Was it because of the bike lanes? /s 🤡
Article: They didn’t add any lanes in Toronto, just to outlying areas where they claim traffic was improved. Toronto traffic still miserable after nothing was done there.
Seriously, if this is costing us 11 billion a day in economic damage, get more people working from home. The solution is so blindingly obvious. It saves money and can be done overnight. Fuck, we are a stupid bunch of apes.
Seriously, if this is costing us 11 billion a day in economic damage, get more people working from home.
So much this. I’m not in Ontario, my commute in Saskatoon is an obscene 15 minutes, so I don’t go into work all the time. People have asked why I never took any tech jobs in Toronto or KW, and there are two major reasons: 1. Too people-y. I am a small town person, and 2. TRAFFIC HOLY FUCK WHO CAN SIT IN A CAR THAT LONG IN THE CITY?!!? I won’t move to Calgary, Edmonton, or even Winnipeg for the same reason and they’re not nearly as bad.
Wouldn’t decentralizing to the point that traffic is relieved also have the effect of massively devaluing the astronomically expensive real estate at the Centre of the Universe? Owned by the most powerful entities in the country…
I’m failing to see the downside.
A classic engineering blunder, they should have added one more lane. 99% of traffic engineers quit adding lanes right before the finally fix traffic.
“just 1 more lane bro, I promise it’ll fix traffic”
Well, eventually it would—when they reach a number of lanes equal to the total population of the metropolitan area, plus one, so that all residents can be on the road at the same time, driving abreast. Of course, the last few lanes will have to be built on top of James Bay, but you can’t have everything.
It evens out. We just have to cut all social services and healthcare in order to afford maintaining the roads. Many will die as a result but that’s just less lanes to maintain. It’s brilliant.
I’d love an east-west Go train line that follows the 401 from the Rouge National Park in scarbs to Mississauga.
Imagine if they’d added simple commuter rail instead of lanes along the highway. It’s so blindingly obvious.
More roads equal easier commute which means more people buy cars and move out of the city. They should be focusing on lowering housing costs in the city and investing in public transit.
It’s Toronto, how many people didn’t already have cars? It’s not exactly London or New York City.
I’m in BC. We have a car, but traffic into Vancouver is heavy in the morning so I take the Bus connector and Skytrsin. I get to work almost in same amount of time. More transit with better schedules reduces traffic much faster than adding lanes.
Invest in developing places that aren’t the big magnet city. Invest in telecommunications so that Letterkenny can run a data centre and/or call centre.
Invest in mass transit solutions. Use some of those powers that let Ford override the Conservation Authorities to override freight railways.
ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO WORK FROM HOME!
It’s not people who need encouragement to do so, it’s employers. COVID proved how unnecessary most office work actually is, and now they’re clawing that back for imaginary made-up reasons. Stop them, we have labor standards regulation for a reason, and they can’t gaslight us anymore by pretending there’s no other way for them to function.
And for the few companies that actually do need large numbers of in-office workers, start programs to incentivize them to move to smaller communities to become THE major employer for that area or better yet diversify and spread out their workforce and offices into multiple towns instead of centralizing all office jobs in the densest part of a handful of cities, the small “efficiency” gained for the company is not worth the added social and infrastructure costs which are borne largely by taxpayers. They don’t even have to move far. Montreal and Toronto are surrounded by dozens of built-up communities with relatively good infrastructure. They just need commitment from employers to move there. Vancouver’s geography is a bit more challenging but there is still plenty of room for improvement.
I don’t think Mark “Brookfield” Carney is going to save us on this issue, so I imagine it will have to be dealt with by the provinces or put on the backburner for some future federal government to deal with, but my god it is stupid that we let corporations organize themselves this way.
I’m shocked I tell you, shocked! Well, actually not that shocked.
