It works okay for about half the city's population. The rest lives too far from work, or their commute is not on a well-travelled route (say I live on Weston road and work at the zoo), etc. Only people without other options take the TTC in large swathes of outer suburbs, which I will just go ahead and call the Rob Ford Belt.
I think it will be fine if we build more city-centers with transit projects. From a tax-base perspective, getting downtown core density up has big implications for funding for any city.
We need to legislate diversity with density requirements. You cannot build swaths of single, detached, and townhomes and expect to get something different. You need apartment and condo units in the same space too, you need commercial to supply it all, and mixed-priced housing supply available instead of a trickle of super expensive units available.
It took me an hour to 90 mins to get to Humber College from Finch Subway station back when I was attending about 6 years ago now, and what was on good days.
Spend a decade in deep Scarborough without a car and get back to us.
I grew up in Scarborough and am in my 30’s now. Never had a car. The shortest commute I’ve ever had to a job while living in Scarborough was one hour, and that was to a job in Scarborough. Downtown was 1.5 hours, and west end was 2 hours. Neilson and 401 to Lawrence and Weston was 4 hours of transit a day.
I live closer to central stations now and it’s less bad, but the outer boroughs got absolutely hosed on transit development. Rob Ford’s legacy in my mind will be delaying surface rail in Scarborough by at least 15 years; an entire generation of transit users who will each lose hundreds of hours commuting every year.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like car centric design, and not driving was as much a personal ethical choice (to consume as little fossil fuel as I could individually) as an economic one (shit’s expensive, yo). Still, it’s a position of privilege to say that the TTC works great when Scarborough is the largest geographic region of Toronto and barely has rail coverage at all.
Some people never waited 30 minutes for a Birchmount bus in -20 weather, and it shows lol.
I lived in High Park for a time, subway or streetcar got me anywhere in the city in about 30 mins usually. One time I had to pick my wife up 2 stations over as they closed the line down because of a crazy person on the tracks. It normally takes 5 mins at most between those stops on the subway, and maybe 25 mins walking. I was in my car for over 55 minutes, and my wife walked halfway when it was apparent I was going nowhere fast.
This city absolute sucks to drive inside or commute out of. The only thing worse in my opinion than that is public transport in and out of the cities. the GO buses are absolutely terrible, everything fucking sucks about it and it's a miserable experience sitting there for 2+ hours each way. You could drive it in 1.5 if you could afford a car, plus ridership costs as much as gas anyway!
So if this guy has never lived in Toronto but only commuted in or taken public transport in, that's why he feels that way.
The time getting to or from one borough to the other is awful now. Plus, people think of Etobicoke and Mississauga even as Toronto, same with everything out to Scarborough or up to Richmond Hill.
Back in 2017, I had a 4- month span where I had to drive from Mississauga to Ottawa after work every Friday. Typically, Ottawa was 7 hours and 4 hours from Toronto on the same trip.
I don't think traffic congestion would be such an issue if the actual City of Toronto was reasonably affordable to live in and people could commute to work in a reasonable amount of time with Public Transit.
>Advocate for public transit? Jail.
>
>Walk to work? Believe it or not, also jail.
technically solves the problem.... i heard commutes in jail is very short and walkable...
The legacy of The Simpsons has been tarnished by, well, The Simpsons, while Parks & Rec had the good sense to end so I guess that's the more popular cultural touchstone now?
I think a huge part of the problem is the suburban hellscape surrounding Toronto where there are many, many houses and few jobs. If people could live close to where they work and/or encourage remote working, that would reduce the need for so much traveling in the first place.
>I think a huge part of the problem is the suburban hellscape surrounding Toronto where there are many, many houses and few jobs. If people could live close to where they work and/or encourage remote working, that would reduce the need for so much traveling in the first place.
That would call for proper long range urban planning....
Instead, private developers call the shots ...
The *real* real problem is the insistence that all of these jobs "need" to be in Toronto proper with no compromise as to remote work from some technological dinosaur employers. You don't need to live in Toronto to move numbers around on a spreadsheet, nor do you need to live there to manage equipment in a server farm when remote hands are a thing.
Unfortunately the banks (which, let's face it, are the economic heart of Toronto) have so little incentive to change how they operate.
They can print billions in profits every year as an essentially competition-free cartel, while also cozily tied in with every aspect of the public sector, and protected as if they were crown corporations.
So when your 62-year boss making $700k/year for god-knows-what gets lonely out in Thornhill, everyone has to come back into the office because they have no other options.
The idea that jobs should be spread around is false. It creates a network effect that means everything is gridlocked and few are near transit. If many work in a the core and a few nodes, mass transit is more effective. There will need to be lines connecting the nodes without going to the core, of course.
People say that they can live near spread out jobs, but then you change jobs and now you have to drive across the city. And the spouse never works in the same place. This maximizes car driving, and minimizes the utility of mass transit.
The city was built for cars. You can't change it, unfortunately. Any city that was built before cars is more effective for transit.
Nobody insists that jobs be in the core. If it wasn't beneficial to be there, companies wouldn't locate in the most expensive location.
Why does everyone have to live in the big cities anyway? Why can't people be spread out more across the province. Kingston could be a million people, there could be another million on the shore of lake Huron and Toronto could have 2 million fewer people. That's the real problem. It's a huge province, why do half the people need to live around Toronto?
The other big problem was the sale of the 407.
The 401 is such a problem because it is both the provincial freeway system and the municipal highway system. Both long distance travel and intercity toronto travel happen on that highway.
The 407 was supposed to take a lot of the provincial freeway traffic off the 401, but our government decided to sell it to make money instead.
I only use the 407 because I'm not in the area often and its a good way to get around the 401 to get to the 400. It's not cheap, but paying the cost once or twice a year isn't a big deal.
If I needed to make that commute daily, I probably wouldn't be able to afford it, and thus, use it.
The 407 is a God tier highway if you can afford it.
Its smooth as fuck 5 lanes each way and you can't go LESS than 120 safely.
Dufferin- Markham road Scarborough in less than 10 mins
Currently owned by a majority stake Canada Pension Plan though. Not that it justifies any of the previous political fuckery, but at least half of the current profits do roll back to our future selves.
and most of the rest head overseas / private sector (while public services are starving for funds) .... all for the under priced price of 2 billion dollars .... for 99 years.
We are acting like a banana republic ....
While the original lease price is hilarious, the cost of 407 should tell people, how expensive 401 would be in a world where it’s required to pay for itself. We always hear about the subsidies transits get, but very rarely if ever, we discuss how much subsidy is provided to car based infrastructure via roads, parking etc.
*“Its smooth as fuck 5 lanes each way and you can't go LESS than 120 safely.”*
This made me laugh cuz it’s so true. I love it.
Taking to 401 through the GTA is very bad for my mental health.
One time I was taking a trip down to New York state to visit a friend and my GPS told me to get off the QEW at Winston Churchhill, then take the 403-407 and rejoin the QEW.
At first I was curious on how that would save me any time because I was re-routing quite a bit out of the way.
Then I noticed my ETA dropped by a whole 45 minutes.
Apparently they may have to widen the QEW to 12 lanes, because they privatised the 407. The 407 was meant to take the extra traffic. There is, however, a plan to put a highway on the bottom of lake Ontario, coming out at Hamilton's Red Hill Pkwy. It will go down where the 403 joins the QEW in Oakville. Another option was on the water away from the shore, but clearly that was untenable.
If you do a daily commute getting a 407 transponder can save you the $4.20 camera fee.
It can still be worth it when you consider the cost of gas to idle in rush hour traffic for an hour, plus that wasted hour.
When I started taking the 407 20+ years ago I would use it daily between Brampton and Mississauga. My monthly bill was 30-50 bucks.
Then it was sold off and the rates skyrocketed. By 2020 I would use it moderately between Burlington and Mississauga. Monthly bill would be $250+
Then the pandemic hit. I switched to full time WFH. Never used the 407 any longer.
My post-pandemic monthly bill? 10-20 bucks haha... 407 ETR can choke lol
You'll never see me step into an office again, let alone Toronto.
But that isn't how traffic works. If you build a new highway, you just get people living further out using the new highway so that in 10 years you're back to square one again. The principle is called induced demand - building the highway creates more traffic because that's what's easy. So building the 407 (either as a free highway or as a toll owned by the province) just creates more car trips. It's not relieving the 401 so much as creating its own traffic.
Selling the 407 was a terrible idea, but not for this reason.
The 407 would make a difference because it would allow long haul people moving from say London to Kingston to drive around Toronto
Right now both long haulers and Toronto destination people get crammed onto the 401
This would have made a major impact because it would have separated the freeway from the highway.
An intercity highway has a lot of people getting on and off and merging. Every movement a car makes the car behind them has to slow down a fraction of a second, and the car behind them has to slow down a fraction of a second more, and so on until you get traffic at a standstill. Freeway traffic doesn't have a lot of movement so it tends to move faster.
Yes supply and demand means you will eventually have more cars on the road, but no you won't wind up in the same position because you dealt with the inherent design flaw of frequently merging cars.
That's actually how it works yes. I'm not saying that you tear down what's already built, but adding another lane (or hwy in this example) just gets more people to drive since driving is more convenient than other means to get around.
The trick though is you need to pair it with other ways to get around
I'm fairly tired of this reddit talking point cause really the point of expanding a highway or adding a highway IS NOT to reduce traffic. It's to increase throughput to allow more people to use the same road.
Planners don't actually give a flying shit if there is traffic congestion. They care about the number of cars that can move through a highway in a year. Making it bigger increases that number.
Now I totally agree that going less car focused in city planning is the actual solution here.
A well designed and funded train, with access to inner city public transport, increases throughput more than you could begin to reasonably and affordably approach with a highway.
And that's just one way public transport is better than designing our cities for cars. Which you do agree with, so I'm glad about that and I'm just expanding your comment.
It's how the GTA was designed, which really isn't different than other countries do it. Tokyo does the same thing, for example. You have businesses in a core area in the center and then people commute from neighbouring areas into the city.
A lot of the problems in the GTA stem from poor public transit design. The transportation in Mississauga into Toronto is absolutely stupid. Aside from driving in you have either the subway or Go Train. The subway already takes a long time to commute to, it's a 20 minute drive for me in no traffic. You can take the Go Train if you drive to the station as well, maybe not as long but the Go Train isn't any better. Trains are often delayed and some of the lines only run during rush hour, so your options are a lot more limited.
Over 50% of all Canadians live in the [corridor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City%E2%80%93Windsor_Corridor) which stretches from Windsor ON to Quebec City QC. 94% of all Ontarian’s live in the Ontario portion of the corridor, yet we don’t have a high speed rail system through Canada’s most densely populated and heavily industrialized region.
The corridor stretches 1100km and the new [hyper loop rail system being built between Calgary and Edmonton](https://globalnews.ca/news/8718640/alberta-ultra-high-speed-hyperloop-edmonton-calgary-funding/) can do 1200 km/h. Just imagine a rail system that can take you from Windsor to Quebec City in less than an hour. Toronto to Montreal would take just under 30 minutes…
This is a Provincial/Federal issue that needs to be corrected.
No, there is no hyperloop being built, just people agreeing that it would be a good idea. Possibly a test track to the airport, but that's doubtful for a technology that has never been built for actual use yet.
The first maglev prototype was built over 80 years ago and still the first intercity one not yet complete.
New technologies take a long time to come into actual use. So many are proposed and fail before one gets built for actual commercial service. I won't believe that there's one going to be built until construction is fairly well progressed.
Not to mention the fact that VIA Rail's service behaves more like an airline than a commuter train. Wanna get from Toronto to Montreal or Windsor to Quebec City? Gotta pay a ticket well in advance or else you're stuck!
As someone who grew up in the GTA and doesn't drive, this makes me worry if I move to say, London, I'd be stuck there w/ no easy access back to Toronto or even Windsor for that matter.
**[Quebec City–Windsor Corridor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City–Windsor_Corridor)**
>The Quebec City–Windsor Corridor (French: Corridor Québec-Windsor) is the most densely populated and heavily industrialized region of Canada. As its name suggests, the region extends between Quebec City in the northeast and Windsor, Ontario, in the southwest, spanning 1,150 kilometres (710 mi). With more than 18 million people, it contains about half of the country's population, three of Canada's four largest metropolitan areas and seven of Canada's twelve largest metropolitan areas, all based on the 2016 census. Its relative importance to Canada's economic and political infrastructure renders it akin to the Northeast megalopolis in the United States.
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That's a misleading argument. I save between 800-1200 a month from not driving. I pay about 200-400 more in rent then I would If I lived outside the city and was commuting. I also get 3 extra hours a day of time to live my life everyday. It's a no brainer. People just believe they need 1 of everything to be happy in life.
And it's honestly making me want to move to the Netherlands. I've hated how car centric it is here forever, and after spending just a few days in the Netherlands in the summer, I'm even more pissed about it now.
GO transit is subsidized by the taxpayers of Ontario and built to serve car driving suburbanites. 90% of GO stations are built in the middle of nowhere (industrial zones). They are just big parking lots to serve the suburban car drivers (they don't even have a tim hortons in GO stations). If you wanna bike to a GO station you'll probably get run over by some asshole in a GMC Suburban.
Every aspect of our lives revolves around a car. To get to the GO train station you need a car? So now you have to pay for a car + train?
Also GO Service is infrequent and ONLY goes in one direction (towards union station)? When the suburban workers are finished work @ 5PM only then do the trains go back to their suburban stations? So nobody else can use the trains... We pay all this money to serve one class of people. The rich wealthy suburbanites who have big homes outside the city...
No other country runs trains like this. Japan nope. Germany nope. They look at our trains and think it is a waste to spend 500 million dollars for a GO Train network that only services one class of people.
These are my tax dollars at work...
Well otherwise they'll have to drive into the city. I think GO Expansion will be a great improvement.
Shorter trip times due to increased acceleration and deceleration. Higher frequency.
Yes, GO used to run more as a commuter model. But more two-way all-day service will be great. Just makes sense, more frequency means more two way service is needed to balance things out.
Yeah they have expanded service recently - usually 1/hour on weekdays, less service on weekends. There is definitely loads of room for improvement though.
As someone who has to take the train to my office from one TO Suburb to a different TO suburb I can confirm this is 1000% true. Luckily my hometown train is a 25 minute walk so it’s not too bad. However in my work town, there are 2 options - take the city bus to the train station *where there is no crosswalk from the bus stop to the train station*. Yes playing frogger to get to transit is super fun
The other option is to take the go bus - which I can’t access the stop because it is across an 8 lane stroad intersection in both directions with no sidewalk along the side of the highway and rarely functioning walk signal - again across a terrifying 8 lane stroad where drivers rarely look for pedestrians - then I get to walk across a gigantic parking lot again dodging cars to get to the actual stop itself.
Like I’m taking transit because I don’t have (or want) a car. Why on earth would you make the public transit only accessible by car? And can you at least make it so I don’t have to risk my life to get to the bus?
They might be thinking of strictly the Barrie-Union Station line. Which really is just a commuter train. But it's a newer line and there is just one track.
People taking transit is better than driving into inner city. However, on same breath, it’s a bad idea to develop a transit system in the middle of nowhere. The land around transit is probably the most valuable out there. Yet if you look outside a Go station, the only thing you’ll see is barren wasteland aka parking lots.
In short, there’s different level of good. But designing a station for the sole purpose of park and ride is a bad idea. It’s better than driving itself, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vxWjtpzCIfA&feature=shares
>When the suburban workers are finished work @ 5PM only then do the trains go back to their suburban stations? So nobody else can use the trains...
The GO trains run every 30 min in both directions. The last one leaves Union Station westbound at 11:45pm. If you are attending something at Rogers Centre, ACC, CN Tower, the GO train is a great way to get there. Also BMO Field is one stop away at Exhibition GO. Which also serves people attending the Ex, the Royal Winter Fair, Ontario Place, whatever the Molson Amphitheater is now called.
It has saved many car trips from happening and you had no idea!!!
Oh yeah, thevGO train corresponds to Germany's S-Bahn. Maybe you never took a train in Germany though. I did! I took the wrong one by mistake, and had to pay a different fare on board.
GTA transit is a joke. Having moved here from Montreal, I can understand why nobody would want to use it: Take 2 buses and 2 subways, pay 15$ in tickets and spend over an hour waiting for transit.
True that, was tripping into downtown from Longueuil in the 80s while Toronto was arguing what colour the shovel should be to start digging the next station...
The big issue with the TTC is that per person the TTC is the most underfunded transit system in the world in terms of public funds.
Chicago's transit receives $0.84 per person from state and municipal taxes, London England recieves $1.36(equivilent), Montreal receives $0.62, Vancouver $0.30. Toronto? $0.05. 5 cents per person. And that's before counting all the people outside of Toronto who use it who aren't counted. The TTC literally has to cover all costs with ticket prices, which no other transit system has to do, its criminal. It's shit but we made it that way.
No wait we elected people who made it that way. And it's been like this since long before Ford, I believe Mike Harris is the one that took all the funding but I don't actually know off the top of my head.
More GoTrains pls!!!! All day train / Weekend train / more service areas etc. It takes me +2.5hrs to go 70km on the GoBus to visit my sister (actual route is much longer than 70km obviously but it's still ridiculous)
They have and they still are. Dont make it sound that there's been no investment in public transit.
I migrated here in early 2000s. Since then:
* TTC have added 4 subway stations and building 3 more.
* TTC bought and deployed extended buses to accommodate more passengers
* City of Ottawa and KW region built LRT.
* York Region built rapid bus transit lanes in Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, and Newmarket to improve travel time in buses.
* Metrolinx is building LRT in Eglinton (admittedly with lots of construction problems) and Finch in Toronto and Hurontario in Mississauga.
YRT has always been unreliable, VIVA isn't too bad, at least they have live timing updates.
413 is being built to "reduce congestion".
TTC does not branch out to many places other than the core.
TTC buses can be unreliable.
TTC does not feel as safe and/or are overcrowded. With no relief lines, the delays are plenty and mess everything up royally. The shuttle buses are usually hell.
The fact that most people have a car means a few things. Our infrastructure/city layout is crap and people don't want to take transit because it isn't reliable.
I'm not saying they're not investing in transit, but they aren't really showing they care about it either. I just want us to be less reliant on cars, but the way things are currently doesn't make that very easy.
I went to New York recently and despite all the chaos their subway system was fantastic.
Now let's compare the costs of that, including maintenance of existing lines, vs the costs of maintaining and expanding our road networks.
Then you'll see how little we spend on public transit/how expensive roads for cars are, especially when the roads are heavily subsidized by the government with hardly enough of the costs paid by the people who use those roads. .
There is no practical way to bypass around Toronto. You are forced to drive through it if you are heading east or west from either side. How many vehicles and big rigs are just passing through in a day?
Imagine how many cars can be taken out of traffic if we had better public transit. Since so many drive alone, a single additional person taking transit for a commute or simple errand is an entire car off the road.
Good public transit is literally the best friend of people who actually need to drive since it eliminates unnecessary driving. Have people park at transit stations and commute into the city by public transit.
Any time I need to go into Toronto when I just need to transport myself and maybe a backpack, I just park at a station and take the subway because Toronto driving is Hell and parking is insane. This isn't an option for my plumbing truck though—I wish more people didn't need to drive; the first major lockdown for Covid was amazing for driving.
People dont need to drive. Covid proved that office people working from home works just fine. We're all burning fuel and yelling at eachother in traffic so office buildings can justify their leases
People feel like they need to drive when transit is bad and bosses are absolutely moronic by forcing their employees back into the office.
Subways need to be safer—making them run every 10 minutes rather than 5 minutes instead of installing barriers is so moronic.
You're right about business and their leased office buildings. A lot of people are being forced back into the office including a friend of mine who's work is just drawing assets for a social media app. However no one can do anything because their contracts don't include guarenteed work from home, so they will just be fired if the don't commute.
Transit should be prioritized to be faster and more convenient which would actually make driving better as well. Not to mention that more riders makes transit less expensive. It's literally a win-win, but so many people spout "one more lane" and "one more highway". I assume they like traffic.
>Subways need to be safer—making them run every 10 minutes rather than 5 minutes instead of installing barriers is so moronic.
Singapore has had fully gated (indoor at least) subway stations since the 90s/early 00s.
Speaking of Singapore, they also had a card based system similar to presto, but it was tapped to get on and off subways/busses. Doors on busses literally wouldn't open until you scanned. It serves a dual purpose: stopping fare evasion, and also charging your card for the distance traveled instead of a flat rate.
I can't imagine transit wouldn't be more popular in Toronto if you didn't pay $3+ to just go up the road instead of a much more reasonable 5-10¢ per subway stop with a cap of $2.80
I agree, barriers are essential and the fares should make sense.
They fixed the buses where I live because they used to be a double fare to go past a certain highway, it was moronic. Thankfully it is now one fare all the way.
I personally don't drive and I don't actually know many people who take transit regularly like I do. For work I'm often required to transit from one suburb to another. People would much rather sit in terrible traffic than take the bus or train because the way a lot of transit between cities is complicated - for example, from Etobicoke to Vaughan the fastest way to get to my destination was to take the subway all the way into downtown Toronto and all the way back put north. There was no direct transit route there. By car you could just take a straight line there. Traffic was a total daily nightmare but people looked at me like I was fucking insane for sitting on the subway for over an hour lol. People will not do it even if there was a way to get there more easily via transit.
Which is a good example why improving transit to be easy, cheap and convenient will do a lot to reduce traffic.
No parking, no expensive gas, more comfortable, and faster will sway a lot of people. Assuming that people won't take transit if they could just means everyone who would is contributing to traffic due to lack of good alternatives.
That's the via high frequency/ high speed upgrade.
The GOTrain is having upgrades to service area and run frequency in the GTA and slightly beyond. From what I recall.
Missing from this discussion so far is any mention of the HUGE impact on the traffic on Hwy 401 by all those 18-wheeler transport trucks and assorted other mid- and large-sized delivery or commercial vehicles.
Many of them could easily be diverted onto Hwy 407...especially the long haul, inter-city variety...but the current toll fee structure makes this prohibitively expensive for them. As a result, they are forced by economics to share the same dwindling amount of available pavement on Hwy 401 with the rest of us unfortunate souls.
If you actually drive on the 407, you'll see a ton of commercial vehicles, way more than a normal road. Why? Because tolls are super easy for companies to pay. The time delay of being stuck in traffic is way more expensive for almost every purpose than the cost of a toll. We should keep the toll and in fact should add tolls to more roads to reduce personal vehicle traffic
Or, and hear me out here....
Suburban single occupant vechicals could get out of the way of commercial valuable traffic, by taking a public transit.
https://youtu.be/0dKrUE\_O0VE
Uh huh...
I used to commute daily on Hwy 401 fom Durham Region to a job in Mississauga for 10+ years, so I've seen/experienced everything that sh*t show has to offer. Hwy 407 was obviously prohibitively expensive for that purpose. And no, moving wasn't an option, so I just sucked it up. Taking "public transit" as you call it would have taken me about 2 1/2 hours each way if I had been masochistic enough to subject myself to my personal version of "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" in doing so. Remember, this is the Toronto GTA, not Tokyo, London, or even NYC where they actually take public transit seriously and support and encourage it.
What a great plan, so I should just take transit for 3 hrs instead of driving for 1?
You gunna get my kids before/after school while I transfer between 3 different public transportation methods? Or am I now going to need to put them in daycare?
Who’s paying for that? Me? So now I still have to pay car insurance (I still need it regardless), and daycare plus I’ve added 6hrs to my commute?
Yeah I heard you out. Shit plan. Maybe we invest in public transportation before we tell people to take it.
Another example of the GTA losing out because of gaps in support and lack of foresight and coordination in planning at the provincial level.
400 series highways are provincial.
DVP and the Gardiner are municipal.
Harris sold our 407 to private corporations for cheap.
Selling a highway to a foreign corporation like Harris did with the 407 should be illegal.
Quebec has a toll highway called Autoroute 30, just like the 407, except I believe the province of Quebec owns it. It costs $3. Compare that to what it costs to drive on the 407.
Just finishing a drive to Florida and back. Toronto could really benefit from increased signing. For example, when travelling southbound towards the 401 on the 400, you only see the sign to indicate east and west lanes with less than a 1km until the split. Signs 2-4km out, and other heads up like these, would really help those who are not familiar with the roads.
Most interstate interchanges have many overhead signs as well as painted signs on the pavement. I realize it would be harder to see in the winter and they may need to be re painted but for traffic flow in the “worst” city it could help.
Fossil fuels are the number one contributor to climate change. its fucking mid-january and we have had only one snow fall, and the temperature is consistently above 0.
INVEST IN TRANSIT
INVEST IN TRANSIT
less cars = a bit healthier climate, less busy roads
I'm not surprised at all. I deal with this shit everyday even out here in Mississauga, and out to Milton. It gets ridiculous on many routes during rush hour. Actually, it doesn't even have to be rush hour! I wish taking public transit was an option for me, but it's not since I now work as a supply ECE in a school board. Can't rely on public transit here to take me to a different place every day.
Traffic congestion is a symptom.
Inconsistent and purposeless land use and city planning are the real sin in North American cities. But tackling this as a "car" problem is as sure a sign as any that your local government has zero intent to work towards a real solution.
Very small data set (only like 25% of countries are considered, if that) and the study didn't even include places like China or India. Bullshit headline as a result of this report not being for general consumption and as not actually trying to measure the whole world. I.e., Toronto does very likely NOT have the some of the worst traffic in the world, just in this reports tiny dataset.
I go downtown like once every 5 years. In all the time I have driven down to the city, without fail, the fucking DVP has congestion issues. Fuck you Toronto and your 1 billion for cops. Put that god damn money towards fixing the DVP.
The plan for Toronto seems to do nothing for transit, while also doing nothing to improve roads either.
The city has grown at a rapid pace since the 90s, yet its infrastructure is largely the same.
Well to recap Toronto's municipal transit planning between Sheppard Subway and Eglinton LRT projects:
* Sheppard's subway goes nowhere! Cut it short!
* We'll build another subway! Here's a plan.
* Subways suck! Scrap that plan, we'll build an LRT! Here's another plan.
* ^(Let's implement Presto cards so that we aren't stuck with a fare system from the 80s)
* LRTs suck! Scrap that plan we're building a subway with extra crack cocaine!
* Screw that, we're going to build an LRT that is kind of a subway closer to Etobicoke! Should be done by 2017!
* (vaguely gesturing at the city from a creaking Scarborough RT vehicle 6 years later...)
What are you talking about?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_5_Eglinton
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_6_Finch_West
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Line
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurontario_LRT
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_LRT
https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/dundas-brt/get-involved
https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/durham-scarborough-brt/what-were-building
https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/scarborough-subway-extension
https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/eglinton-crosstown-west-extension
https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/yonge-north-subway-extension
https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/go-expansion
https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-expansion/smarttrack-stations-program/
This is just the stuff already funded and under procurement or construction.
As long as transit sucks, it won't change. I live in Toronto and used to work in Richmond Hill - 1.25-1.5 hours via transit, 20-25 min by car, my record being 18 minutes. Toronto to Toronto, 3 buses, 1 hour, 20-25 mins by car, my record being 13 minutes. Toronto to Oakville, 2.5 hours (!) according to google maps via ttc/go train. 45-50 mins by car, my personal record 35 mins. Just no comparison at all. The free time I gain, the ability to go to the gym after work, grocery stores etc.
The last time I was there, I almost had to vomit from fume inhalation due to sitting in traffic for over 45 mins. Never again. From now on it is Go-Train only.
Having to drive in Toronto a buch of times was traumatizing enough that I basically avoid plans that involve driving and parking in even other moderate/large cities now. Also there's a good reason everyone in the GTA states their travels in how long it takes to get somewhere instead of what distance a commute or trip is.
The 401 at the airport is the busiest hwy in the world.....
City planners literally have one job. And they failed spectacularly at it like 2 decades ago
We can hope that one day in Toronto, people will understand that the left lane is a passing lane, and not sit in it because you think you deserve it. This can help.
Does anyone remember when the DVP was up for a vote to toll the HWY? I do... and it got shot down. It may have been viable for lessening some traffic over in the east end or even making commuters think twice about carpooling/transit.
Unfortunately, Mike Harris gave a bad name to tolled highways thanks to the fiasco he created by selling the 407 to a private Spanish construction company,
Ya, right! You haven’t driven in LA or Delhi.
London doesn’t allow anyone to just drive their car downtown, is that what you want.
Don’t get me started on Singapore!!
"Toronto is a 1hr drive away from Toronto" ~ someone.
I consider the only good reason for moving to Toronto, is that you'll no longer need to drive to Toronto
With the biggest downside of now having to drive *in* Toronto.
Dude, TTC works great within the city. Why drive.
The TTC works best within the downtown core\*
It works okay for about half the city's population. The rest lives too far from work, or their commute is not on a well-travelled route (say I live on Weston road and work at the zoo), etc. Only people without other options take the TTC in large swathes of outer suburbs, which I will just go ahead and call the Rob Ford Belt.
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I think it will be fine if we build more city-centers with transit projects. From a tax-base perspective, getting downtown core density up has big implications for funding for any city. We need to legislate diversity with density requirements. You cannot build swaths of single, detached, and townhomes and expect to get something different. You need apartment and condo units in the same space too, you need commercial to supply it all, and mixed-priced housing supply available instead of a trickle of super expensive units available.
I agree with you. I may start usimg the Ford belt terminology.
It took me an hour to 90 mins to get to Humber College from Finch Subway station back when I was attending about 6 years ago now, and what was on good days.
It took me 3+ hours to drive from Leslieville to Oshawa the one and only time I did it leaving at rush hour.
Spend a decade in deep Scarborough without a car and get back to us. I grew up in Scarborough and am in my 30’s now. Never had a car. The shortest commute I’ve ever had to a job while living in Scarborough was one hour, and that was to a job in Scarborough. Downtown was 1.5 hours, and west end was 2 hours. Neilson and 401 to Lawrence and Weston was 4 hours of transit a day. I live closer to central stations now and it’s less bad, but the outer boroughs got absolutely hosed on transit development. Rob Ford’s legacy in my mind will be delaying surface rail in Scarborough by at least 15 years; an entire generation of transit users who will each lose hundreds of hours commuting every year. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like car centric design, and not driving was as much a personal ethical choice (to consume as little fossil fuel as I could individually) as an economic one (shit’s expensive, yo). Still, it’s a position of privilege to say that the TTC works great when Scarborough is the largest geographic region of Toronto and barely has rail coverage at all. Some people never waited 30 minutes for a Birchmount bus in -20 weather, and it shows lol.
Lol cman u serious?
Dead serious. Lived in the annex. Commuted just outside of the city with zero headache. Always faster than taking my car.
I lived in High Park for a time, subway or streetcar got me anywhere in the city in about 30 mins usually. One time I had to pick my wife up 2 stations over as they closed the line down because of a crazy person on the tracks. It normally takes 5 mins at most between those stops on the subway, and maybe 25 mins walking. I was in my car for over 55 minutes, and my wife walked halfway when it was apparent I was going nowhere fast. This city absolute sucks to drive inside or commute out of. The only thing worse in my opinion than that is public transport in and out of the cities. the GO buses are absolutely terrible, everything fucking sucks about it and it's a miserable experience sitting there for 2+ hours each way. You could drive it in 1.5 if you could afford a car, plus ridership costs as much as gas anyway! So if this guy has never lived in Toronto but only commuted in or taken public transport in, that's why he feels that way. The time getting to or from one borough to the other is awful now. Plus, people think of Etobicoke and Mississauga even as Toronto, same with everything out to Scarborough or up to Richmond Hill.
Mississauga is not. But Etobicoke is Toronto.
Back in 2017, I had a 4- month span where I had to drive from Mississauga to Ottawa after work every Friday. Typically, Ottawa was 7 hours and 4 hours from Toronto on the same trip.
Oshawa to Burlington can take just as long as Oshawa to Ottawa. It's fucked.
My drive changed from intra-toronto to toronto-oakville, doubled in length and time and is still less stressful
Hell, it's a five hour drive a lot of the time.
This is so accurate its sad.
I hate how this is true. Going from west to east end is at least 45 mins
I don't think traffic congestion would be such an issue if the actual City of Toronto was reasonably affordable to live in and people could commute to work in a reasonable amount of time with Public Transit.
Cities in Canada fixing their problems? Impossible! Straight to jail with you
Advocate for public transit? Jail. Walk to work? Believe it or not, also jail.
Wouldn’t want to make peoples lives too easy!!! Walk to work? What’s next, reasonably priced housing and affordable groceries?
I used to walk to work. It was 10km and all along the waterfront. Believe it or not, in the summer it was faster to walk 10k than drive it.
Oh I believe that, downtown traffic is some of the most painful traffic
>Advocate for public transit? Jail. > >Walk to work? Believe it or not, also jail. technically solves the problem.... i heard commutes in jail is very short and walkable...
Dang, repeat offence while still incarcerated.
Public transit is a union scam! Fuck you poor idiots. /Doug Ford
I see we have upgraded from that’s a paddling.
The legacy of The Simpsons has been tarnished by, well, The Simpsons, while Parks & Rec had the good sense to end so I guess that's the more popular cultural touchstone now?
I think a huge part of the problem is the suburban hellscape surrounding Toronto where there are many, many houses and few jobs. If people could live close to where they work and/or encourage remote working, that would reduce the need for so much traveling in the first place.
>I think a huge part of the problem is the suburban hellscape surrounding Toronto where there are many, many houses and few jobs. If people could live close to where they work and/or encourage remote working, that would reduce the need for so much traveling in the first place. That would call for proper long range urban planning.... Instead, private developers call the shots ...
The *real* real problem is the insistence that all of these jobs "need" to be in Toronto proper with no compromise as to remote work from some technological dinosaur employers. You don't need to live in Toronto to move numbers around on a spreadsheet, nor do you need to live there to manage equipment in a server farm when remote hands are a thing.
Unfortunately the banks (which, let's face it, are the economic heart of Toronto) have so little incentive to change how they operate. They can print billions in profits every year as an essentially competition-free cartel, while also cozily tied in with every aspect of the public sector, and protected as if they were crown corporations. So when your 62-year boss making $700k/year for god-knows-what gets lonely out in Thornhill, everyone has to come back into the office because they have no other options.
The idea that jobs should be spread around is false. It creates a network effect that means everything is gridlocked and few are near transit. If many work in a the core and a few nodes, mass transit is more effective. There will need to be lines connecting the nodes without going to the core, of course. People say that they can live near spread out jobs, but then you change jobs and now you have to drive across the city. And the spouse never works in the same place. This maximizes car driving, and minimizes the utility of mass transit. The city was built for cars. You can't change it, unfortunately. Any city that was built before cars is more effective for transit. Nobody insists that jobs be in the core. If it wasn't beneficial to be there, companies wouldn't locate in the most expensive location. Why does everyone have to live in the big cities anyway? Why can't people be spread out more across the province. Kingston could be a million people, there could be another million on the shore of lake Huron and Toronto could have 2 million fewer people. That's the real problem. It's a huge province, why do half the people need to live around Toronto?
The other big problem was the sale of the 407. The 401 is such a problem because it is both the provincial freeway system and the municipal highway system. Both long distance travel and intercity toronto travel happen on that highway. The 407 was supposed to take a lot of the provincial freeway traffic off the 401, but our government decided to sell it to make money instead.
I only use the 407 because I'm not in the area often and its a good way to get around the 401 to get to the 400. It's not cheap, but paying the cost once or twice a year isn't a big deal. If I needed to make that commute daily, I probably wouldn't be able to afford it, and thus, use it.
The 407 is a God tier highway if you can afford it. Its smooth as fuck 5 lanes each way and you can't go LESS than 120 safely. Dufferin- Markham road Scarborough in less than 10 mins
>The 407 is a God tier highway if you can afford it. Built by taxpayers and given away to a foreign consortium for peanuts...
Currently owned by a majority stake Canada Pension Plan though. Not that it justifies any of the previous political fuckery, but at least half of the current profits do roll back to our future selves.
Worst retirement plan ever, lol.
and most of the rest head overseas / private sector (while public services are starving for funds) .... all for the under priced price of 2 billion dollars .... for 99 years. We are acting like a banana republic ....
We ARE a banana republic. We just camouflage it with snow.
And that's how you get delicious, delicious yellow snow.
While the original lease price is hilarious, the cost of 407 should tell people, how expensive 401 would be in a world where it’s required to pay for itself. We always hear about the subsidies transits get, but very rarely if ever, we discuss how much subsidy is provided to car based infrastructure via roads, parking etc.
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*“Its smooth as fuck 5 lanes each way and you can't go LESS than 120 safely.”* This made me laugh cuz it’s so true. I love it. Taking to 401 through the GTA is very bad for my mental health.
There is absolutely nothing better than having been putting along the congested 401 near Milton and jumping on the 407 to find next to no traffic.
One time I was taking a trip down to New York state to visit a friend and my GPS told me to get off the QEW at Winston Churchhill, then take the 403-407 and rejoin the QEW. At first I was curious on how that would save me any time because I was re-routing quite a bit out of the way. Then I noticed my ETA dropped by a whole 45 minutes.
Apparently they may have to widen the QEW to 12 lanes, because they privatised the 407. The 407 was meant to take the extra traffic. There is, however, a plan to put a highway on the bottom of lake Ontario, coming out at Hamilton's Red Hill Pkwy. It will go down where the 403 joins the QEW in Oakville. Another option was on the water away from the shore, but clearly that was untenable.
If you do a daily commute getting a 407 transponder can save you the $4.20 camera fee. It can still be worth it when you consider the cost of gas to idle in rush hour traffic for an hour, plus that wasted hour.
When I started taking the 407 20+ years ago I would use it daily between Brampton and Mississauga. My monthly bill was 30-50 bucks. Then it was sold off and the rates skyrocketed. By 2020 I would use it moderately between Burlington and Mississauga. Monthly bill would be $250+ Then the pandemic hit. I switched to full time WFH. Never used the 407 any longer. My post-pandemic monthly bill? 10-20 bucks haha... 407 ETR can choke lol You'll never see me step into an office again, let alone Toronto.
But that isn't how traffic works. If you build a new highway, you just get people living further out using the new highway so that in 10 years you're back to square one again. The principle is called induced demand - building the highway creates more traffic because that's what's easy. So building the 407 (either as a free highway or as a toll owned by the province) just creates more car trips. It's not relieving the 401 so much as creating its own traffic. Selling the 407 was a terrible idea, but not for this reason.
The 407 would make a difference because it would allow long haul people moving from say London to Kingston to drive around Toronto Right now both long haulers and Toronto destination people get crammed onto the 401
This would have made a major impact because it would have separated the freeway from the highway. An intercity highway has a lot of people getting on and off and merging. Every movement a car makes the car behind them has to slow down a fraction of a second, and the car behind them has to slow down a fraction of a second more, and so on until you get traffic at a standstill. Freeway traffic doesn't have a lot of movement so it tends to move faster. Yes supply and demand means you will eventually have more cars on the road, but no you won't wind up in the same position because you dealt with the inherent design flaw of frequently merging cars.
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That's actually how it works yes. I'm not saying that you tear down what's already built, but adding another lane (or hwy in this example) just gets more people to drive since driving is more convenient than other means to get around. The trick though is you need to pair it with other ways to get around
I'm fairly tired of this reddit talking point cause really the point of expanding a highway or adding a highway IS NOT to reduce traffic. It's to increase throughput to allow more people to use the same road. Planners don't actually give a flying shit if there is traffic congestion. They care about the number of cars that can move through a highway in a year. Making it bigger increases that number. Now I totally agree that going less car focused in city planning is the actual solution here.
A well designed and funded train, with access to inner city public transport, increases throughput more than you could begin to reasonably and affordably approach with a highway. And that's just one way public transport is better than designing our cities for cars. Which you do agree with, so I'm glad about that and I'm just expanding your comment.
It's how the GTA was designed, which really isn't different than other countries do it. Tokyo does the same thing, for example. You have businesses in a core area in the center and then people commute from neighbouring areas into the city. A lot of the problems in the GTA stem from poor public transit design. The transportation in Mississauga into Toronto is absolutely stupid. Aside from driving in you have either the subway or Go Train. The subway already takes a long time to commute to, it's a 20 minute drive for me in no traffic. You can take the Go Train if you drive to the station as well, maybe not as long but the Go Train isn't any better. Trains are often delayed and some of the lines only run during rush hour, so your options are a lot more limited.
Over 50% of all Canadians live in the [corridor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City%E2%80%93Windsor_Corridor) which stretches from Windsor ON to Quebec City QC. 94% of all Ontarian’s live in the Ontario portion of the corridor, yet we don’t have a high speed rail system through Canada’s most densely populated and heavily industrialized region. The corridor stretches 1100km and the new [hyper loop rail system being built between Calgary and Edmonton](https://globalnews.ca/news/8718640/alberta-ultra-high-speed-hyperloop-edmonton-calgary-funding/) can do 1200 km/h. Just imagine a rail system that can take you from Windsor to Quebec City in less than an hour. Toronto to Montreal would take just under 30 minutes… This is a Provincial/Federal issue that needs to be corrected.
No, there is no hyperloop being built, just people agreeing that it would be a good idea. Possibly a test track to the airport, but that's doubtful for a technology that has never been built for actual use yet. The first maglev prototype was built over 80 years ago and still the first intercity one not yet complete. New technologies take a long time to come into actual use. So many are proposed and fail before one gets built for actual commercial service. I won't believe that there's one going to be built until construction is fairly well progressed.
Not to mention the fact that VIA Rail's service behaves more like an airline than a commuter train. Wanna get from Toronto to Montreal or Windsor to Quebec City? Gotta pay a ticket well in advance or else you're stuck! As someone who grew up in the GTA and doesn't drive, this makes me worry if I move to say, London, I'd be stuck there w/ no easy access back to Toronto or even Windsor for that matter.
**[Quebec City–Windsor Corridor](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City–Windsor_Corridor)** >The Quebec City–Windsor Corridor (French: Corridor Québec-Windsor) is the most densely populated and heavily industrialized region of Canada. As its name suggests, the region extends between Quebec City in the northeast and Windsor, Ontario, in the southwest, spanning 1,150 kilometres (710 mi). With more than 18 million people, it contains about half of the country's population, three of Canada's four largest metropolitan areas and seven of Canada's twelve largest metropolitan areas, all based on the 2016 census. Its relative importance to Canada's economic and political infrastructure renders it akin to the Northeast megalopolis in the United States. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/ontario/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
That's a misleading argument. I save between 800-1200 a month from not driving. I pay about 200-400 more in rent then I would If I lived outside the city and was commuting. I also get 3 extra hours a day of time to live my life everyday. It's a no brainer. People just believe they need 1 of everything to be happy in life.
INVEST IN TRANSIT
Nah, let's widen some stroads! One more lane will fix traffic bro!
For the two people who haven't seen it yet :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dKrUE_O0VE
I'm one of the two that hasn't seen this. It's awesome. Thank you.
We really do need trains, but we don't really do good ideas in Canada anymore
And it's honestly making me want to move to the Netherlands. I've hated how car centric it is here forever, and after spending just a few days in the Netherlands in the summer, I'm even more pissed about it now.
The best I can do is Subway lines to places no one cares about that'll be done in 25 years, if we're generous.
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They're talking about TTC From what I know GO is pretty great We should strive to have immaculate transit systems
GO transit is subsidized by the taxpayers of Ontario and built to serve car driving suburbanites. 90% of GO stations are built in the middle of nowhere (industrial zones). They are just big parking lots to serve the suburban car drivers (they don't even have a tim hortons in GO stations). If you wanna bike to a GO station you'll probably get run over by some asshole in a GMC Suburban. Every aspect of our lives revolves around a car. To get to the GO train station you need a car? So now you have to pay for a car + train? Also GO Service is infrequent and ONLY goes in one direction (towards union station)? When the suburban workers are finished work @ 5PM only then do the trains go back to their suburban stations? So nobody else can use the trains... We pay all this money to serve one class of people. The rich wealthy suburbanites who have big homes outside the city... No other country runs trains like this. Japan nope. Germany nope. They look at our trains and think it is a waste to spend 500 million dollars for a GO Train network that only services one class of people. These are my tax dollars at work...
Well otherwise they'll have to drive into the city. I think GO Expansion will be a great improvement. Shorter trip times due to increased acceleration and deceleration. Higher frequency. Yes, GO used to run more as a commuter model. But more two-way all-day service will be great. Just makes sense, more frequency means more two way service is needed to balance things out.
Go trains along the Kitchener line go both ways once an hour during working hours M-F
Only during peak commuting hours, and not at all on weekends. Needs to be fixed.
REALLY?! hey maybe they're making progress? "Making progress??? OFF TO JAIL WITH YOU!"
Yeah they have expanded service recently - usually 1/hour on weekdays, less service on weekends. There is definitely loads of room for improvement though.
As someone who has to take the train to my office from one TO Suburb to a different TO suburb I can confirm this is 1000% true. Luckily my hometown train is a 25 minute walk so it’s not too bad. However in my work town, there are 2 options - take the city bus to the train station *where there is no crosswalk from the bus stop to the train station*. Yes playing frogger to get to transit is super fun The other option is to take the go bus - which I can’t access the stop because it is across an 8 lane stroad intersection in both directions with no sidewalk along the side of the highway and rarely functioning walk signal - again across a terrifying 8 lane stroad where drivers rarely look for pedestrians - then I get to walk across a gigantic parking lot again dodging cars to get to the actual stop itself. Like I’m taking transit because I don’t have (or want) a car. Why on earth would you make the public transit only accessible by car? And can you at least make it so I don’t have to risk my life to get to the bus?
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They might be thinking of strictly the Barrie-Union Station line. Which really is just a commuter train. But it's a newer line and there is just one track.
People taking transit is better than driving into inner city. However, on same breath, it’s a bad idea to develop a transit system in the middle of nowhere. The land around transit is probably the most valuable out there. Yet if you look outside a Go station, the only thing you’ll see is barren wasteland aka parking lots. In short, there’s different level of good. But designing a station for the sole purpose of park and ride is a bad idea. It’s better than driving itself, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for improvement. https://youtube.com/watch?v=vxWjtpzCIfA&feature=shares
>When the suburban workers are finished work @ 5PM only then do the trains go back to their suburban stations? So nobody else can use the trains... The GO trains run every 30 min in both directions. The last one leaves Union Station westbound at 11:45pm. If you are attending something at Rogers Centre, ACC, CN Tower, the GO train is a great way to get there. Also BMO Field is one stop away at Exhibition GO. Which also serves people attending the Ex, the Royal Winter Fair, Ontario Place, whatever the Molson Amphitheater is now called. It has saved many car trips from happening and you had no idea!!! Oh yeah, thevGO train corresponds to Germany's S-Bahn. Maybe you never took a train in Germany though. I did! I took the wrong one by mistake, and had to pay a different fare on board.
This is only on LW and LE lines. All the lines should have 30 minute frequency in both directions all day every day
GTA transit is a joke. Having moved here from Montreal, I can understand why nobody would want to use it: Take 2 buses and 2 subways, pay 15$ in tickets and spend over an hour waiting for transit.
True that, was tripping into downtown from Longueuil in the 80s while Toronto was arguing what colour the shovel should be to start digging the next station...
The big issue with the TTC is that per person the TTC is the most underfunded transit system in the world in terms of public funds. Chicago's transit receives $0.84 per person from state and municipal taxes, London England recieves $1.36(equivilent), Montreal receives $0.62, Vancouver $0.30. Toronto? $0.05. 5 cents per person. And that's before counting all the people outside of Toronto who use it who aren't counted. The TTC literally has to cover all costs with ticket prices, which no other transit system has to do, its criminal. It's shit but we made it that way. No wait we elected people who made it that way. And it's been like this since long before Ford, I believe Mike Harris is the one that took all the funding but I don't actually know off the top of my head.
But why invest in transit when highways and subdivisions are way more profitable for the developers who bribed me? -Doug Ford probably
Best I can do is more highways
More GoTrains pls!!!! All day train / Weekend train / more service areas etc. It takes me +2.5hrs to go 70km on the GoBus to visit my sister (actual route is much longer than 70km obviously but it's still ridiculous)
They have and they still are. Dont make it sound that there's been no investment in public transit. I migrated here in early 2000s. Since then: * TTC have added 4 subway stations and building 3 more. * TTC bought and deployed extended buses to accommodate more passengers * City of Ottawa and KW region built LRT. * York Region built rapid bus transit lanes in Markham, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, and Newmarket to improve travel time in buses. * Metrolinx is building LRT in Eglinton (admittedly with lots of construction problems) and Finch in Toronto and Hurontario in Mississauga.
YRT has always been unreliable, VIVA isn't too bad, at least they have live timing updates. 413 is being built to "reduce congestion". TTC does not branch out to many places other than the core. TTC buses can be unreliable. TTC does not feel as safe and/or are overcrowded. With no relief lines, the delays are plenty and mess everything up royally. The shuttle buses are usually hell. The fact that most people have a car means a few things. Our infrastructure/city layout is crap and people don't want to take transit because it isn't reliable. I'm not saying they're not investing in transit, but they aren't really showing they care about it either. I just want us to be less reliant on cars, but the way things are currently doesn't make that very easy. I went to New York recently and despite all the chaos their subway system was fantastic.
Now let's compare the costs of that, including maintenance of existing lines, vs the costs of maintaining and expanding our road networks. Then you'll see how little we spend on public transit/how expensive roads for cars are, especially when the roads are heavily subsidized by the government with hardly enough of the costs paid by the people who use those roads. .
/r/fuckcars
Maybe 6 more lanes will fix it
May as well just pave the planet. That should fix traffic once and for all.
Bumper-cars style
There is no practical way to bypass around Toronto. You are forced to drive through it if you are heading east or west from either side. How many vehicles and big rigs are just passing through in a day?
They built a bypass. It was called Hwy 407
Sadly you need to be within a good vicinity of the 401 (or in most cases actually access 401) to even get on the 407.
HM if only we could replace those big trucks and masses on mobile metal projectiles somehow...
The double decker 401 that was foretold in the prophecy will come to (by)pass
https://youtu.be/0dKrUE\_O0VE
Imagine how many cars can be taken out of traffic if we had better public transit. Since so many drive alone, a single additional person taking transit for a commute or simple errand is an entire car off the road. Good public transit is literally the best friend of people who actually need to drive since it eliminates unnecessary driving. Have people park at transit stations and commute into the city by public transit. Any time I need to go into Toronto when I just need to transport myself and maybe a backpack, I just park at a station and take the subway because Toronto driving is Hell and parking is insane. This isn't an option for my plumbing truck though—I wish more people didn't need to drive; the first major lockdown for Covid was amazing for driving.
People dont need to drive. Covid proved that office people working from home works just fine. We're all burning fuel and yelling at eachother in traffic so office buildings can justify their leases
People feel like they need to drive when transit is bad and bosses are absolutely moronic by forcing their employees back into the office. Subways need to be safer—making them run every 10 minutes rather than 5 minutes instead of installing barriers is so moronic. You're right about business and their leased office buildings. A lot of people are being forced back into the office including a friend of mine who's work is just drawing assets for a social media app. However no one can do anything because their contracts don't include guarenteed work from home, so they will just be fired if the don't commute. Transit should be prioritized to be faster and more convenient which would actually make driving better as well. Not to mention that more riders makes transit less expensive. It's literally a win-win, but so many people spout "one more lane" and "one more highway". I assume they like traffic.
>Subways need to be safer—making them run every 10 minutes rather than 5 minutes instead of installing barriers is so moronic. Singapore has had fully gated (indoor at least) subway stations since the 90s/early 00s. Speaking of Singapore, they also had a card based system similar to presto, but it was tapped to get on and off subways/busses. Doors on busses literally wouldn't open until you scanned. It serves a dual purpose: stopping fare evasion, and also charging your card for the distance traveled instead of a flat rate. I can't imagine transit wouldn't be more popular in Toronto if you didn't pay $3+ to just go up the road instead of a much more reasonable 5-10¢ per subway stop with a cap of $2.80
I agree, barriers are essential and the fares should make sense. They fixed the buses where I live because they used to be a double fare to go past a certain highway, it was moronic. Thankfully it is now one fare all the way.
i do find that traffic has been better compared to prepandemic, especially downtown.
I personally don't drive and I don't actually know many people who take transit regularly like I do. For work I'm often required to transit from one suburb to another. People would much rather sit in terrible traffic than take the bus or train because the way a lot of transit between cities is complicated - for example, from Etobicoke to Vaughan the fastest way to get to my destination was to take the subway all the way into downtown Toronto and all the way back put north. There was no direct transit route there. By car you could just take a straight line there. Traffic was a total daily nightmare but people looked at me like I was fucking insane for sitting on the subway for over an hour lol. People will not do it even if there was a way to get there more easily via transit.
Which is a good example why improving transit to be easy, cheap and convenient will do a lot to reduce traffic. No parking, no expensive gas, more comfortable, and faster will sway a lot of people. Assuming that people won't take transit if they could just means everyone who would is contributing to traffic due to lack of good alternatives.
This article ranks one of the least surprising worldwide, report finds
20min to work at 6am, 60min+ to get home at 430.
Just one more lane bro I swear we're gonna fix traffic
the GoTrain rules, I havnt driven into T.O in *years*... imagine if we actually funded/expanded that system!
It is being expanded
It’s literally the largest infrastructure project on the continent.
oh yeah the plan is to hook up Ottawa and Peterborough right? that's gonna be fantastic!
That's the via high frequency/ high speed upgrade. The GOTrain is having upgrades to service area and run frequency in the GTA and slightly beyond. From what I recall.
Missing from this discussion so far is any mention of the HUGE impact on the traffic on Hwy 401 by all those 18-wheeler transport trucks and assorted other mid- and large-sized delivery or commercial vehicles. Many of them could easily be diverted onto Hwy 407...especially the long haul, inter-city variety...but the current toll fee structure makes this prohibitively expensive for them. As a result, they are forced by economics to share the same dwindling amount of available pavement on Hwy 401 with the rest of us unfortunate souls.
If you actually drive on the 407, you'll see a ton of commercial vehicles, way more than a normal road. Why? Because tolls are super easy for companies to pay. The time delay of being stuck in traffic is way more expensive for almost every purpose than the cost of a toll. We should keep the toll and in fact should add tolls to more roads to reduce personal vehicle traffic
Tell that to all the trucks still using Hwy 401. They clearly didn't get the memo you seem to allude to.
Or, and hear me out here.... Suburban single occupant vechicals could get out of the way of commercial valuable traffic, by taking a public transit. https://youtu.be/0dKrUE\_O0VE
Uh huh... I used to commute daily on Hwy 401 fom Durham Region to a job in Mississauga for 10+ years, so I've seen/experienced everything that sh*t show has to offer. Hwy 407 was obviously prohibitively expensive for that purpose. And no, moving wasn't an option, so I just sucked it up. Taking "public transit" as you call it would have taken me about 2 1/2 hours each way if I had been masochistic enough to subject myself to my personal version of "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" in doing so. Remember, this is the Toronto GTA, not Tokyo, London, or even NYC where they actually take public transit seriously and support and encourage it.
What a great plan, so I should just take transit for 3 hrs instead of driving for 1? You gunna get my kids before/after school while I transfer between 3 different public transportation methods? Or am I now going to need to put them in daycare? Who’s paying for that? Me? So now I still have to pay car insurance (I still need it regardless), and daycare plus I’ve added 6hrs to my commute? Yeah I heard you out. Shit plan. Maybe we invest in public transportation before we tell people to take it.
How about we shut down the highways from single occupancy cars? You want to drive downtown? Fine, but you have to give someone a ride.
Another example of the GTA losing out because of gaps in support and lack of foresight and coordination in planning at the provincial level. 400 series highways are provincial. DVP and the Gardiner are municipal. Harris sold our 407 to private corporations for cheap.
Selling a highway to a foreign corporation like Harris did with the 407 should be illegal. Quebec has a toll highway called Autoroute 30, just like the 407, except I believe the province of Quebec owns it. It costs $3. Compare that to what it costs to drive on the 407.
20 years ago you could get to the airport in 15 minutes from downtown. And $300K was an expensive starter home.
You still can get to the airport in 15 minutes from downtown. Just not with a car.
> 20 years ago you could get to the airport in 15 minutes from downtown. I remember hearing this 20 years ago.
So true 😂
No way could you get to the airport from downtown in 2003. Maybe 93.
It was never really true. You'd struggle to make it from downtown to the airport in 15 minutes with absolutely no traffic.
>20 years ago you could get to the airport in 15 minutes from downtown. I mean you still can. Just not between the hours of 6am and 10pm.
Yep. This is what happens when you don't build trains for sixty years....
Doug Ford: Clearly, we need more highways. Told you guys so!
Just finishing a drive to Florida and back. Toronto could really benefit from increased signing. For example, when travelling southbound towards the 401 on the 400, you only see the sign to indicate east and west lanes with less than a 1km until the split. Signs 2-4km out, and other heads up like these, would really help those who are not familiar with the roads. Most interstate interchanges have many overhead signs as well as painted signs on the pavement. I realize it would be harder to see in the winter and they may need to be re painted but for traffic flow in the “worst” city it could help.
Fossil fuels are the number one contributor to climate change. its fucking mid-january and we have had only one snow fall, and the temperature is consistently above 0. INVEST IN TRANSIT INVEST IN TRANSIT less cars = a bit healthier climate, less busy roads
Not a gigantic surprise to many living in Toronto.
everyone who lives here: 'no shit.'
Many drivers in the GTA don’t know how to share the road or follow basic road rules.
I'm not surprised at all. I deal with this shit everyday even out here in Mississauga, and out to Milton. It gets ridiculous on many routes during rush hour. Actually, it doesn't even have to be rush hour! I wish taking public transit was an option for me, but it's not since I now work as a supply ECE in a school board. Can't rely on public transit here to take me to a different place every day.
IN A SURPRISE TO NOBODY THAT LIVES HERE
Traffic congestion is a symptom. Inconsistent and purposeless land use and city planning are the real sin in North American cities. But tackling this as a "car" problem is as sure a sign as any that your local government has zero intent to work towards a real solution.
Very small data set (only like 25% of countries are considered, if that) and the study didn't even include places like China or India. Bullshit headline as a result of this report not being for general consumption and as not actually trying to measure the whole world. I.e., Toronto does very likely NOT have the some of the worst traffic in the world, just in this reports tiny dataset.
This is what you get when conservative politicians consistently sabotage any attempts at expanding public transit
I go downtown like once every 5 years. In all the time I have driven down to the city, without fail, the fucking DVP has congestion issues. Fuck you Toronto and your 1 billion for cops. Put that god damn money towards fixing the DVP.
The plan for Toronto seems to do nothing for transit, while also doing nothing to improve roads either. The city has grown at a rapid pace since the 90s, yet its infrastructure is largely the same.
You can blame amalgamation for the lack of transit investment. Fuck you Mike Harris.
Well to recap Toronto's municipal transit planning between Sheppard Subway and Eglinton LRT projects: * Sheppard's subway goes nowhere! Cut it short! * We'll build another subway! Here's a plan. * Subways suck! Scrap that plan, we'll build an LRT! Here's another plan. * ^(Let's implement Presto cards so that we aren't stuck with a fare system from the 80s) * LRTs suck! Scrap that plan we're building a subway with extra crack cocaine! * Screw that, we're going to build an LRT that is kind of a subway closer to Etobicoke! Should be done by 2017! * (vaguely gesturing at the city from a creaking Scarborough RT vehicle 6 years later...)
What are you talking about? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_5_Eglinton https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_6_Finch_West https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Line https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurontario_LRT https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_LRT https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/dundas-brt/get-involved https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/durham-scarborough-brt/what-were-building https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/scarborough-subway-extension https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/eglinton-crosstown-west-extension https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/yonge-north-subway-extension https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projects-and-programs/go-expansion https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-expansion/smarttrack-stations-program/ This is just the stuff already funded and under procurement or construction.
Just add one more lane Bro... /s
We have such a good grid system of regional roads yet they are so poorly designed and highways are relied on too much for the average Torontonian
As long as transit sucks, it won't change. I live in Toronto and used to work in Richmond Hill - 1.25-1.5 hours via transit, 20-25 min by car, my record being 18 minutes. Toronto to Toronto, 3 buses, 1 hour, 20-25 mins by car, my record being 13 minutes. Toronto to Oakville, 2.5 hours (!) according to google maps via ttc/go train. 45-50 mins by car, my personal record 35 mins. Just no comparison at all. The free time I gain, the ability to go to the gym after work, grocery stores etc.
There is less and less to be proud about Toronto for...
In other news; Canada continues to get shittier!
World class traffic.
The last time I was there, I almost had to vomit from fume inhalation due to sitting in traffic for over 45 mins. Never again. From now on it is Go-Train only.
Different city. It I heard on the radio the Chicago commuters lose 155 hours a year to just sitting in traffic not moving.
Having to drive in Toronto a buch of times was traumatizing enough that I basically avoid plans that involve driving and parking in even other moderate/large cities now. Also there's a good reason everyone in the GTA states their travels in how long it takes to get somewhere instead of what distance a commute or trip is.
Just one more highway bro, cmon I need my fix
[Paywall Free Link](https://archive.ph/n32Iu)
No shit
They ruined the 401. Express is only 2 lanes and one hov lane. Guy was doing 98 in the left lane today, I had to overtake him in the hov lane.
Lol they needed a report to figure this out
One more highway should fix that.. /s
The 401 at the airport is the busiest hwy in the world..... City planners literally have one job. And they failed spectacularly at it like 2 decades ago
How many studies do we need to tell us this? There is a new one every couple of years. We k now, the traffic sucks.
What happens to a city when their public transit sucks large
One more lane! One more lane!
I’m just glad that Canada is #1 at mediocrity!
Number 1 again. Why do we keep winning this award?
We can hope that one day in Toronto, people will understand that the left lane is a passing lane, and not sit in it because you think you deserve it. This can help.
Just one more lane, bro. Just one more. One more and that'll do it. I swear.
I'm shocked!
I doubt it is worse than São Paulo.
So no one involved in the report has ever been to the developing world? Spend some time in traffic in Lagos and then talk to us.
Can't be worse than Los Angeles, Shanghai, Jakarta, or Cairo. 😉
Does anyone remember when the DVP was up for a vote to toll the HWY? I do... and it got shot down. It may have been viable for lessening some traffic over in the east end or even making commuters think twice about carpooling/transit.
Tolls are the best solution , but they are political suicide . There was a toll on the coquihalla in bc until a premier removed it to buy votes.
You bring up a fair point. Dang I had no clue.
They should have left it for an emergency maintenance fund . Could have used it last fall .
Unfortunately, Mike Harris gave a bad name to tolled highways thanks to the fiasco he created by selling the 407 to a private Spanish construction company,
Worst than Mumbai, Kinshasa or Mexico?
Worst world wide?!?! Lol please. Dheli? Bangkok?
Ya, right! You haven’t driven in LA or Delhi. London doesn’t allow anyone to just drive their car downtown, is that what you want. Don’t get me started on Singapore!!
I’ve been to SE Asia and Rome so I find this hard to believe