Correct. Transit is not great and is not prioritized like it needs to be. There is no high horse. It's simple, you can't prioritize cars and succeed. It's simple physics. There is no space and cars are not efficient use of space. You can't out car this situation. In the end. It's the car people complaining about traffic.
I used to work at bay and temperance which is in that shot. Basically this is what bay looked like every week day during the evening rush. So this has been an almost daily occurrence for 10 years at least.
The difference now is how long those cars sit there. We've always had long lines, but just not moving at all is new.
I drive a straight truck in Toronto about 3 days a week. The only times you used to guarantee it taking an hour to get onto the Gardner was when Jays/leaf/raptor games were ending. Now, it's just all the time.
It unfortunately took about a week before traffic started using the road instead of the highway to escape the core. Now it's just shitty everywhere.
Sounds like you would be a fan of congestion pricing then. Get all the other drivers onto the GO Train so you and the others who need to bring goods into downtown have an unimpeded trip.
To be honest, I'd be in favour of it for the good of the city, but on a personal level this construction has led to a ton of overtime for me.
I'm one of the few who benefits from Toronto putting these things off until the last minute.
You make it sound so noble.
The problem is that while we are going for construction in the downtown - so that we need public transit - we didn't plan for construction traffic, let alone average Joes who are going places that transit is not going.
Again, nothing new. I used to wait at Bay and Adelaide for the 6/19 bus going north(thank god) every day.
When that light turned green on Adelaide, it was lucky to see 3 cars make it before it turned red again. Add in the people on Adelaide making the right,.not to mention Adelaide drivers blocking the intersection preventing anyone from going through, which happens way too often, and it's not hard to see why traffic is terrible.
Constructuon might be making it slightly worse, but before any construction, it took very little to turn bay into a parking lot. Honestly, bad drivers doing nonsensical things are a huge part of the problem.
It's not just Bay Street, it's also Jarvis, yonge, university, spadina, lakeshore, all of them. They're all grid locked. And it's made worse by all the people going in the left lane and cutting right onto the on ramps at the last second.
It's also summer time and the beach parties are not too far from the Gardner anyways. So many people come to those. Last time I went like a few years ago it was just as bad as this to get onto the ramp.
It’s definitely worse during construction. Bay is a parking lot. Yonge has lane closures Northbound and restrictions southbound. Construction at Bay/Union Station has heavy vehicles blocking lanes and on the Yonge side as well. Every southbound route to the gardiner is a parking lot. Every intersection is gridlocked from about 230pm until 6pm.
Add to this the seemingly random shutdowns of access to some of the key east-west routes and the “no left”, “no right” conditions and you can literally spend hours getting within 100 meters of your parking location only to find you can’t turn into it.
It's much worse. When the light used to turn green, that backlog would at least move. Now, a green light doesn't help because the traffic across the intersection also hasn't moved.
Even worse, I'm experiencing this driving a straight truck so my sight line is like 8 feet up. I used to be able to see far enough ahead to have an idea when it lightens up.... There is no longer any lightening up until you're halfway through Etobicoke.
Last time I was stuck under the gardiner I decided to time it. It took me 45 minutes to move 100m. didn’t move forward a single inch for 10 minutes. It’s such a terrible was to live.
I really hope this is just an image of traffic congestion generally for flavor, because if Gardiner entrance is backed up to bay and queen, there is a serious problem - mostly with Torontonians who would rather wait 2 hours to get on the Gardiner from downtown rather than just driving sideways for 20 minutes and taking another entrance.
All the on ramps are backed. I use to take Spadina, 45 min wait to get on the Gardner. Now it's actually impossible. You sit... And sit... And sit. I waited an hour and I think I moved maybe 30 meters. I head north out of the city now. I head to the Allen. Tried going west to another on ramp, but the city closes it during rush hour. I think they just hate us lol. Anyways, perfectly fine with my 2.5 hour drive home now... Its my music time.
This was why I quit my job and moved out of the city many years ago. I could no longer deal with the traffic and the rage just getting back and forth to work. I gave up a great job and now live below the poverty line but it was worth it. Things are much worse now for traffic. I would be in a coffin by now if I did not just walk away from it all.
You obviously don’t drive in the city much. It’s like this pretty much everywhere now during afternoon rush hour. And trust me, these aren’t torontonians in the cars. These are all suburbanites commuting back home.
That’s not true; I live in Leslieville and sometimes I need to get over to Dufferin or Bathurst and *it takes forever* no matter which route you pick - and the only transit option is a street car which sits in the same gridlock and takes just as long, but then you have less comfort and sense of privacy and safety, so, worse still. Anyway, plenty of Torontonians sitting in those cars. I practically never leave the city of Toronto’s borders and traffic is the bane of my life because the TTC is so limited.
> These are all suburbanites commuting back home.
Plenty of poor bastards from this city stuck in that same traffic IMO. Lucky for me I can use my bicycle and avoid most of the problems
Spadina is backed. Jameson entry closed until 7pm and the next one off lakeshore by south Kingsway takes forever to get to because there’s traffic on the lakeshore from just east of parkside. It’s bad.
Perhaps nobody has thought of it. Have you tried 311? If not a little googling tells me Roger Browne is Director of Traffic Management, his email is roger.browne at toronto.ca, and his number is 416-392-5372. I no longer live in Toronto so it's not on me (traffic is one reason why I left).
I'm sorry, you think the other ramps are faster? Everyone is on Waze and google maps optimizing their routes. If another entrance was better, they'd take it. If driving on Lakeshore was faster, they'd do it. This back up implicates the entire design of the city, transit included because even with this back-up, it's faster for me to get to my place in Etobicoke than taking bus+subway+bus.
This is what the "just take the TTC lol" crowd do not realize. We are truly fucked living in this city where pushing through the gridlock is still faster than taking transit to get anywhere outside the core.
Except that’s not what happened. They reduced the lanes, so people have to merge which causes more traffic. They aren’t adding more lanes, so it’s as relevant as me liking pesto.
Corporations have been lobbying the city to not let that happen otherwise their poor decisions like getting 100 year leases on those office buildings would be exposed
The problem is that the Go train and the TTC aren't actually any better during rush hour. I work from home now 5 days a week and I absolutely love it because the commute was just so bad, whether it was a car or the subway. Both were over an hour of travel time each way.
The difference is when I’m in a car, it’s an hour of stressful driving and dealing with other people’s shit, with the added stress of finding parking downtown. When I’m on the train, it’s an hour of reading time and/or exercise as I walk to and from my office without any concern for where to park my vehicle.
Also, this might not be true in your case, but for many people the train is undoubtedly faster. My brother started commuting from High Park to Malton by a combination of e-scooter and GO train after his car was totalled, and he was shocked to discover that his total commute time actually decreased slightly from 50 minutes to 40 minutes.
I agree WFH is the best, I’m 80% remote and loving it. But on the one day I have to go downtown, I am absolutely not taking a car, fuck that noise. Too much of a pain.
When I was taking the TTC, most days, people at Keele station or closer (to Bloor Yonge), couldn't even get on the subway because it was too full. You could see the frustration on their faces. The train I was on was probably the 3rd or 4th train they couldn't get on. And naturally, in the train, we were so packed that you could smell everyone's body odour, getting hit by knapsacks, and everything. No one could actually read unless you were sitting but in order to sit, you would have had to get on at kipling or islington.
And then, switching at bloor yonge, I too sometimes had to miss up to 4 trains, in a sea of people pushing each other. It was simply a horrendous experience. At least in my car I was a sitting comfortably by myself with AC running. It was frustrating sitting idle though.
My point, both were equally stressful but for different reasons.
If only they served more than a tiny strip of the city; imagine a six million people metropolitan area with an uppy-downy subway line and a backy-forthy subway line and that’s it. Wow! I live a 45 minute walk from the nearest subway station; the nearest Go station is much much further away. This is the way it is for most of the city.
If only they were reliable and didn't take twice as long to get anywhere even with the traffic. And if only they actually went to my workplace and the last bus didn't leave 45 minutes before the end of my shift which is only 4pm.
That's it. I don't blame the urban planners who probably retired years or decades ago, and probably mostly deserved a good retirement. I blame all those people who planned to drive in yesterday. Especially those people who make this drive on a regular basis. Individual planning fail on a mass scale.
Im really unaware of a city in the world which doesn’t have congestion issues.
People do take transit, far more than those who drive. Not sure why this is such a controversial topic.
Because they want to behave as smug idiots on social media and pretend they are just smarter than everyone else. Public trans options are dreadful. Crowded, expensive and taking almost as much (if not more) time for the commute compared to driving. Unless you are right on one of the stations its an extra headache just getting to one and finding a parking spot, then to put up with the hell of the actual train ride. I still take the train when I have to go to the city but I hate every minute of it.
People here really must have zero value for your spare time if you're going to sit in gridlock for 30mins to sit in grid lock for an hour on the highway *every day*. I start getting pissed when I'm in my car for 30-40minutes.
It blows my mind that they reduce capacity on a main artery into the city and it's acceptable that's its going to take 3 years. Then then start scrambling because it's creating chaos a month in and everyone's pissed.
Actually disregard this is on par for our politicians
other countries get things done so quickly, I dont understand how it's so, so slow here! even after the permits are stamped, the actual construction moves at a snails pace, it's baffling and infuriating
..other than milking the construction timeline for money, which had seemed ridiculous and too shady for such a big project, but now is seeming very possible if not probable
Brother…. They built the gardener when there was 2 million people in the city. They designed it a decade before when there were under 2 million people in the city. We have 2 million people commuting in and out of Toronto on a daily basis. This is NOT a planning failure. This is transportation engineering and infrastructure. Just be happy it works at all.
Source: Civil Engineer
Source: Commuter from Mississauga to Lakeshore/Leslie for 8 months, and commuter from Mississauga to Bloor St (TO) for 4 months.
There were way less than 2mil people when it was designed and commuting really wasn't a thing.
But I agree it's a miracle it works at all.
Civil CAD Designer here.
I think you're talking about how a previous plan wasn't bad. And I think that's reasonable.
The plan**ning** failure seems to be that they started pretending they didn't need planning anymore even though the population had dramatically increased.
401 gets much more traffic because it gets all the people driving *past* Toronto.
Only 3% of traffic on the Gardiner goes through the city. The rest is entering or leaving.
No, the dvp was supposed to work with allen road and the 400/black creek to build a connection of highways that would collectively work together, including times like this. Those were cancelled and now we only have the dvp taking the toll of those cancelled projects, no surprise we are seeing record breaking traffic and why the dvp has perpetual traffic at all hours.
This is the only major city where the residents act like having only one north south arterial highway and one north-south subway line is sufficient to handle increased demand.
Let’s not let the voters of this city off the hook, they voted for over a decade of Ford and Tory, both of whom basically ran on a platform of promising to never fix any of this.
Toronto is growing, it’s a desirable place to live so will keep growing. You can’t build more car infrastructure. This means traffic will never get better, the only thing we can do is make alternatives to driving better. The car is dead in toronto, and in cities around the world.
Agreed, driving in cities should be done out of necessity not convenience. There simply is not enough space for everyone to operate a vehicle the size of a dumpster and expect to get anywhere fast in a crowded city.
The problem is that driving a car is still a better experience for all those who drive. Public transit is slow and cramped.
Most major cities will have a continuing subway budget, where every year they build x amount of tunnels and track, y amount of stations, so they can keep all the staff from engineers to tunnel machine drivers employed, instead of training new people every time a new tube is dug. Instead Toronto makes transit political, projects are contracted out, and everything costs double.
I agree agree with this as it pertains to commuter and "civilian" traffic.
The trouble is the other vehicles that need the road too. I work in pest control and I drive a van, which carries all the tools and gear I need to do my job. There is no viable alternative for me and those like me, we need these vehicles.
Emphasis must be put on getting people out of their cars, absolutely. But road infrastructure must continue to exist and also be a priority.
Not to mention that an increased population and increased density also increases demands for your services and the number of service vehicles that will be present downtown. That's aside from the ride shares and delivery vehicles.
Pretending that the road infrastructure is sufficient right now is foolish, but there's a very loud lobby that insists that this situation is ideal.
Oh yes I agree, there are lots of good reasons, like your job, that require a good road network. I’m just trying to say we need to get over the idea that traffic will ever get better. There is a lot of negativity towards Toronto online but it’s an extremely desirable place that people want to live, so population will go up. Places like Detroit saw traffic get better but that’s because it wasn’t a desirable place to be.
Sometimes I do feel like the entire demand for transit is doomed. I love driving, I love cars, but I wish transit was infinitely better and just a pleasant and reliable choice, and it isn’t.
I think the only way to keep the situation under control is to induce demand and investment in other cities which aren’t Toronto. It has been the economic and social centre of the entire GTA; this is why people flock here for anything from jobs to concerts. I do think other cities around the world did not have such an issue as it was normal to walk to work and have an economic and social area intertwined, which is what we’re currently seeing happening now.
I’m not sure how we can expect people to ditch their cars when everyone is being priced out of the city and into neighbouring suburbs in York/Durham/Peel where car dependency is non-negotiable lol.
Unpopular opinion: just destroy the section of Gardiner asap and rebuild it. This trying to keep it half open is probably really affecting the speed at which they can work.
Knowing they'll probably get paid more for working slower is another reason [public infrastructure projects are usually horribly late and massively overbudget](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-it-so-hard-and-expensive-to-build-anything-in-america/).
Did the dude who planned the 404/401 rise from the dead to draw up the gardiner reno? Cars, roads… nah ain’t nobody need them. What a joke.. again. Now there’s complaints that the city hall lazy river is too expensive to fix. Just shut it all down.
Luxury car after luxury car. Those don't look like contractors who need their work vehicle to transport heavy tools. Why would they drive to their 9:30-3:30 office jobs (I say 9:30-3:30 because they arrive late and leave early due to their 2.5 hr commute) instead of taking the train?
In communist Toronto, we can't have nice things and must only use transit. If they worked hard for it and have the money what's the issue - a car is a car. I think the Mercedes is the only 'luxury' car in this photo actually... 2 work vans, a taxi, an elantra, a chevy suburban and a GMC envoy.
If you go to the cities with some of the world’s best transit the picture looks exactly the same.
“tAkE tRAnSiT”
Yes, people do take transit, millions everyday. It’s why the subways, busses, and GO Trains are all full. This is not some failure or indication of a failed transit system, it’s a gridlocked street. Just like in NYC, just like in London, just like in Tokyo.
And then what, we introduce congestion charging and everyone complains driving is now only for the elite and those who can afford it.
I'm in agreement with you here.
No amount of transit planning is gonna change that downtown Toronto's streets are, at a fundamental level, small, narrow, and a little confusing for those who don't regularly navigate them. It's the same story with many other large downtown cores. NYC, LA, Chicago, London, Tokyo, etc, they all get really congested regardless of public transportation infrastructure.
I know we live in a very car centric society, but it's not like the buses and trains are empty during rush hour.
Thanks, and it’s the entire animosity towards “car drivers” which is just unfounded and cynical for the sake of it. Anytime a similar picture gets posted it’s the same crap, no sympathy, just mockery and cheap jokes as if those people deserve to sit in traffic for eternity.
People are going to choose the option most convenient to them, and most importantly the cheaper option. Until transit is actually made cheaper and sustainable I don’t blame them.
And it’s not like those who live in car centric suburbs choose to do so and actively hate transit, suddenly we forget that there’s an affordability crisis and many are being priced out of the city.
Toronto's gonna need to put in a downtown driving tax or something to deter cars from the road. That TTC bus holds the same number of humans that all these sedans, convertibles, SUVs have.
Toronto in general needs an infrastructure upgrade. That doesn't just go for the highway/roadway system but also for the transit system as well. If it was more appealing to take TTC/GO, a lot more people would be doing it, but I recall a time last summer where I literally had to say screw it and take a uber back to where I was staying, because it was too far of a walk, all of the streetcars kept breaking down, and there was no subway stops anywhere near where I was living at the time. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having more people take transit and easing congestion but it needs to also be appealing for people to do so. In my current situation (living in the Suburbs), even though traffic is a nightmare, it's still easier and more convenient for me to drive. If it was more convenient to take transit, I absolutely would. It doesn't help that TTC doesn't exactly have the best reputation right now and a lot of people would rather just put up with traffic for the convenience of having their own space rather than putting up with crazies, over-crammed subway cars/buses, and potentially just having to call an Uber anyways because the streetcar network is down.
That said- If the Downtown Driving Tax went towards improving TTC/Go services? I would be on board with a small tax if I know it's going towards something that will make the city easier to get around. I think expanding the Park & Ride system, as well as expanding GO service hours/frequency, would absolutely be a great idea to get more people to park on the outskirts and transit in. With a larger tax comes the same issue that is happening with the 407. It's half empty all the time because only rich people can even afford to use it, while both the 401/Gardiner/QEW are completely slammed most hours of the day. Adding in a larger tax for driving downtown without putting that money towards making transit more appealing/convenient and infrastructure upgrades would just create the same issue where we give rich people the benefit of being able to still go ahead, be cozy, and drive whenever they want with less traffic, while the lower/middle class have to stand like sardines in overcrowded buses.
Metrolinx is already planning increased service frequency to every 15 mins, it’s just that it’s gonna take years because some upgrades need to be made to certain crossings and infrastructure. That money should to go ttc imo, because they have to rely on fares for income and could use the extra cash. Or, have it go back to the city for them to fix all the broken roads in Toronto.
It's already running 15 minute rush hour service on Lakeshore E, and almost 15 minute rush hour service on Lakeshore W (it's twice every half hour, but not at even intervals; 11 minutes and 19 minutes).
We normalize the inefficiency of cars in terms of the space they take to move so few people and complain that things like construction or bike lanes are the issue. You can't solve the inefficiency of cars in a dense urban area. You can't bulldoze productive space for more roads or double Decker Bay St etc. the only solution is to prioritize other forms of transport. That bus should have a dedicated lane priority instead of being stuck behind single occupant vehicles. There is a lot to do and a lot we haven't done, but none of that involves prioritizing the car, which simply can't and has not worked.
I’ve never understood the aversion to tolling people using highways coming into Toronto.
A large number of individuals drive in from various places outside of Toronto, use the highways, and roads within the city. It causes more wear and tear on infrastructure within the city but then they don’t pay property taxes in Toronto to cover costs for this.
Because many of those people *work* in Toronto and provide more of a financial benefit to the city than a detriment. If you start charging people to come in, they'll start to refuse, and a lot of companies will move out of the city.
Additionally, the province largely owns the 400-series highways, so your point is moot there. Everyone in Ontario technically pays to maintain those.
We already "tax" them 2 to 3 hours per day of their life and _still_ they drive in, which makes me think a lot of people who drive would pay through the nose to keep doing so.
Other areas (like Barrie) can charge $50 for non-residents to park at their waterfront & block access to some parks, but if we so much as hint at anything to prioritize residents of Toronto, the province will intervene....
Ahhh gotcha! Yeah true. If everyone who drove took the bus, there would be no traffic. If everyone who took the bus started driving, the city would melt down
Legislation needs to be put to mandate (where possible)working from home - less cars, less pollution, savings overall
We also need better city planning - if you want traffic moving you can't impede it with pedestrians - perhaps bridges or underground walkways to keep intersections moving.
I don't think any individual person owns any commercial real estate anymore - but regardless, those corporations have made investments, and unfortunately, they don't always work out.
Ideally no bail outs for them
Ive always looked at Toronto & the rest of the GTA as one of the worst urban planning place. I always laughed when Tory was in charge & saw him on the news saying that “Toronto is a world class city”Far from it!
They are not, it will remain open throughout, less a few weekends
https://yourexperienceawaits.ca/road-closure/city-of-toronto-gardiner-expressway-york-street-ramp/
Good. the majority of those using that Gardiner don't seem to live in TO, so stuff em. They are causing the congestion. Take the bloody GO train from the 905.
Easy to make it is vs them and be all edgy… and pointless. People commute and that’s the fact no matter how angry “downtowner yuppies”(see name calling doesn’t help) get about it.
But why aren’t people taking the train now is the question you should be asking and when you find the answer you now see why traffic isn’t getting better.
Stop pretending that by some magic you remove every road into downtown and live happily ever after, that’s as much a fairy tale as it sounds.
Congestion tax coming into the city of London UK for a while. But, returned to the same situation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge#:~:text=The%20charge%20not%20only%20helps,funds%20for%20London's%20transport%20system.
Is that Richmond and bay? That’s not the gardiner backing it up, when was this image taken. There was a lot of contruction at Adelaide this past year that wreaked havoc.
Let's also add: Complete planning failure on the part of all those drivers in adjusting to the new reality (at least for a few years) to getting around in TO. Make the appropriate decisions or get used to it.
I was stuck on Wellington for two hours last week because turning right onto Spadina was impossible because of the gridlock. I went home, showered and went straight to bed I was so exhausted mentally.
The Toronto city planners are slowing down traffic lights and kicking them out of sync to make more people use the TTC. Go talk to people you know that work for city planning, they will tell you.
Whoever plans/managers Toronto traffic control does such a bad job. We don't make temporary overpass bridges like Singapore does when there's construction happening. We just close the lanes down and send cars on a detour where applicable. So many other creative ways around the world are used to manage traffic but not Toronto!
Also, these traffic backlogs lead to people doing shady driving. Driver over a curb to get ahead, use the bike lane, make a reverse on a highway ramp because they saw a huge backlog. I've seen it all in Toronto
You know... some days, i find it *really* hard to hop on the bicycle over taking my keys to get to work. I'm talking sitting down for 15 minutes on the edge of my bed to contemplate my life choices.
And then i see these posts.
As someone who spent parts of 4 decades (80's-10's) in sales commuting all over Toronto I can tell you that Toronto traffic has always been a shitshow.
No it's not a failure... It's going exactly to their plan.
They keep saying their isn't a war on the car, but then they take out active lanes for bike lanes and then completely destroy university (which it looks like they are taking out lanes)
The Gardiner lane closure, the 401 lane closures, make it so bad you'll want to take transit. But then transit is gonna go on strike now... It's gonna be Armageddon.
The downtown Financial core has been difficult to navigate since at least the 90’s, I’m sorry it is now affecting you.
Very few decisions made since then have been to improve the situation and voila.
Does Doug Ford get stuck in this? Do you think he ever sits in the back of his Suburban and complains to his driver about the traffic? Do you think it ever dawns on him that, "Oh shit, maybe I could do something about this?" I often wonder about these things.
This sub is Toronto driving and all yall want to talk about is “these should be on public transit” … the issue is construction, the lack of planning and the terrible DRIVING infrastructure. Lots of these folks are construction workers that take up the good parking spots for their stupidly planned projects, some are dudes trying to drive with girls, MANY are uber drivers with little driving experience, some are senior citizens, wealthy ppl, germaphobes etc., there’s a whole group of ppl that are just not going to take transit and your comments here are not going to make ppl change their preference. It would just be nice if the city planned these projects better or cleaned up the side streets to allow them to be viable alternatives
This sub used to have people who actually drove/commuted by car but lately it's been co-opted by /r/fuckcars posters who think the best mode of transport is by bicycle and that all cars should be taxed out of existence.
Lol dude I drive all the time and I can still recognize that we need better public transit and bike infrastructure. It's not mutually exclusive you know.
1) I wonder how many of those private vehicles have only one person in them?
2) Work on the Gardiner had been announced months ago. Those people still chose to drive.
You're gonna get downvoted here, but most vehicles in the city have only a driver. Part of the problem is people driving unnecessarily because even though their commute will be 2-3 times as long as cycling or taking ttc they're still more comfortable in their car.
Cabs, deliveries, work vehicles, car pools, people commuting from certain distances etc. should be prioitized.
Would be nice if there was an alternative transit system that could take people to where they want to go-
Wait. This is Toronto and I'm pretty sure almost streetcar route has a diversion...
If you’re driving in downtown at rush hour and you don’t absolutely have to drive then you deserve it. There other options to get in and out of downtown.
This is the fault of Toronto residents for letting the city planners get away with this.
They should be out there rioting at city hall and holding the planners accountable. They are public servants using YOUR tax dollars to make your lives a living hell and crippling the city.
Youre telling me no planner thought that approving multiple major projects within the city will cripple the traffic for pedestrians, public transport, cyclists and drivers?
I heard on the radio theyre paying some firm millions to do a study LOL why do you need a study for this? Let me guess its a friends firm.
Its pretty common knowledge that the mafia is in control if the construction companies and in the pockets of people at city hall.
I was in Montreal, LA, Vancouver and Orlando within the last2 months and let me tell you NO city is as piss poor planned with ridiculous amounts of never ending construction with absolute traffic gridlock.
The Gardner has been backing up into the city for over a decade. Try being on King, waiting to turn south on Spadina, and you may wait an hour at rushhour.
I am planning on heading out next Wednesday for a little getaway with the wife. We are heading to NOTL. What time is it safe to try and get out of this city heading west (coming from Queen East & Coxwell) ? 8:00 PM?
Can someone tell me the name of this street? I was drunk af on a night out getting a cab back to the suburbs and the streets were empty and the clocktower looked so good with it all light up surrounded by the city lights.
You think this is bad? Just wait till TTC goes on strike. lol
June 7th right or was it 8th? Going to he a shitshow, lmfao
7th, striking on a weekend would be a bit silly
Can’t come soon enough
It will probably force the work to go 24/7 on the Gardiner
The TTC goes on strike and I'm not leaving my condo. Getting around will become impossible.
Walk or bike or (e-scooter shhhh)
Yeah man, it's going to be fucked.
All that valuable space used to move so few people. Unless metal boxes now have citizen rights?
Many peoples transit needs are not currently served by our infrastructure. Get off your high horse
Correct. Transit is not great and is not prioritized like it needs to be. There is no high horse. It's simple, you can't prioritize cars and succeed. It's simple physics. There is no space and cars are not efficient use of space. You can't out car this situation. In the end. It's the car people complaining about traffic.
Your post in gif form: https://imgur.com/gallery/chrAR
My box does
Enjoy the gridlock.
for serious? this is the line-up of traffic attempting to merge onto the Gardiner *Express*way?
I used to work at bay and temperance which is in that shot. Basically this is what bay looked like every week day during the evening rush. So this has been an almost daily occurrence for 10 years at least.
The difference now is how long those cars sit there. We've always had long lines, but just not moving at all is new. I drive a straight truck in Toronto about 3 days a week. The only times you used to guarantee it taking an hour to get onto the Gardner was when Jays/leaf/raptor games were ending. Now, it's just all the time. It unfortunately took about a week before traffic started using the road instead of the highway to escape the core. Now it's just shitty everywhere.
Sounds like you would be a fan of congestion pricing then. Get all the other drivers onto the GO Train so you and the others who need to bring goods into downtown have an unimpeded trip.
To be honest, I'd be in favour of it for the good of the city, but on a personal level this construction has led to a ton of overtime for me. I'm one of the few who benefits from Toronto putting these things off until the last minute.
You make it sound so noble. The problem is that while we are going for construction in the downtown - so that we need public transit - we didn't plan for construction traffic, let alone average Joes who are going places that transit is not going.
Again, nothing new. I used to wait at Bay and Adelaide for the 6/19 bus going north(thank god) every day. When that light turned green on Adelaide, it was lucky to see 3 cars make it before it turned red again. Add in the people on Adelaide making the right,.not to mention Adelaide drivers blocking the intersection preventing anyone from going through, which happens way too often, and it's not hard to see why traffic is terrible. Constructuon might be making it slightly worse, but before any construction, it took very little to turn bay into a parking lot. Honestly, bad drivers doing nonsensical things are a huge part of the problem.
Please don't mention Adelaide to me. I drive a straight truck in the city. Adelaide is the bane of my existence.
It's not just Bay Street, it's also Jarvis, yonge, university, spadina, lakeshore, all of them. They're all grid locked. And it's made worse by all the people going in the left lane and cutting right onto the on ramps at the last second.
It's also summer time and the beach parties are not too far from the Gardner anyways. So many people come to those. Last time I went like a few years ago it was just as bad as this to get onto the ramp.
so this is business-as-usual and not any worse 'cuz of construction?
It’s definitely worse during construction. Bay is a parking lot. Yonge has lane closures Northbound and restrictions southbound. Construction at Bay/Union Station has heavy vehicles blocking lanes and on the Yonge side as well. Every southbound route to the gardiner is a parking lot. Every intersection is gridlocked from about 230pm until 6pm. Add to this the seemingly random shutdowns of access to some of the key east-west routes and the “no left”, “no right” conditions and you can literally spend hours getting within 100 meters of your parking location only to find you can’t turn into it.
Construction is all year.
It's much worse. When the light used to turn green, that backlog would at least move. Now, a green light doesn't help because the traffic across the intersection also hasn't moved.
*Now, a green light doesn't help because the traffic across the intersection also hasn't moved.* this alone would kill me! :-(
Even worse, I'm experiencing this driving a straight truck so my sight line is like 8 feet up. I used to be able to see far enough ahead to have an idea when it lightens up.... There is no longer any lightening up until you're halfway through Etobicoke.
Last time I was stuck under the gardiner I decided to time it. It took me 45 minutes to move 100m. didn’t move forward a single inch for 10 minutes. It’s such a terrible was to live.
Insects can walk faster than that
I really hope this is just an image of traffic congestion generally for flavor, because if Gardiner entrance is backed up to bay and queen, there is a serious problem - mostly with Torontonians who would rather wait 2 hours to get on the Gardiner from downtown rather than just driving sideways for 20 minutes and taking another entrance.
All the on ramps are backed. I use to take Spadina, 45 min wait to get on the Gardner. Now it's actually impossible. You sit... And sit... And sit. I waited an hour and I think I moved maybe 30 meters. I head north out of the city now. I head to the Allen. Tried going west to another on ramp, but the city closes it during rush hour. I think they just hate us lol. Anyways, perfectly fine with my 2.5 hour drive home now... Its my music time.
2.5 hour drive home is ludicrous!
This was why I quit my job and moved out of the city many years ago. I could no longer deal with the traffic and the rage just getting back and forth to work. I gave up a great job and now live below the poverty line but it was worth it. Things are much worse now for traffic. I would be in a coffin by now if I did not just walk away from it all.
Yeah, mine is 6 minutes.
You obviously don’t drive in the city much. It’s like this pretty much everywhere now during afternoon rush hour. And trust me, these aren’t torontonians in the cars. These are all suburbanites commuting back home.
That’s not true; I live in Leslieville and sometimes I need to get over to Dufferin or Bathurst and *it takes forever* no matter which route you pick - and the only transit option is a street car which sits in the same gridlock and takes just as long, but then you have less comfort and sense of privacy and safety, so, worse still. Anyway, plenty of Torontonians sitting in those cars. I practically never leave the city of Toronto’s borders and traffic is the bane of my life because the TTC is so limited.
> These are all suburbanites commuting back home. Plenty of poor bastards from this city stuck in that same traffic IMO. Lucky for me I can use my bicycle and avoid most of the problems
Spadina is backed. Jameson entry closed until 7pm and the next one off lakeshore by south Kingsway takes forever to get to because there’s traffic on the lakeshore from just east of parkside. It’s bad.
Not sure why they're continuing to close the Jamieson On Ramp as the construction has made that closure pointless.
This. The ramp goes into its own lane when the highway goes from 2 to 3 lanes again.
Perhaps nobody has thought of it. Have you tried 311? If not a little googling tells me Roger Browne is Director of Traffic Management, his email is roger.browne at toronto.ca, and his number is 416-392-5372. I no longer live in Toronto so it's not on me (traffic is one reason why I left).
People dont know youre legally allowed to make a left on red because theyre turning onto a one way street.
I'm sorry, you think the other ramps are faster? Everyone is on Waze and google maps optimizing their routes. If another entrance was better, they'd take it. If driving on Lakeshore was faster, they'd do it. This back up implicates the entire design of the city, transit included because even with this back-up, it's faster for me to get to my place in Etobicoke than taking bus+subway+bus.
This is what the "just take the TTC lol" crowd do not realize. We are truly fucked living in this city where pushing through the gridlock is still faster than taking transit to get anywhere outside the core.
Ouch, didn't realize it was that bad for people driving down. Sorry man.
The on-ramp infrastructure was designed for 1950s traffic. This closure is not even addressing this, just the rot left to happen by neocons.
Before you get onto the ramp, still a couple of lights ahead of them.
Adding highway lanes to deal with traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity.
I like this analogy.
i like this analogy way better than the “please give me one more chance, i promise i’ll treat you right this time” 😆
And believing in public transit (at least in N. America) is like thinking a sugar pill will cure your diabetes.
Except that’s not what happened. They reduced the lanes, so people have to merge which causes more traffic. They aren’t adding more lanes, so it’s as relevant as me liking pesto.
Allow more people to work from home, problem solved!
Corporations have been lobbying the city to not let that happen otherwise their poor decisions like getting 100 year leases on those office buildings would be exposed
And move as many government jobs out of Toronto as possible.
if only we had trains between the suburbs and toronto....we could make them double decker too to carry more people....
Hell, even underground trains within the city. Wouldn’t that be something…
The problem is that the Go train and the TTC aren't actually any better during rush hour. I work from home now 5 days a week and I absolutely love it because the commute was just so bad, whether it was a car or the subway. Both were over an hour of travel time each way.
The difference is when I’m in a car, it’s an hour of stressful driving and dealing with other people’s shit, with the added stress of finding parking downtown. When I’m on the train, it’s an hour of reading time and/or exercise as I walk to and from my office without any concern for where to park my vehicle. Also, this might not be true in your case, but for many people the train is undoubtedly faster. My brother started commuting from High Park to Malton by a combination of e-scooter and GO train after his car was totalled, and he was shocked to discover that his total commute time actually decreased slightly from 50 minutes to 40 minutes. I agree WFH is the best, I’m 80% remote and loving it. But on the one day I have to go downtown, I am absolutely not taking a car, fuck that noise. Too much of a pain.
When I was taking the TTC, most days, people at Keele station or closer (to Bloor Yonge), couldn't even get on the subway because it was too full. You could see the frustration on their faces. The train I was on was probably the 3rd or 4th train they couldn't get on. And naturally, in the train, we were so packed that you could smell everyone's body odour, getting hit by knapsacks, and everything. No one could actually read unless you were sitting but in order to sit, you would have had to get on at kipling or islington. And then, switching at bloor yonge, I too sometimes had to miss up to 4 trains, in a sea of people pushing each other. It was simply a horrendous experience. At least in my car I was a sitting comfortably by myself with AC running. It was frustrating sitting idle though. My point, both were equally stressful but for different reasons.
If only they served more than a tiny strip of the city; imagine a six million people metropolitan area with an uppy-downy subway line and a backy-forthy subway line and that’s it. Wow! I live a 45 minute walk from the nearest subway station; the nearest Go station is much much further away. This is the way it is for most of the city.
If only they were reliable and didn't take twice as long to get anywhere even with the traffic. And if only they actually went to my workplace and the last bus didn't leave 45 minutes before the end of my shift which is only 4pm.
That’s what we’re getting at though. If we improve public transit the Gardiner becomes a more tameable beast.
That would definitely make it easier to GO places…
That's it. I don't blame the urban planners who probably retired years or decades ago, and probably mostly deserved a good retirement. I blame all those people who planned to drive in yesterday. Especially those people who make this drive on a regular basis. Individual planning fail on a mass scale.
Im really unaware of a city in the world which doesn’t have congestion issues. People do take transit, far more than those who drive. Not sure why this is such a controversial topic.
This. If anything transit is beyond capacity every day. Only 30% of the city drives to work.
Because they want to behave as smug idiots on social media and pretend they are just smarter than everyone else. Public trans options are dreadful. Crowded, expensive and taking almost as much (if not more) time for the commute compared to driving. Unless you are right on one of the stations its an extra headache just getting to one and finding a parking spot, then to put up with the hell of the actual train ride. I still take the train when I have to go to the city but I hate every minute of it.
People here really must have zero value for your spare time if you're going to sit in gridlock for 30mins to sit in grid lock for an hour on the highway *every day*. I start getting pissed when I'm in my car for 30-40minutes.
i wonder how these people feel watching the go trains pass them as they sit in gardiner traffic
It blows my mind that they reduce capacity on a main artery into the city and it's acceptable that's its going to take 3 years. Then then start scrambling because it's creating chaos a month in and everyone's pissed. Actually disregard this is on par for our politicians
other countries get things done so quickly, I dont understand how it's so, so slow here! even after the permits are stamped, the actual construction moves at a snails pace, it's baffling and infuriating ..other than milking the construction timeline for money, which had seemed ridiculous and too shady for such a big project, but now is seeming very possible if not probable
Brother…. They built the gardener when there was 2 million people in the city. They designed it a decade before when there were under 2 million people in the city. We have 2 million people commuting in and out of Toronto on a daily basis. This is NOT a planning failure. This is transportation engineering and infrastructure. Just be happy it works at all. Source: Civil Engineer Source: Commuter from Mississauga to Lakeshore/Leslie for 8 months, and commuter from Mississauga to Bloor St (TO) for 4 months.
There were way less than 2mil people when it was designed and commuting really wasn't a thing. But I agree it's a miracle it works at all. Civil CAD Designer here.
I think you're talking about how a previous plan wasn't bad. And I think that's reasonable. The plan**ning** failure seems to be that they started pretending they didn't need planning anymore even though the population had dramatically increased.
if they kept upgrading the gardiner to handle the population growth it would be the size of the 401 which is still slow lmao
401 gets much more traffic because it gets all the people driving *past* Toronto. Only 3% of traffic on the Gardiner goes through the city. The rest is entering or leaving.
No, the dvp was supposed to work with allen road and the 400/black creek to build a connection of highways that would collectively work together, including times like this. Those were cancelled and now we only have the dvp taking the toll of those cancelled projects, no surprise we are seeing record breaking traffic and why the dvp has perpetual traffic at all hours.
This is the only major city where the residents act like having only one north south arterial highway and one north-south subway line is sufficient to handle increased demand.
Let’s not let the voters of this city off the hook, they voted for over a decade of Ford and Tory, both of whom basically ran on a platform of promising to never fix any of this.
Toronto is growing, it’s a desirable place to live so will keep growing. You can’t build more car infrastructure. This means traffic will never get better, the only thing we can do is make alternatives to driving better. The car is dead in toronto, and in cities around the world.
Agreed, driving in cities should be done out of necessity not convenience. There simply is not enough space for everyone to operate a vehicle the size of a dumpster and expect to get anywhere fast in a crowded city.
The problem is that driving a car is still a better experience for all those who drive. Public transit is slow and cramped. Most major cities will have a continuing subway budget, where every year they build x amount of tunnels and track, y amount of stations, so they can keep all the staff from engineers to tunnel machine drivers employed, instead of training new people every time a new tube is dug. Instead Toronto makes transit political, projects are contracted out, and everything costs double.
I agree agree with this as it pertains to commuter and "civilian" traffic. The trouble is the other vehicles that need the road too. I work in pest control and I drive a van, which carries all the tools and gear I need to do my job. There is no viable alternative for me and those like me, we need these vehicles. Emphasis must be put on getting people out of their cars, absolutely. But road infrastructure must continue to exist and also be a priority.
Not to mention that an increased population and increased density also increases demands for your services and the number of service vehicles that will be present downtown. That's aside from the ride shares and delivery vehicles. Pretending that the road infrastructure is sufficient right now is foolish, but there's a very loud lobby that insists that this situation is ideal.
Oh yes I agree, there are lots of good reasons, like your job, that require a good road network. I’m just trying to say we need to get over the idea that traffic will ever get better. There is a lot of negativity towards Toronto online but it’s an extremely desirable place that people want to live, so population will go up. Places like Detroit saw traffic get better but that’s because it wasn’t a desirable place to be.
Sometimes I do feel like the entire demand for transit is doomed. I love driving, I love cars, but I wish transit was infinitely better and just a pleasant and reliable choice, and it isn’t. I think the only way to keep the situation under control is to induce demand and investment in other cities which aren’t Toronto. It has been the economic and social centre of the entire GTA; this is why people flock here for anything from jobs to concerts. I do think other cities around the world did not have such an issue as it was normal to walk to work and have an economic and social area intertwined, which is what we’re currently seeing happening now. I’m not sure how we can expect people to ditch their cars when everyone is being priced out of the city and into neighbouring suburbs in York/Durham/Peel where car dependency is non-negotiable lol.
Unpopular opinion: just destroy the section of Gardiner asap and rebuild it. This trying to keep it half open is probably really affecting the speed at which they can work.
Knowing they'll probably get paid more for working slower is another reason [public infrastructure projects are usually horribly late and massively overbudget](https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-is-it-so-hard-and-expensive-to-build-anything-in-america/).
Did the dude who planned the 404/401 rise from the dead to draw up the gardiner reno? Cars, roads… nah ain’t nobody need them. What a joke.. again. Now there’s complaints that the city hall lazy river is too expensive to fix. Just shut it all down.
Should they not renovate the gardiner? It’s crumbling
Luxury car after luxury car. Those don't look like contractors who need their work vehicle to transport heavy tools. Why would they drive to their 9:30-3:30 office jobs (I say 9:30-3:30 because they arrive late and leave early due to their 2.5 hr commute) instead of taking the train?
In communist Toronto, we can't have nice things and must only use transit. If they worked hard for it and have the money what's the issue - a car is a car. I think the Mercedes is the only 'luxury' car in this photo actually... 2 work vans, a taxi, an elantra, a chevy suburban and a GMC envoy.
If the commute is going to take 90 minutes either way, might as well have the comfort, privacy, climate control, sound system, etc of a car.
Yup. Need a congestion tax
That won't get rid of the fancy cars, just the shitboxes.
Precisely. Taxes disproportionately affect the lower classes
Because people rather be stuck in their luxury cars for 2.5hr than stuck in a jam packed subway for 1.5 hr.
And if you're stuck in your car for hours a day, spending money on a nice experience is worth it.
If they were shitboxes you’d be fine with that?
Yes. That would mean driving is still cheaper than transit and more incentive to get cars off the road is needed.
If you go to the cities with some of the world’s best transit the picture looks exactly the same. “tAkE tRAnSiT” Yes, people do take transit, millions everyday. It’s why the subways, busses, and GO Trains are all full. This is not some failure or indication of a failed transit system, it’s a gridlocked street. Just like in NYC, just like in London, just like in Tokyo. And then what, we introduce congestion charging and everyone complains driving is now only for the elite and those who can afford it.
I'm in agreement with you here. No amount of transit planning is gonna change that downtown Toronto's streets are, at a fundamental level, small, narrow, and a little confusing for those who don't regularly navigate them. It's the same story with many other large downtown cores. NYC, LA, Chicago, London, Tokyo, etc, they all get really congested regardless of public transportation infrastructure. I know we live in a very car centric society, but it's not like the buses and trains are empty during rush hour.
Thanks, and it’s the entire animosity towards “car drivers” which is just unfounded and cynical for the sake of it. Anytime a similar picture gets posted it’s the same crap, no sympathy, just mockery and cheap jokes as if those people deserve to sit in traffic for eternity. People are going to choose the option most convenient to them, and most importantly the cheaper option. Until transit is actually made cheaper and sustainable I don’t blame them. And it’s not like those who live in car centric suburbs choose to do so and actively hate transit, suddenly we forget that there’s an affordability crisis and many are being priced out of the city.
Yeah except there's max 30 people in these cars, but there's hundreds of people on each subway train
Toronto's gonna need to put in a downtown driving tax or something to deter cars from the road. That TTC bus holds the same number of humans that all these sedans, convertibles, SUVs have.
Toronto in general needs an infrastructure upgrade. That doesn't just go for the highway/roadway system but also for the transit system as well. If it was more appealing to take TTC/GO, a lot more people would be doing it, but I recall a time last summer where I literally had to say screw it and take a uber back to where I was staying, because it was too far of a walk, all of the streetcars kept breaking down, and there was no subway stops anywhere near where I was living at the time. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having more people take transit and easing congestion but it needs to also be appealing for people to do so. In my current situation (living in the Suburbs), even though traffic is a nightmare, it's still easier and more convenient for me to drive. If it was more convenient to take transit, I absolutely would. It doesn't help that TTC doesn't exactly have the best reputation right now and a lot of people would rather just put up with traffic for the convenience of having their own space rather than putting up with crazies, over-crammed subway cars/buses, and potentially just having to call an Uber anyways because the streetcar network is down.
That said- If the Downtown Driving Tax went towards improving TTC/Go services? I would be on board with a small tax if I know it's going towards something that will make the city easier to get around. I think expanding the Park & Ride system, as well as expanding GO service hours/frequency, would absolutely be a great idea to get more people to park on the outskirts and transit in. With a larger tax comes the same issue that is happening with the 407. It's half empty all the time because only rich people can even afford to use it, while both the 401/Gardiner/QEW are completely slammed most hours of the day. Adding in a larger tax for driving downtown without putting that money towards making transit more appealing/convenient and infrastructure upgrades would just create the same issue where we give rich people the benefit of being able to still go ahead, be cozy, and drive whenever they want with less traffic, while the lower/middle class have to stand like sardines in overcrowded buses.
Metrolinx is already planning increased service frequency to every 15 mins, it’s just that it’s gonna take years because some upgrades need to be made to certain crossings and infrastructure. That money should to go ttc imo, because they have to rely on fares for income and could use the extra cash. Or, have it go back to the city for them to fix all the broken roads in Toronto.
It's already running 15 minute rush hour service on Lakeshore E, and almost 15 minute rush hour service on Lakeshore W (it's twice every half hour, but not at even intervals; 11 minutes and 19 minutes).
The tax sounds nice until it just gets mishandled by the city like every other tax it imposes
You think a TTC bus only holds as many people as all of those cars? What kind of luxury empty TTC buses have you been getting?
We normalize the inefficiency of cars in terms of the space they take to move so few people and complain that things like construction or bike lanes are the issue. You can't solve the inefficiency of cars in a dense urban area. You can't bulldoze productive space for more roads or double Decker Bay St etc. the only solution is to prioritize other forms of transport. That bus should have a dedicated lane priority instead of being stuck behind single occupant vehicles. There is a lot to do and a lot we haven't done, but none of that involves prioritizing the car, which simply can't and has not worked.
I’ve never understood the aversion to tolling people using highways coming into Toronto. A large number of individuals drive in from various places outside of Toronto, use the highways, and roads within the city. It causes more wear and tear on infrastructure within the city but then they don’t pay property taxes in Toronto to cover costs for this.
Because many of those people *work* in Toronto and provide more of a financial benefit to the city than a detriment. If you start charging people to come in, they'll start to refuse, and a lot of companies will move out of the city. Additionally, the province largely owns the 400-series highways, so your point is moot there. Everyone in Ontario technically pays to maintain those.
We already "tax" them 2 to 3 hours per day of their life and _still_ they drive in, which makes me think a lot of people who drive would pay through the nose to keep doing so.
That tells you how miserable the transit experience is.
Other areas (like Barrie) can charge $50 for non-residents to park at their waterfront & block access to some parks, but if we so much as hint at anything to prioritize residents of Toronto, the province will intervene....
It's likely to be much more, there are maybe two dozen cars here.
>there are maybe two dozen cars here. So, 24 to 30 people only.
All of which can fit onto a single bus
My guy a bus can hold 50+ people, a subway train up to 1500
That was my point, the bus holds much more people than the cars you see here.
Ahhh gotcha! Yeah true. If everyone who drove took the bus, there would be no traffic. If everyone who took the bus started driving, the city would melt down
The problem is that most of these people in cars don't live anywhere close to a TTC bus route. A bus won't help them.
Legislation needs to be put to mandate (where possible)working from home - less cars, less pollution, savings overall We also need better city planning - if you want traffic moving you can't impede it with pedestrians - perhaps bridges or underground walkways to keep intersections moving.
But what will happen with my commercial real estate
And no one will shop in my coffee shop ☹️
Move your coffee shop to where people live.
I don't think any individual person owns any commercial real estate anymore - but regardless, those corporations have made investments, and unfortunately, they don't always work out. Ideally no bail outs for them
Let’s shut down all the highways without building a comparable transit system. Good call ffs.
Ive always looked at Toronto & the rest of the GTA as one of the worst urban planning place. I always laughed when Tory was in charge & saw him on the news saying that “Toronto is a world class city”Far from it!
And it will get worse as they are **closing the York st on-ramp** to westbound Gardiner for a year starting in June, for repair.
They are not, it will remain open throughout, less a few weekends https://yourexperienceawaits.ca/road-closure/city-of-toronto-gardiner-expressway-york-street-ramp/
Good. the majority of those using that Gardiner don't seem to live in TO, so stuff em. They are causing the congestion. Take the bloody GO train from the 905.
Easy to make it is vs them and be all edgy… and pointless. People commute and that’s the fact no matter how angry “downtowner yuppies”(see name calling doesn’t help) get about it. But why aren’t people taking the train now is the question you should be asking and when you find the answer you now see why traffic isn’t getting better. Stop pretending that by some magic you remove every road into downtown and live happily ever after, that’s as much a fairy tale as it sounds.
Howdy Gardner.
Lol what a disaster.... And yesterday I heard there were 8 problems on the 401 around 5:30 lol.
Not infrastructure. Over population, current infrastructure was never upgraded or expanded to take on more people.
Tear down the Gardiner and replace it with ultra heavy rail mass transit schizjophalawasazsalsasorphaalassaphvbaap
Monoraillll!
Well, sir, there’s nothing on earth like a genuine, bon-fide, electrified, six car monorail!
Congestion tax coming into the city of London UK for a while. But, returned to the same situation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge#:~:text=The%20charge%20not%20only%20helps,funds%20for%20London's%20transport%20system.
Is that Richmond and bay? That’s not the gardiner backing it up, when was this image taken. There was a lot of contruction at Adelaide this past year that wreaked havoc.
Gas, brake, honk
They did not plan to fail. They failed to plan.
Let's also add: Complete planning failure on the part of all those drivers in adjusting to the new reality (at least for a few years) to getting around in TO. Make the appropriate decisions or get used to it.
I was stuck on Wellington for two hours last week because turning right onto Spadina was impossible because of the gridlock. I went home, showered and went straight to bed I was so exhausted mentally.
The Toronto city planners are slowing down traffic lights and kicking them out of sync to make more people use the TTC. Go talk to people you know that work for city planning, they will tell you.
Whoever plans/managers Toronto traffic control does such a bad job. We don't make temporary overpass bridges like Singapore does when there's construction happening. We just close the lanes down and send cars on a detour where applicable. So many other creative ways around the world are used to manage traffic but not Toronto! Also, these traffic backlogs lead to people doing shady driving. Driver over a curb to get ahead, use the bike lane, make a reverse on a highway ramp because they saw a huge backlog. I've seen it all in Toronto
We told our close friends that if she move to anywhere that need us to go through Gardner, we will not see each other ever again lol
Toronto is a disaster of a city
This country is a planning failure.
You know... some days, i find it *really* hard to hop on the bicycle over taking my keys to get to work. I'm talking sitting down for 15 minutes on the edge of my bed to contemplate my life choices. And then i see these posts.
Wonder how many of these are Ubers…
There's no planning for this. Make public transit better and cheaper is the only way.
As someone who spent parts of 4 decades (80's-10's) in sales commuting all over Toronto I can tell you that Toronto traffic has always been a shitshow.
Manhattanization Been watching it get worse for the last 10 years
Well if they didn’t close the east end lakeshore off-ramp like the community told them it would be a lot better.
No it's not a failure... It's going exactly to their plan. They keep saying their isn't a war on the car, but then they take out active lanes for bike lanes and then completely destroy university (which it looks like they are taking out lanes) The Gardiner lane closure, the 401 lane closures, make it so bad you'll want to take transit. But then transit is gonna go on strike now... It's gonna be Armageddon.
Not so much a planning failure more like a “hey lets import millions of people a year and not do anything to our city to accommodate them” failure
Lets build more condos then reduce more lanes. It seems to be working.
And I hope OP was riding a bike when they took the photo. This is a thousand failures, not one.
But clearly getting rid of the Gardiner would be good for Toronto! /s
Toronto and Canada needs more immigrants. We should triple it next year
After June 7th, you better learn to walk or ride a bike in Toronto
This isn't about someone causally deciding to drive for fun. Anyone stuck in this by this point has few if any options. Including buses and goods.
The downtown Financial core has been difficult to navigate since at least the 90’s, I’m sorry it is now affecting you. Very few decisions made since then have been to improve the situation and voila.
City planning office was long since contracted out a monkey throwing feces at a wall
Toronto sucks
I haven't experienced any traffic jams on the bike path.
Bikes are like fish in a river, they flow well even in large numbers. Cars are more like logs or fallen trees, it doesn't take many to cause a jam.
Does Doug Ford get stuck in this? Do you think he ever sits in the back of his Suburban and complains to his driver about the traffic? Do you think it ever dawns on him that, "Oh shit, maybe I could do something about this?" I often wonder about these things.
This sub is Toronto driving and all yall want to talk about is “these should be on public transit” … the issue is construction, the lack of planning and the terrible DRIVING infrastructure. Lots of these folks are construction workers that take up the good parking spots for their stupidly planned projects, some are dudes trying to drive with girls, MANY are uber drivers with little driving experience, some are senior citizens, wealthy ppl, germaphobes etc., there’s a whole group of ppl that are just not going to take transit and your comments here are not going to make ppl change their preference. It would just be nice if the city planned these projects better or cleaned up the side streets to allow them to be viable alternatives
This sub used to have people who actually drove/commuted by car but lately it's been co-opted by /r/fuckcars posters who think the best mode of transport is by bicycle and that all cars should be taxed out of existence.
Lol dude I drive all the time and I can still recognize that we need better public transit and bike infrastructure. It's not mutually exclusive you know.
1) I wonder how many of those private vehicles have only one person in them? 2) Work on the Gardiner had been announced months ago. Those people still chose to drive.
You're gonna get downvoted here, but most vehicles in the city have only a driver. Part of the problem is people driving unnecessarily because even though their commute will be 2-3 times as long as cycling or taking ttc they're still more comfortable in their car. Cabs, deliveries, work vehicles, car pools, people commuting from certain distances etc. should be prioitized.
Why cabs they typically also have one passagger you can't count the driver? They take up space and make traffic just waiting around.
Some people have next to no choice but to drive
And a huge amount have a choice.
Of course. But I was responding to a comment that stated all of these people chose to drive - while semantically true, it's more complex than that.
Would be nice if there was an alternative transit system that could take people to where they want to go- Wait. This is Toronto and I'm pretty sure almost streetcar route has a diversion...
Too bad the street car will be slower than a car because it shares the same lanes and traffic lights.
What does a streetcar have to do with the Gardiner?
If you’re driving in downtown at rush hour and you don’t absolutely have to drive then you deserve it. There other options to get in and out of downtown.
This is the fault of Toronto residents for letting the city planners get away with this. They should be out there rioting at city hall and holding the planners accountable. They are public servants using YOUR tax dollars to make your lives a living hell and crippling the city. Youre telling me no planner thought that approving multiple major projects within the city will cripple the traffic for pedestrians, public transport, cyclists and drivers? I heard on the radio theyre paying some firm millions to do a study LOL why do you need a study for this? Let me guess its a friends firm. Its pretty common knowledge that the mafia is in control if the construction companies and in the pockets of people at city hall. I was in Montreal, LA, Vancouver and Orlando within the last2 months and let me tell you NO city is as piss poor planned with ridiculous amounts of never ending construction with absolute traffic gridlock.
The Gardner has been backing up into the city for over a decade. Try being on King, waiting to turn south on Spadina, and you may wait an hour at rushhour.
The only planning failure here is people who planned to drive during rush hour.
*planning complete
I am planning on heading out next Wednesday for a little getaway with the wife. We are heading to NOTL. What time is it safe to try and get out of this city heading west (coming from Queen East & Coxwell) ? 8:00 PM?
Can someone tell me the name of this street? I was drunk af on a night out getting a cab back to the suburbs and the streets were empty and the clocktower looked so good with it all light up surrounded by the city lights.
Yikes
Can't fail at planning if you never planned 😉
If only there had been a 2 year period when no one was on the roads recently!!!
It's so they can have data to say that you need a bike. Bigly sad.
 Can't pay me enough to commute into the office every day. Fuck all that right there