a city she considers to be spread out and thus less walkable when compared to Kingston.
“Everyone [in London] was driving from the moment we were able to get our G1s because you need to have a car in order to have personal freedom there,” she said.
In Kingston, she appreciates that there are many grocery stores and bars close to campus.
Lisa Osanic, the City Councillor for the Collins-Bayridge District, represents a part of Kingston that is further away from Queen’s campus.
While she thinks downtown Kingston is walkable, Osanic believes older neighborhoods aren’t.
“I would get so many phone calls from people that had just moved into the older part of Bayridge and they would say ‘when’s the sidewalk being built, our street doesn’t have any sidewalks and it’s so unsafe. Our kids can’t play and there’s nowhere for them to play and to ride their bikes safely,’” Osanic said in an interview with The Journal.
However, in newly constructed neighborhoods, Osanic contends walkability is much better. In Woodhaven, a master planned community in the western part of Kingston, Osanic brought up how there are multi-purpose pathways suitable for walking and cycling.
Osanic said the pandemic was a key reason why sidewalk construction has been slow in Kingston.
“What happened during the pandemic is that, even though a lot of road construction could go on, we had those minimum separation distances,” Osanic said.
“When you’re building a sidewalk, it takes more than one person, and you have to be kind of elbow-to-elbow. during the pandemic, you had to stay three feet away from everyone, so we had to stop our sidewalk work and we had a two-year backlog.”
Opposition from residents is another factor explaining the lack of sidewalk construction. According to Osanic, some residents oppose the construction of sidewalks because it will lead to reduced space for parking on their driveways.
Benefits of walkable lifestyles
Maxwell Hart, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, believes walkability has benefits in many areas, ranging from improved public health to economic development.
“People who walk and bike are more likely to shop at local shops than people driving. You’re more likely if you’re strolling down to pop in for a coffee even though you just went out to buy bread,” Hart said in an interview with The Journal.
Hart pointed to social cohesion as a key benefit of walkable neighborhoods. According to him, walkability creates more opportunities for unplanned social encounters that can lead to meaningful conversations.
According to David Gordon, a professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, walkable communities provide more choice to a greater number of people.
“Canada is a nation in which two-thirds of our population lives in suburbs, there’s not a lot of choice for the people who don’t have cars,” Gordon said in an interview with The Journal.
Gordon contends walkable neighborhoods are more economically viable since higher density spaces are more efficient and thus less expensive to service.
He argues walkable neighborhoods reduce car use and rely on homes connected to other homes, which are more efficient to heat than detached homes, thereby lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
From a physical health perspective, Gordon also thinks that walkable neighborhoods, by promoting active lifestyles, are essential to tackling rising obesity rates, particularly among youth. As a longtime urban planner, he’s noticed less and less children are walking to school.
According to a 2015 research paper, around one in seven Canadian children and adolescents are obese and obesity prevalence rates in Canada are projected to continue increasing over the next 20 years. Research also suggests that walkability is linked to the reduced prevalence of adolescent obesity.
Looking forward
While Hart prefers to be optimistic, Hart believes there are certain tipping points where it becomes harder to promote walkable lifestyles.
“We build our cities in a particular way and that involves a lot of suburban neighborhoods in most cities in Canada. There’s an amount of modal shift that we can get for people who are in a good position, that don’t live that far from campus,” Hart said.
While he believes some people are amenable to adopting more walkable lifestyles, Hart thinks it may be harder to convince certain people.
“Depending on where you live or where you work, it’s just difficult to take a couple of buses or to have a long layover,” he said.
Hart believes it’s more productive to look at the specific context and the lived experiences of people as well as the actual community they live in.
“Every city is different; every suburb is different. What could be done there? What do people want to do? Based on that, you can give them some ideas to inspire them,” Hart said.
Gordon pointed to the redevelopment of Portsmouth Village in Kingston—where there’s construction of more high-rise buildings and compact townhouses—as a template for promoting walkable lifestyles.
He also suggested suburban sprawl repair, a strategy that emphasizes transforming car-centric spaces into more walkable communities, as the way forward.
“There are suburban arterial strips that lead into parking lots, auto dealerships, gas stations for mile after mile and these can be converted to a much more compact neighborhood served by LRT [light rail transit],” Gordon said.
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