Toronto Traffic?

[Cooool]

don't worry folks because according to Miller, Giambrone, and others, Transit City will save the day!

The plan would be beautiful if it were a subway. But to me, I can't help but think they're glorified streetcars.

 

[CookieMonster]

I was going to reply and say I don't believe we're #4, that my drive is only 20-30 minutes each way and not that long. Then I remembered it's only a 7.5km drive, and it would be even longer if I didn't take all the side streets to avoid St.Clair.

But I don't care, after years of finding alternate routes to avoid all the new construction and road work, I've come up with the most scenic route possible.

 

[junctionist]

Compared to most similar-sized American cities (and even some smaller ones), I would guess that Toronto actually has a lower density of freeways (but better transit). E.g., see a road map of metropolitan Dallas, San Diego, Minneapolis or St. Louis. Whereas most American cities have lots of freeways and poor transit, and European cities have few freeways and lots of transit, we seem to have taken a middling approach.

As I said, we have attempted a "middle ground" approach, which has allowed highways to proliferate. Look at the 401, for instance, which is 18 lanes wide at one point, and the 427 is also quite wide, to the point that the 401 and 427 might as well count for more than one highway. There's the QEW/Gardiner, DVP/404, 403/410, and 407.

Comparing Toronto to Dallas, San Diego, Minneapolis or St. Louis is a bad comparison because the region is simply more significant than any of those places and population grow has been and will continue to be high; one's expectation for leadership in transit expansion is higher, because the alternative is a large amount of sprawl.

MoveOntario 2020 is significant in theory with its stronger focus on transit expansion, but the attitude now of maximizing expansion with inferior infrastructure (diesel trains or on-street LRT) is also concerning.

 

[Second_in_pie]

As I said, we have attempted a "middle ground" approach, which has allowed highways to proliferate. Look at the 401, for instance, which is 18 lanes wide at one point, and the 427 is also quite wide, to the point that the 401 and 427 might as well count for more than one highway. There's the QEW/Gardiner, DVP/404, 403/410, and 407.

It's true, and it's really killing the region. I think I've said it before, if I had to chose between what we have now and the freeway plan in the 60s, I'd choose the freeways cause people would be able to go around. Of course, if there was an option for good transit expansion vs. highways, I'd obviously choose transit. But for the past about 30-40 years, we've been in the middle ground and have gotten totally nowhere.

It's also ended us in this mega-line situation. The 404/DVP and 401 are both pretty good examples of this, but there's also the YUS and B-D. With no new subways for people to go on, they've all crowded onto these two subways.

Comparing Toronto to Dallas, San Diego, Minneapolis or St. Louis is a bad comparison because the region is simply more significant than any of those places and population grow has been and will continue to be high; one's expectation for leadership in transit expansion is higher, because the alternative is a large amount of sprawl.

It's true. I see two things; Canada's "Metro Areas" are tiny compared to US cities, and it seems like the US has to stretch the Metro area of every single one of their cities so every single "amalgamation" has a population of over 5 million. If you took the Metro Area of say, Chicago, it'd cover all the populated parts of the GGH, which means we're only 2 million shy of Metro Chicago.
This makes me interested when people say that the GTA is going to surpass Metro Chicago soon, because that means that the GGH will end up being absolutely huge. Of course, nobody in the rest of the country would be happy to hear that Toronto's an urban monstrosity of 12 million people!

MoveOntario 2020 is significant in theory with its stronger focus on transit expansion, but the attitude now of maximizing expansion with inferior infrastructure (diesel trains or on-street LRT) is also concerning.

Yeah, I'm disappointed too. But I think that this is where Metrolinx should really be coming in and well... managing transit. When they created the RTP, they took all the projects that the cities grabbed from MO2020, and put them together into this huge frankenstein-like "network" with very little coherency and that makes no sense at all. When will we get people who actually know about transit into Metrolinx?! People should really be realizing that we are in no way a poor city, province or country. I think this is being realized in other places in the country, but it's hit Toronto quite late, if at all.

If the people at Metrolinx stop sitting on their butts and actually build a true world-class, 21st century transit system, then people will be able to move around like never before. If not, we'll end up being some weird hybrid of pro-transit/anti-sprawl/pro-car/pro-suburb city, which I can't see going very well at all.

 

[kettal]

It's true, and it's really killing the region. I think I've said it before, if I had to chose between what we have now and the freeway plan in the 60s, I'd choose the freeways cause people would be able to go around. Of course, if there was an option for good transit expansion vs. highways, I'd obviously choose transit. But for the past about 30-40 years, we've been in the middle ground and have gotten totally nowhere.

I have to disagree completely. Toronto would have none of the appeal it has to me if it came out like the 1960s plans.

Besides, go back and look at who is #1 in the worst-traffic list from the first post.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I agree with Cooool and Hipster, we need better transit service.

Much of the needed rail infrastructure already exists to get many drivers off the road, like me. If GO Transit would actually run trains outbound in the morning and into Union in the evening I could go from Union to Markham station every day instead of driving. The Markham GO Station is only 4.1 km from my office. If they allowed bicycles on the train, I could ride to work in no time.

 

[kettal]

Much of the needed rail infrastructure already exists to get many drivers off the road, like me. If GO Transit would actually run trains outbound in the morning and into Union in the evening I could go from Union to Markham station every day instead of driving. The Markham GO Station is only 4.1 km from my office. If they allowed bicycles on the train, I could ride to work in no time.

There's not enough tracks on that GO corridor, so any counter-peak trains will collide head-on with the peak direction trains.

I'm not excusing lousy GO service, but it's not as simple as putting a train on the tracks and sending it out.

Edit: You could catch the GO bus to Markham in the morning, it's a 37 minute ride Union to Markham and has a bike rack in the front.

 

[lead82]

I think the highway congestion we have is partially a good thing, as it makes people more willing to take transit as it could be a good alternative to the stress of driving.

My main pet peeve with Toronto traffic is the insane amount of traffic lights we have and the poor timing on the main arterials.

 

[waterloowarrior]

There's still room for freeways in the GTA and GGH... 6 from Guelph to Hamilton, 7 from KW to Guelph, 407 east connection to 401... some widening of existing highways (401 through Mississauga?). But I don't think we need any new inner city highways.

Better to spend more money improving the GO Train. I think improving the GO to all-day frequent two-way service (and adding more stops with local/express service) will be one of the best things to happen to give people an alternative for their commute and to free up the roads for trucks/business travel, way more than Transit City or any highway expansion could achieve. I also wouldn't mind tolling the 401 express lanes either.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Much of the needed rail infrastructure already exists to get many drivers off the road, like me. If GO Transit would actually run trains outbound in the morning and into Union in the evening I could go from Union to Markham station every day instead of driving. The Markham GO Station is only 4.1 km from my office. If they allowed bicycles on the train, I could ride to work in no time.

First, Go's working on the all day service thing. For the Stouffville line, hourly service should be coming in this winter (if it's still on schedule.) Not sure how that'll work with rush hour, but after all day service is introduced, they'll continue expanding the double track until it's double tracked for a majority of the trip.

Secondly, you could always take a bus. Even during rush hour, they have pretty good frequencies (20 mins at rush hour,) and can get around reasonably well. For Stouffville, there's usually a lot of congestion along the DVP/404, but you could still get to Markham Go within an hour easy.

Thirdly, I'd love it if Go was more lenient about bikes as well. If I'm not mistaken, you're allowed to have a bike on trains, but it's only one or two per car, right? There's plenty of space, and I'm sure a bunch of people would use it, especially people commuting to the suburbs. Imagine taking your bike to Union, then taking the train to your closest Go station and then bike to your suburban office park! I think biking's pretty underrated actually, but the current bike setup they have with Go is pretty good for the service that's getting provided now. Busses have bike racks, as people want to reverse-commute to the suburbs where they can bike to their destination, while people want to bike to the Go station and then take the train to get downtown.

 

[junctionist]

Currently you can take a bike on a GO train except at rush hour in the direction in which most people are traveling on the line (i.e. Union in the morning, the suburbs in the afternoon).

 

[lead82]

I'm sorry, but hourly bus service is not good enough to attract people to leave their cars at home. Most people will leave their cars and take a train into the city, but will be much less likely to do so with a bus.

While hourly service to Markham is an improvement over the status quo, Toronto - Markham (Unionville) corridor needs 20 minute service to really be attractive.


As for highway expansion, it's high time to extend 404 up north to meet up with Highway 11 north of Orillia via eastern shores of Lake Simcoe. The 400 is insanely congested all year long now, and even more so in the summer. The 410 needs to go up to Collingwood/Wasaga, and make 26 4 lanes between Collingwood and Barrie.

When is the 407 east extension supposed to get started?

 

[MetroMan]

São Paulo anybody??

It could be much much worse, and perhaps we can learn from those cities with worse traffic to contain our problem before it gets out of hand.

I know we're talking about North America here, but I'd like to mention a case where traffic has come to a full halt....

In São Paulo, Brazil a cultural activity has developed as a result of traffic. Paulistas -- as people from São Paulo are called -- created the concept of going for a drink after work with their colleagues and friends working nearby. This is so that traffic is staggered instead of blowing up all of a sudden @ 5pm.

Still, it's nearly impossible to drive in SP without the patience of a saint. The municipal government had to take action so they started the practice of banning cars with an odd first number on their license plate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Even numbered license plates are banned from most of the city on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Of course people didn't take the idea seriously and went out and bought a second car so they'd have both an even and an odd numbered license plate.

The traffic is so bad in SP that the city has become the one with the highest number of privately owned helicopters in the world and the city with the most helipads on buildings. Those who can afford it, commute in the air. Companies pay for their CEOs and high ranking execs to fly to work.

What can Toronto learn from this?
I would propose a modified concept of odd and even numbered license plates being allowed on certain highways on certain days. You'd drastically reduce the traffic on every highway as people would take alternate routes on alternate days or be more motivated to carpool or take public transit.

 

[confusion]

I lived in Chicago for 4 years and let me tell you, Toronto has a long way to go before we catch up to their traffic nightmares.

They are smart with all the tolls though. It discourages you from driving when you don't have to, and encourages transit.

 

[Glen]

Blame the decentralization of employment to office parks and far flung industrial areas which requires you to have a car to get around. Most of the commutes, and most of the traffic, results from suburb-to-suburb commuting rather than commuting to the central city, anyway. The worst bottlenecks are, of course, where suburban highways narrow from 6 lanes to 3 in each direction, such as the 401 through Mississauga, the 401 east of Salem and the dreaded QEW at the Ford Plant.

The answer isn't to build transit following development, but to build transit prior to development and confining growth to those corridors only. In fact, we already follow this strategy, only with cars (i.e. we build roads and expressways into farmers fields to stimulate development). Surprise! Surprise! The ensuing development is auto-centric and designed for the transportation system (roads) that originally supported it. Trying to encourage transit use under these circumstances is a little like trying to catch mice in your house while you leave cheese out in the open.

How do you explain what has happened in NYCC then? The area has long been served buy a subway. Before amalgamation it was primarily a commercial area. Now it is largely a residential one. Many properties were previously approved for commercial use had their zoning changed to residential. Now the area is one of the most heavily congested the city.