Streets empty of cars. Transit ridership evaporating overnight. The pedestrians who do venture out scurrying to avoid each other as they pass on the sidewalk.

The COVID-19 crisis has already dramatically changed how we get around our cities, and while the lockdown that’s stifled life in Toronto and elsewhere won’t go on forever, there’s no guarantee our streets and transit systems will ever go back to the way they were.

The impact of the global pandemic on our transportation networks could be profound, and potentially painful.

Experts warn fears of a second wave or a new outbreak could force cities to abandon progressive pre-pandemic policies designed to create more liveable communities by encouraging density, public transit use, and decreased reliance on private cars.

Others counter that the crisis is a once-in-a-generation chance to correct the mistakes of our car-dependent past by creating more efficient streets that allow more space to pedestrians and cyclists.

“The more forward-thinking cities are looking at all the assets that they have — their parks, their streets — and how can we use them in a different way to accommodate this new environment that we’re in,” said Amanda O’Rourke, executive director of 8-80 Cities, a non-profit that advocates for inclusive urban design.

In the two decades leading up to the COVID pandemic, a consensus had arisen among planners that the best way to create healthier, more prosperous cities was to build dense communities where a high number of residents lived in close proximity to their workplaces and other destinations and could reach them with a short walk, bike, or transit trip.

Such schemes, especially when centred around busy transit stops, have been deemed crucial to combating urban sprawl and the environmental, economic and social problems associated with long commutes by car.

While there’s no agreement that density, as opposed to crowding, helps spread COVID-19, Robert Barrs, a principal with the Vancouver-based urban planning firm Modus, said that at least in the short term, the importance of social distancing could force a rethink of density and related transportation policies.

“The pandemic is causing for us to reflect on that I think, and to ask the question, ‘OK, so now what?’” he said.

Potentially accelerating the shift away from pre-pandemic transportation plans is the fact public transit has been thrown into what could be in a prolonged crisis as a result of the outbreak.

According to the 2016 census, roughly 37 per cent of Torontonians commuted by public transit, an increase of seven per cent from 10 years earlier.

But since the start of the crisis TTC ridership has plummeted to about 15 per cent of volumes before the outbreak, and transit agencies across the country are experiencing similar precipitous drops. There’s no guarantee ridership will return to pre-COVID-19 levels soon.

The TTC’s ridership has historically been tied to employment, and a persistent economic slump coming out of the lockdown could keep demand low.

Health concerns could also keep riders away. The role of transit in spreading COVID-19 is disputed — a working paper by an MIT researcher that asserted New York’s subway system was “a major disseminator” of the virus has been widely criticized — but citizens might still be expected to avoid packed buses, streetcars and subways for some time.

“Will people want to get on buses and trains like they did in the past? You don’t know,” said TTC CEO Rick Leary in an interview earlier this month.

Whether public health authorities and transit agencies will permit people to crowd onto vehicles is another open question.

The Ontario government could start reopening sectors of the economy as early as May, but most experts think a vaccine for the coronavirus could be at least a year away. Until one is available, there will still be a need to keep crowding to a minimum.

In an interview with CP24 last week, Mayor John Tory described the need to maintain social distancing on transit as one of the “biggest challenges” the city is facing as it drafts plans to reopen.

During the crisis the TTC has operated far more service than its low demand would otherwise dictate so that vehicles don’t get dangerously overloaded.

“But once you get more and more people travelling … how do you keep that physical spacing in place? These are the questions that we have to deal with, and we are, but I don’t have that answer at the moment,” Tory said.

Murtaza Haider, a professor at Ryerson University who researches transportation, predicted restrictions like those the TTC has put in place to block off seats on its vehicles could be required for months, if not years, in order to prevent a second wave of the current COVID-19 pandemic or stave off a new outbreak.

The restrictions would effectively lower the carrying capacity of transit systems, limiting citizens’ ability to get around and depriving agencies of badly needed fare revenue.

Last week, the TTC announced it would temporarily lay off 1,200 employees as it seeks to stem $90 million in monthly losses. Federal and provincial governments have yet to provide transit systems with emergency funding.

“The question is, can transit survive this?” Haider asked.

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With transit systems operating at reduced capacity, residents could be forced to turn to private cars for longer trips. That’s bad news for regions like the GTA where the road network is already at capacity.

“What we will see is more congestion,” Haider predicted.

The shift towards driving could be accelerated by some features of the COVID crisis, like rock-bottom gasoline prices, but slowed by others, like an increased number of people working from home.

With urban density and transit facing historic challenges, Joel Kotkin, a presidential fellow in urban futures at California’s Chapman University, has made the bold prediction that the COVID crisis could sound the death knell for pre-pandemic transportation policy.

“Just as progressives and environmentalists hoped the era of automotive dominance and suburban sprawl was coming to end, a globalized world that spreads pandemics quickly will push workers back into their cars and out to the hinterlands,” Kotkin wrote in the Washington Post last month.

In an interview, Kotkin said the way to avoid choking on traffic congestion in the post-pandemic world will be to bring employment centres to the suburbs, and eliminate the need for people to commute at all.

“Working from home and bringing work to where people can afford to live is a much better solution,” he said.

But others say there’s no evidence dense cities have done worse than others at handling the COVID-19 outbreak, and the crisis has only exposed the longstanding need for cities to pursue transportation policies that challenge the supremacy of the car.

“With most of the vehicle traffic gone overnight, you’re confronted by just how much space cities have committed to the least-efficient way of getting around and how useless that space is for everyone else,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, the former New York City transportation commissioner who now advises mayors around the world as a principal at Bloomberg Associates.

Sadik-Khan is working with Milan on plans to transform 35 kilometres of its streets into pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly thoroughfares once the city opens back up. The plan includes wider sidewalks, bike lanes and lower speed limits for cars.

Meanwhile Paris has announced it intends to roll out 650 km of emergency cycleways once the city starts to open up next month, Berlin has created “pop-up” bike lanes, and Oakland has restricted cars on almost 120 kilometres of its streets.

The policies are intended to give people more ways to get around while avoiding crowds on transit and not contributing to traffic congestion.

Sadik-Khan argued there’s no better time for cities to come up with plans to create healthier, more efficient roadways.

“There is no longer a transportation status quo,” she said.

“We can bring back our cities without bringing back all the traffic and the congestion and the pollution.”

O’Rourke, of 8-80 Cities, said she’s optimistic the city will come around. She argued that with transit still vital to urban mobility but facing an uncertain future, and the road network unable to handle more cars, residents will need alternatives.

“If we marry investment in walking, cycling, and transit together, they can work in a complementary way,” she said.

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation for the Star. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr