According to Commute Solutions: The True Cost of Driving it costs me $18.50 per day to drive to work!

Driving is not just the cost of gas and the amortization of your vehicle; do not forget to include insurance, license and registration, tires, maintenance, etc. And there are all the other things we so frequently forget to include, the costs to maintain the roadways, pollution, noise, etc.

Although I drive to work most days I have made changes to try and reduce my carbon footprint. I am fortunate and have some flexibility in my schedule, so I either work and earlier or later shift to avoid peak congestion. I also plan to start split commute; subway and biking, again at off peak times to bring my bike on the subway and to avoid as many cars as possible. If I get really adventurous I may even start running to or from work to try and bump up my running mileage!

Gridlock isn’t the issue. The issue is lack of a provincial public transportation network. People live in the suburbs because it’s cheap, they have more space and can afford bigger homes.

Isn’t that the tradeoff? One trades the freedom of space for the freedom of time?

But the fault doesn’t lie entirely with the commuters. They are forced to drive their cars to and from work since there is no viable transportation network in and around the cities. By downloading public transit infrastructure to the municipalities the result is a disjointed  system. Transit systems should be uploaded to the provincial governments and a costsharing agreement should be worked out between the provinces and the municipalities, based on ridership demographics.

While I endorse gridlock as an election issue, it should not be a standalone issue. It should be raised with public transit and land use plans; it should be a part of the connectivity issue.

A little history…

The Allen Expressway was originally designed to be a connection from the 401 all the way down to the Gardiner, known as the Spadina expressway. Construction began in 1963. Homes were demolished, neighbourhoods destroyed and air pollution was increasing for surrounding residents. Opposition continued to mount. Modifications to the Spadina Expressway were made in 1964, it meant the expropriation and demolition of more homes. by 1966 the city opened the first section from Wilson Avenue down to Lawrence, with a massive, highly efficient connection with the 401. Construction down to Eglinton continued but in 1969 a group led by Alan Powell and Jane Jacobs known as the “Stop Spadina, Save Our City Co-ordinating Committee” (SSSOCCC) formed committed to halting the progress of the Spadina Expressway.

Based on the Eglinton terminus the SSSOCCC won.

What does Toronto really need?

Does Toronto need a buried expressway? Didn’t we learn enough from Boston’s Big Dig? The multi-billion dollar project was way over budget, has not improved efficiency and has not helped reconnect citizens to the waterfront.

Toronto needs roads to function more efficiently, better bus transportation on existing roads and traffic engineers to work together to get our city moving again, from pedestrians, to cyclists, to buses and finally vehicles.

Toronto needs a mayor who can think about what the citizens really need. Do they need their taxes raised to fund more projects? Or do they need a mayor who can work with what the city already has and make it better?

Give me a KISS

Do you remember when you were much younger and someone told you to follow the KISS principle? Keep It Simple Stupid. While I was driving back from class I thought of a few things the city could do before it was forced to construct an underground expressway

• Eliminate illegal parking/stopping on streets during day hours: Bathurst was crawling today. Why? Because a delivery truck decided to park facing south on the northbound lanes. Instead of two lanes of traffic, it was reduced to one. In addition the one lane competed for right turn space, since the driver had parked so close to the intersection. Flow would have been uninterrupted without the truck illegally stopped.
• Dedicated Pedestrian Crossing at all major intersections: I wrote a blog on this before. The Dundas square intersection almost ‘gets’ it. But instead there should be no pedestrian crossing when traffic is moving. It is safer for pedestrians to cross when the intersection is completely stopped.
• Eliminate Street Parking: You cut capacity in half with street parking. Facilities can be built in nearby areas. I see the other side of the argument, that it hurts businesses where street parking has been eliminated. However, the loss of business due to congestion is likely greater than the cost of lost business.
• Dedicated Bus and Carpool lanes: Their benefits are well documented and require little infrastructure for implementation.
• Signal Timing: Ever feel like you get a green light as the one in front of you turns red? City Traffic Engineers need to set routes as ‘main lines.’ Consecutive green lights would allow people to come into and out of the city easily.

Instead of dreaming of elaborate, expensive, complicated infrastructure, lets go back to the basics. Instead the city should work with its existing infrastructure. Make the roads move efficiently. Make buses move along those routes efficiently. Make it attractive to live in the city again. Work with all the great infrastructure that exists in the city before we bring in more.

Maybe Rossi has a vision. Or maybe he thinks a massive elevator will transport vehicles up to meet the Gardiner.

While his end of camp tag line seems comical now, Toronto’s bus system is depleting so rapidly that it might take a year for you to see your friends again (ok, not really). Unless you live directly on the subway there is little hope that you can travel on the transit system efficiently.

40 minutes to go 5 kilometers?

Reported in the Globe and Mail yesterday, Toronto’s bus routes “fail those who need it most.” According to their research only those who are part of the ‘creative class‘ can afford to live on the subway routes. The remainder, the working and the service class can’t afford to live along the subway, despite needing it the most. Unable to afford a car, insurance and parking these people are forced to use ‘The Better Way‘.

Would a Congestion Charging Scheme Improve Bus Scheduling in Toronto?

In early 2003 London introduced a congestion charging scheme; camera’s were installed and charged people who drove into the city. Rates varied by time of day and day of the week. People who lived in Central London were charged a tax to own a car. And more buses were added to there vast route network just prior to the congestion charging scheme implementation.

The overall result: there was a 30% reduction in automobile traffic. Reliability of the buses increased. With reliability increasing more people saw buses as an attractive alternative to get in and an around town.

Toronto currently does not have a congestion charging scheme. Individuals commute to and from the suburbs, local Toronto residents drive anywhere and everywhere with no other viable option available. In the end the TTC, along with individual automobiles, competes for space on the road.

Forget “fancy, European-style light-rail transit” and subways. Create dedicated bus lanes and carpool lanes during rush-hour. Implement a congestion charging scheme. Promote living where we work. Once again make all aspects of the TTC ‘The Better Way.’

It seems like most north-south routes through the core of the city are under construction (Bayview, Mount Pleasant, Yonge and Avenue). And a select few east-west streets are also under construction, namely the Gardiner Expressway and Bloor Street, Toronto’s main lateral arterials.

Construction is only adding to an existing gridlock problem. Last week the National Post reported that Toronto was rated the 2nd worst city in the world for traffic congestion by IBM. Johannesburg took the #1 spot for worst traffic. Residents perceive that traffic is getting worse (9% of commuters felt the quality of their commute had declined) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCED) estimated that Toronto lost $3.3 billion last year in productivity due to the congested roads.

Toronto’s gridlock is getting worse, between the increase in population and the increase in construction it is excruciating to travel through the city by car. And currently there is no public transit solution worth considering (would you rather be stuck on a crowded bus or in your own car?)

Someone said to me the other day,

Is all the construction a conspiracy by David Miller to convince Dalton McGuinty and Queens Park that we need Transit City Now?

The solution is not just a mass transit upgrade for Toronto. Part of the solution also includes a cultural shift (i.e getting people out of their individual cars and back on to buses, getting people to move back into the city and out of the suburbs). It should also include more bike lanes, but bike lanes with a buffer from traffic; Toronto’s driving culture still isn’t capable of sharing lanes.

Regardless of the outcome, Toronto is stuck with massive delays, congestion and, thus, pollution from the added construction to the gridlock. And while I understand that there is a huge infrastructure gap and the roads NEED to be fixed a better construction mitigation plan should have been sought out.

I was absolutely shocked by the traffic of the Toronto bedroom community. It wasn’t the predictable congestion of downtown Toronto, it was chaotic and random and looked like it would drive any commuter to insanity. With it’s 6 lane roads with dedicated double left turn lanes and right turn lanes at intersections, why wasn’t the traffic moving?

I was also surprisingly amazed at the number of people that used the Mississauga transit system – it is after all archaic, completely surface routes with no dedicated transit or carpool lanes, i.e. it moves at whatever speed the traffic is moving.

Why is the traffic so congested in these outlier cities?

Mississauga, and many of the other bedroom communities, is no longer just a commuter city. They have vibrant industry that result in many people commuting to these bedroom communities. But the reason it doesn’t function well is represented by the picture above, long blocks, empty sidewalks and a million people trying to get around.

This problem will only get worse. According to Smart Commute already more people commute into Mississauga than out of Mississauga every day. Over the next 30 years it is predicted that Mississauga’s population will grow by 22% and the number of people working here will grow by 31%. Overall that means even longer commute times, denser congestion resulting in increased pollution and stress levels. And this is only data for Mississauga other jurisdictions will face similar growth.

It will be a combination of city planners, traffic engineers and visionaries to improve this situation. Otherwise Southern Ontario will be plagued with the traffic congestion and pollution from all the single commuter cars.

…when you close a road you create mass congestion on the parallel routes.

On Friday I had one of those frustrating drives home at 2pm. Usually there is a little congestion at this time of the day on a Friday but last week it was unbearable. With Lakeshore Blvd closed, between British Columbia Drive and Strachan, people were forced on to the Gardiner Expressway, King Street, Queen Street and any other parallel route they could find. At the root of the congestion, street parking on these parallel routes.

Temporary parking limitations

In the future Toronto should consider eliminating the street parking on for the two week days leading up to the Indy event. For any major event that closes a major thoroughfare the city should consider limiting street parking on weekdays on these major routes. Given that these street parking closures are temporary businesses should be willing to cooperate; especially considering that there are usually additional revenues from the influx of people drawn to the event.

Events are a huge part of Toronto but more planning is always needed. With congestion due to out limited public transportation system and mass numbers of people commuting it is imperative to keep our roads from reaching those critical volumes.

Multimodal Highways are the Future

I recently finished and wrote a book review of Alphabet City’s book Fuel, which had a great section on the post-carbon highway specifically evaluating Highway 401. The existing highway at it’s widest is 18-lanes with a core-collector system and goes down to 4-lanes in the more rural sections. The future highway will have rail, cycle, transfer stations – it will be the ultimate people mover. With Ontario’s Places to Grow plan and the ever increasing population there is no denying that there needs to be a shift in the way people use the 401.

The 401 is already congested now imagine how gridlocked it would be with a 30% increase in population

A few facts about the 401

• Total length = 820 km (509.6 miles)
• $1.2 Trillion worth of goods travel the highway each year or $3.3 Billion per day
• Annual Average Daily Traffic = 420,000 vehicles
• Peak Average Daily Traffic = 500,000 vehicles
• 71,000 tonnes of salt (NaCl) used annually to combat ice and snow

There is no denying that highways will always play a huge role in moving people to places and things to people in North America. The goal of reducing the carbon footprint on the highways is to incorporate ‘green’ initiatives; wind turbines, pervious pavements, electric vehicles, carpooling, trees along right-of-ways …

What about turning your car off while you’re waiting for the train to pass?

I had the opportunity to live in Switzerland for a summer and I was always amazed at how environmentally conscious the Swiss were. Get to a red light, turn your car off. Get to a rail crossing, turn your car off. No matter what the idling circumstance they always turned their car off. How come Canadian’s can’t adopt the same habits?

Congestion costs Toronto $2.2 BILLION per year

Congestion in Toronto is almost unbearable at times. It is not only the highways that are congested it is the city streets. And much of that congestion leads to idling – where you sit in your car and go no where. Unfortunately it is somewhat unreasonable to turn your car off on the highway, wait ten minutes and then drive again. The idling I’m referring to is when you’re waiting for a friend, picking something up, dropping something off, etc … or waiting for a train!

In Toronto there is a by-law that prohibits idling. If your car is sitting still for more than 3 minutes out of every 60 minutes than you could be charged with idling.

Of course there are those people that believe that idling is necessary. There are individuals who believe that you need to warm your car up for at least 10 minutes on a cold day. Modern technology and modern cars actually only need 30 seconds to warm up. Or the individuals that believe that is uses more gas when you stop and start the car. The reality is that you use more gas when you idle for more than 10 seconds. More on these myths can be found here.

In the end the message really is to turn your car off whenever you can. Perhaps in the future Toronto will have a fourth colour to the traffic lights, so we can turn our vehicles off and turn them back on when it is our time to drive again.

I do feel for the protesters but holding a city hostage is no way to have your cause heard. I think the social injustice in countries like Sri Lanka, Darfur, Peru, Bolivia, and sadly the list goes on are crimes upon all of humanity, but do not create injustice to the residents of Toronto who have done no wrong and to the many that support charities and causes like that of the Tamil protesters.

How Does this relate to traffic?

The protests last night demonstrated what a huge part the Gardiner Expressway plays in Toronto’s road infrastructure. The city was grid-locked downtown without the use of the Gardiner. It should be one of the ‘quietest’ times with respect to traffic, instead it took hours to cross the east-west boundaries of the city. And to control the situation the DVP southbound was closed, further congesting the city.

Preserving the Gardiner is essential to Toronto’s road infrastructure. Last nights unfortunate incident really brought this to light.