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Is it worth the drive? Is it still worth the drive to Acton, as the very successful marketing slogan asked several decades after the Old Hide House's million dollar marketing plans put Acton on the shopping destination map by asking that question. Christopher Hume, the Toronto Star's urban affairs/ architecture columnist was asked to answer that question on Sunday afternoon at the Absolutely Acton Speakers' Series, a Heritage Acton fundraiser for the Acton Town Hall Centre renovations. After touring Acton, looking at the "good, bad and ugly" Hume really didn't answer the question, but did say small towns, like Acton, will become even more desirable as the GTA becomes even more congested. Hume said he did not want to sound like someone from downtown Toronto trying to spread the gospel, but his research makes him think there is "a connection between the past and future of Acton that will come in unexpected ways," Hume told the large, attentive crowd at the Town Hall Centre. "Is it still worth the drive to Acton? I know I'm supposed to say yes, of course, but you know, I think a lot of people might say no, it is not worth the drive...not because of Acton or the "sad state" of the Old Hide House, because of the drive itself," Hume said, adding the drive has become an obstacle. He believes the future of the GTA/Golden Horseshoe area hinges on the ability to deal with traffic, a centuriesold issue as it was the car that quickened the pace of the escape from cities to the suburbs with the "utopia" of single-family homes with big backyards and white picket fences. With the worst traffic congestion in North America, GTA traffic plans are not sustainable, losing $6-billion a year due to congestion, Hume said, adding it is time to get people out of cars and support a return to the city by kids who grew up in the suburbs and now don't want to worry about gridlock, gas and parking costs, insurance and harm to the environment. Hume also argued that cars led to the demise of the Toronto Radial Railway which moved people and goods from Toronto, through Acton and to Guelph from the end of WW I to the 1930s. "The cities and towns that THURSDAY, MAY 10, 2012 THE NEW TANNER 11 will survive and thrive will be the ones that have remained faithful to their pasts and their history...and kept that old train station, that kept that city hall, that maintained that density of built form that al- lows for a downtown to occur," Hume said, adding it won't be the small towns that destroyed themselves in the mad rush of a car-based life. Hume said what would allow cities and towns to prosper in the future is that they have their own unique character and Acton can be "healthy and vibrant." Christopher Hume MOTHER'S DAY SUNDAY MAY 13 310 Guelph St. Unit 5 Georgetown 905-873-4405 Close To Home, Far From Ordinary