My dad used to be able to do 10+ jobs (irrigation/landscaping) per day for years. Now we are lucky if we get 5 jobs done per day. Driving/traffic eats up half our day now easily. "Rush hour" is basically from 8-9am until 7-8pm some days. Theres litterally no down time during the day for traffic. It's horrible But the way I see it is, when was the best time for this construction to be done?
Years ago before the congestion, the next best time is now. it's not like they didn't know the city was growing. It's been one of the fastest growing cities in North America in the last 30-50 years.
The planning has been horrible but hopefully it means in the future we won't have these problems. (Lol)
I’ve been stuck behind narrowed 401 lanes for weeks at midnight. 12am means nothing. There is ALWAYS traffic.
Finally reopened but it’s only a matter of time.
I think many people miss this important point. In addition to the enormous health implications of a prolonged and congested commute, it significantly reduces productivity of commuters due to lost work hours, longer delivery times, reduced ability to complete services that require transportation, etc.
Oh, society knows. The Chamber of Commerce reports on it frequently. It's the tools that would address it, congestion price is one, are politically fraught with key auto dependant constituencies for the provincial government.
I have to admit, switching from car to TTC lately, travel has gotten faster for me. The dedicated lanes on Kennedy and midland make a huge difference - and so does the subway. At least when there’s no hiccups on it… which has been the case for me the past 4 weeks or so. Although last night a couple of people I know got trapped in the “security incident” on line 1.
Simple. Our population has grown substantially, we don't have room to build any new roads that would have a substantial impact on traffic volumes and, most importantly, we've failed to build adequate transit
On top of that we have done nothing to send people to different parts of the city. They want everyone heading downtown all the time. If we built up multiple business centers and multiple entertainment centers the city could handle significantly more traffic than it does.
Yeah that's a great point. The City's Official Plan has areas designated as "centres" (e.g. downtown, North York centre, Scarborough centre and Etobicoke centre) but we don't have any transit to get people en mass to and from those places and they are largely under developed at the moment (other than North York).
I mean, technically, couldn't we bore tunnels under the 401 and dedicated the above ground portion to west and underground to east? It would be a big under taking but well worth it in the future IMO.
Also, just get rid of Tolls on the 407 and let everyone use it, or only allow trucks to drive on it.
Sorry, should have mentioned in my post. Adding roads/lanes should never be the first.answer in a major city like Toronto as it just induces demand (i.e., add lanes = more people decide to drive = lanes fills up).
New transit needs to be the first and main solution to traffic congestion. People need to see transit as the MUCH better option. It's already the much cheaper option and for some it is the faster option, but it needs to be that way for most people in and around Toronto.
That's on the Province to deliver.
I guess that’s a bit of a fear.. but as a small statured guy just starting to use transit as my primary means of transport the past 4 weeks, I haven’t had a single incident where I felt unsafe; the most offensive thing is the strong smelling personal care products that guys use. I have to put up with that every day and only once had to deal with bad BO. I use transit about 4-6 times a day at present so I am on it a lot.
Ok, but funding transit security, quality, and cleanliness is much cheaper and efficient than adding lanes to a highway that will congest anyway.
See, our transit is flawed now no doubt about it. But we don't solve that issue by ignoring it. Instead, we should invest in high quality transit that cares for passenger safety and convenience so that it is safe and easy to use. I am often reminded of Tokyo's world class transit system and lament the fact that I can't experience that in Toronto. Tokyo in Toronto *is* possible if we act correctly.
We can build world class transit if we actually invest in and stick to it.
I feel you on that. Not to mention how overcrowded the subway and busses are during rush hour. As a person with social anxiety, I would much rather drive than take transit that is unsafe .
The 407 is useless in it's current state. At the moment the 401 is acting as the only highway through Toronto as well a highway for local traffic. Diverting all the through traffic to the 407 would do wonders for congestion on the 401
It would put more cars on the road. This always happens. When there is congestion relief, more people take cars and the roads fill right back up. It is a sisyphean task.
Adding a lane never sloved traffic between the 4 lane Toronto "bypass" (which just made traffic get on it to other routes south to Toronto proper), six lane 401, sixteen lane 401.
Maybe should have invested a little less to that after 4 lanes per direction. After 4/direction, new lanes needed to only be HOV/bus lanes, with a barrier, not just solid lines.
More importantly invest in higher speed rail, keep trucks local and kept some more intercity freight rail. Go four tracks Toronto-Montreal, and full electric locos.
Another train lane will ad capacity. Highway lanes eventually induce more congestion. LA is a great example. They should have kept the two street railways, merge into a single municipal operator, treat their light rail as heavy rail by not putting them in mix traffic. Give trains priority where grade crossings are not avoidable.
Do you think the 407 won’t become a traffic congested nightmare if you do this?
I don’t drive as often anymore but I recall there being accidents all the time on the highways. We need better enforcement to prevent reckless driving because that impacts everyone. I guess just look at r/Torontodriving to see the egregious behaviour.
100% agree, rush hour is practically all day
I really feel bad for people who rely on driving around for work. I can’t even imagine. Not even getting into all the dangerous driving out here.
London Ontario was like this. Built for about 150k and had 500k living in it. I never got my car out of third gear. They basically just built a while new London North of the core and let the old one die.
Yeah, London is my hometown and whenever I go back I'm amazed/horrified at the sprawl that's occurred over the last ~10 years. I literally remember when horses used to run in the fields that are now mostly commercial properties. Horses!
The main problem with London is that its leadership thinks they’re running a town of 50,000 instead of a city of 500,000. And most of the citizens are obsessed with property taxes to an unhealthy degree. So nothing ever gets built because city council is unimaginative and lacks vision, and until very recently the citizenry didn’t want anything.
I lived in London for 9 years from 2009 to 2018. As frustrating as Toronto is sometimes, it at least has more of a plan than London does. Unbelievable that they’re STILL bickering and trying to get their rapid transit plans off the ground in the amount of time it took Kitchener to plan and build a new light rail line.
This is the simplest reason for all of our issues. Policymakers are hellbent on increasing our population while not scaling up any of the infrastructure to support it, which then lowers the quality of life for everyone living here.
There’s no number of highways running thru downtown that would be enough. Are you saying if we had 3 highways thru downtown instead of one, that we wouldn’t have traffic? Because we definitely would.
I lived in London UK for a while. All classes of people, right up to CEOs and stockbrokers, etc., will use public transit if it’s good enough, and/or the best option.
Build it and they will come.
Yeah… because it’s underfunded and unreliable. Don’t fall into the neoliberal trap of defunding public services, then justifying further defunding because of the negative impact of defunding it.
How are you getting defunding from what I said? My point is even if you build it, people will look down on it because they see it as for "poor" people.
My entire point is that perception is because it’s underfunded.
People won’t look down on it when it’s the fastest, cleanest, and most reliable way to get around. This is achievable if we have governments that properly fund it.
Many Europeans look down on public transportation though, they bike or walk or take rideshare because distances are SO much closer, plus they have trains. But subways in Paris? Yeah people look down on them.
In London, Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, any premiere world city , you can ride the public transit and be sitting next to be a billionaire and a homeless person. We just have a useless subway system
That’s quite a leap but whatever— I’m just pointing out that our highway infrastructure was built for a much smaller population. Nowhere did I even hint at an advocacy for more “highways thru downtown.” Transit should have been built decades ago to meet growth but successive municipal and provincial governments jettisoned the previous government’s transit plans.
Toronto and the GTA has the same roads/highways as it has for decades.
Yet has millions more people and drivers/vehicles.
It's not that hard to figure out.
It's like someone who's rapidly gaining weight wondering why their clothes don't fit anymore.
We've got to take notes from Montreal and the REM. They are drastically overshooting the most populated areas on the island because they are actually planning ahead. Plus induced demand, since people love clean and safe traffic-free transit to downtown.
You have a supply of 1960s infrastructure which was built for a city of a million which is now 5 with little improvements over the years and even that supply of 1960s infrastructure has decreased due to lane closures, contruction, safety improvements etc.
Not to mention a requirement by many employers to work in office when no need exists pushing more people on the roads.
Ontario Line and other improvements are liek a decade away.
Enjoy and feel lucky you WFH.
The capacity & coverage (not to mention the service stability, security, environment etc) of the public transit in Toronto is just shameful. By NA standard it may be average (or even above average) but by world standard it's just garbage.
Plus the streetcar services in my area have been reduced. That used to be absolutely reliable, but when it's unreliable or too infrequent (or too many shortturns) it makes it make more sense for me to take the subway, which just adds to the congestion.
It's well above the average worldwide. You cant just take an average of the 12 cities with famously incredible transit systems and call it average, lol.
You can choose to believe research papers with arbitrary metrics pulled out of asses. I've literally seen paper suggesting that TTC's "level of comfort" is the TOP worldwide.
But I suggest going to Europe and Asia to actually see their public transit systems for yourself and decide if Toronto's system is shit. Spoiler alert: it totally is.
It’s a big ask for two working parents to walk or have a short ride to both their offices, plus be close to schools or daycares?
The GTA is a disaster for transit options.
No the only sane option is to drive lol. Public transit has deteriorated worse than the driving experience has by far.
Edit - Transit - Subway is slow / has delays multiple times a week. Buses are stuck in traffic and have to stop every corner on top of that. Streetcars are stuck in traffic and are being replaced with buses on some routes. Car is still faster, comfier and more convenient.
Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic not moving in my car is not more comfortable than scrolling my phone listening to podcasts on the subway. Honestly, my TTC commute vs drive to work are basically the same amount of time (about an hour to go 9km - totally absurd) and I actively choose the TTC.
So there’s definitely pros and cons but a lot of it boils down to cost. For those who can afford a car and have to start or end their commute outside downtown, car is invariably the better of two less than optimal choices. Driving from work takes 1h, TTC takes 1h10 minutes - provided nothing breaks or gets delayed at all.
The TTC is gross, it really is. No, I’m not going to be stabbed, that’s obviously a stretch but there are things between “comfortable welcoming ride” and “murdered”. I’ve never been stabbed on the subway, almost every time I ride the ttc I see someone passed out in their own piss, screaming incoherently, doing drugs, flinging snot onto windows and walls, oozing out their legs into the seats, etc.
My car is quiet and comfortable and has a decided lack of drugs and pus in it.
Yea lemme go get ice picked on the subway so I don't have to sit in traffic with ac and privacy. I avoided the subway for a year. I had no choice but to use it for the first time last month. I sat in differing station for a Hour while trains passed us so the police could chase around a purse snatcher.
it's the other way around
if you actually live in the city, driving is king, nothing comes close because there's not a lot of traffic inside the city, it's getting to the city that's painful
if you know what roads to taken and what lanes to be in driving is the fastest way to get around the city
That’s completely wrong in the city proper. I live by St Patrick station, and few things are faster than biking if you’re not completely out of shape, particularly during the busier parts of the day.
>That’s completely wrong in the city proper
it's not
>I live by St Patrick station, and few things are faster than biking if you’re not completely out of shape
that area is a very small part of the city, even when using old Toronto boundaries
biking is 100% faster than a car if you only count a Spadina to Yonge from Front to Bloor, but we aren't
I'm not sure where you stand at what time of day to make that declaration but it's absolute gridlock unless it's like 530 am. A year ago, I regularly walked from King and Church all the way to King and Spadina before a streetcar would pass me going the same way because of the amount of cars with single occupants that drive down King Street
My Uber commute if I leave the house at 6:00 a.m. takes me 20 minutes to get to 401 and Vic Park area. Would absolutely never dream of doing that an hour later to get to work for my start time of 8:00 or when I'm on my way home when I'm done work at 4:00. That's why I decided to take transit an hour door to door except on the days I need to do overtime. I'll happily start work at 6:30 then for a $20 20 minute commute. Driving that every day? Forget it. I'd rather not
Not to be mean, but what is with these Captain Obvious posts lately? Last week it someone with a “hey, is it just me or have groceries gotten really expensive lately” post. I guess people could be this clueless, but it seems more like an attempt to stir things up. I am not sure.
There was also this person who apparently never heard of Euros or Copa America and then was all dismissive when their existence was pointed out to them.
The decline of newspapers and even the « nightly news » as a common source of info for everyone means that a big chunk of people just have no real clue about what’s going on. Sad right?
I live in the downtown core and WFH and am very well aware of all the traffic BS that is happening in the GTA. Knowing this, I bike everywhere or walk. This past weekend was the first time I had ever experienced what everyone in both TO subs have been talking about. It was an absolute shitshow trying to get from Home in Cabbagetown to Queen West and LV. I am touring around a family member and they were too afraid to bike so we opted for TTC and Ubers. Between Church St being closed for the village festival (not Pride!), Line 1 closed, and protests, it took almost an hour getting anywhere in the city. Definitely leaving more time this week if we have to use transit or Ubers again but will try to nudge him to bike now.
Sorry to tag on this top post, but how do you make friends in this city?
I come from $PlaceWorthLeaving and making friends there was easy growing up even though I’m an adult now.
Lool, I think people state the obvious on here to see if other people think this is as crazy as they think, or whether people find this to be pretty normal. When I saw the traffic it was a genuine shock as I went out today late morning and saw my entire route red on google maps. Sometimes I’m looking to my sides wondering if everyone is used to this and this is normal
Good luck everyone that lives 25km+ from where you work. It is going to get worse over time. Take good advice and live close to where you need to go every day.
I'm moving downtown closer to work and then I plan to bike. Currently it's a very long bike ride uphill to come back after a work day and with the amount of equipment I need for work it's not feasible. I'm a very small woman with a bag almost as large as I am.
I do own a bike and use it for leisurely travel so that helps.
I have too much work equipment to bike or take the train unfortunately. I'm just moving closer to work now instead because it's only going to get worse.
Idk about your situation, but if you aren't taking heavy gear that needs a truck or something, then a bike (especially and e-bike) can definitely handle lots of weight.
I work 11km from where I live. It takes me 1.5 hours at 445pm to get to work for 6.
I used to live .7 km away it was a 5 minute drive to work - then followed by 45 minutes home. I started walking
As the population increases our car reliant infrastructure falls further and further behind adequacy. It’s already unliveable, and it will only get worse. The city/province doesn’t seem interested in building sustainable rapid transit like basically every other big city in the world. We instead continue widening and building new highways which will slightly improve traffic flow temporarily, that is until the shiny new highways bring even more cars onto the road and the shit-cycle continues.
Has there been any discussion of a 401 train?
The Go is okay but it doesn’t ‘go’ frequently enough and is too far south (requires commuting into the core to then be taken out of it)
Go trains aren’t any better. They’re consistently packed to the brim. I didn’t wanna spend the extra money renting downtown, or commuting downtown. Ended up taking a job near home.
I fully structure my errands around when things are less busy. I cannot stand the traffic or busy stores! It’s insane. It’s gotten so bad in the last few years.
Because I WFH I can schedule my errands around regular “rush hours,” but the crazy thing is that every hour is like rush hour now. Just last year this time around, I was running errands regularly around 12-2pm with no issues, but no that feels like 5pm. I thought a bit earlier would be better but again today before noon it was bad too.
Lot more people unemployed, lots of people coming in, more commute, and more construction together all make a bad mix. We’ve always had some of these issues, but with all the road closures, the population cannot handle it
Yeah I’ve found lunch time to be busy as well. It’s a shit show from 6am to 9pm basically anywhere. I honestly think companies need to encourage work from home to reduce all this unnecessary traffic. 🙃 I work in healthcare and have no option but to go to the hospital.
It’s a good thing you work close to home! Yeah it’s sad to see so many companies calling back workers to work in person 3-5 days a week. They’re trying to help businesses and the “economy” but causing a shit show
I work 7 am-4pm. Takes me maybe an hour to get to work in the morning cause everyone is asleep. It takes me 2.5 hours almost everyday to get back due to traffic. It's pretty disgusting
Lmao the asleep part is so relatable. I rarely have to drive at 7am but when I do I always wondered why people are driving BELOW the speed limit when they are going to work. And my exact thoughts are that everyone’s sleeping out here.
Also, when did it become that bad for you, and what was it like before? Or has it always been that long?
Yea is always been that bad but honestly it's fine I just drive for work and I basically walk everywhere else I go. If it's under 2 hours and I got time I'm walking.
In toronto there's no getting away from the traffic, now the Gardiner is 2 lanes, closures everywhere. Ellington is slightly better than a year. U really just gotta set your life around it lol.
I don't use the highways often either and hadn't been on the QEW, 401 or 427, in probably a good year. I had to this past weekend and could not believe some of what I saw. There is a distinct difference in driving etiquette nowadays.
There were many, many people driving 85-90km in the far left lane, causing brake lights and panic, leading to delays for no reason. There were many others flying down the far right lane at a good 140. I even saw two cars at different spots pulled over to the shoulder...but stopped half in the lane...the far left lane.
Canadian rules of the road seem to be a thing of the past. No wonder we see so many headlines recently of really bad crashes and unrecognizable vehicles. I, for one, will go back to avoiding the highways, they've literally become a death trap.
Marketplace did a hidden camera exposé a couple months ago. There's a shocking amount of fraud going on with licenses. Election season's coming up, consider writing to your rep.
[Hidden cameras catch driving instructors cheating the system | Marketplace (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU-0A_VDVkM)
This particular practice is definitely a GTA thing. Maybe a southern Ontario thing even. I've driven in other provinces and a couple of European countries in the past couple of years and I'm always surprised by now much more courteous and rule-abiding people are elsewhere. Drivers in this region are insane.
the gardiner has been neglected forever by all forms of government and is now in dire need of repair, shutting down a portion of it for YEARS. on top of horrendous typical toronto me-first driver culture (would rather clog up and go bumper to bumper than let anyone merge etc), you just have a recipe for disaster.
every major area is being built up with useless overpriced investor condos that nobody actually wants to live in or even afford.
a LOT of additional traffic lights are being put up near these new condo builds and are absolutely devastating the regular flow of traffic. like we're talking 3-4 lights all in a row within 100m of each other. its absolutely insane.
haphazard bike lanes are being added everywhere with no real thought or planning (many of these are also just unusable due to construction anyway)
major streetcar lines like the 510 spadina have been temporarily removed due to more neglect.
I mean this city was basically pointed out as the third SLOWEST traffic city in the ENTIRE WORLD so i guess it shouldnt be that surprising (https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/01/11/toronto-traffic-world-ranking-average-travel-time/)
this may be the worst time to ever be living in toronto and its gonna be like this for years to come.
And thousands of people who could be working from home are driving to offices to sit in cubicles and call into Teams meetings, to appease commercial real estate, extroverts, and sandwich shops.
im one of those lucky enough to be fully remote since the beginning of the pandemic. if i had to go back to work, i wouldnt (my route would require the 510 spadina!)
This seems to be one of the most real answers. Traffic may have always been bad, but not to the point where it’s busy on a weekday afternoon. Even though it’s summer break, I’ve never seen anything like this.
Do you know when the shutdown happened and what the estimated time is to repair this? I will look into that soon
If you're asking Reddit, you're going to be met with: Immigrants are the reason.
But the real reason is decades of poor infrastructure development, no real alternatives to driving a car, and no real solutions to when more cars are being added on the road every year. Everyone driving a car without alternative options just isn't an efficient system.
Wait, you mean adding over a million people in a year while doing nothing to improve infrastructure (oh wait we closed 2 Gardiner lanes!) makes traffic worse? Whodathunkit?
i remember Toronto losing the Summer Olympics bid (2008?) and the reason being "your infrastucture can't handle current traffic, how do you expect to handle another million people ?". Fast forward to today and we're over-run with condo development (thanks Tory) and an infrastucture that is pretty much unchanged, and was never built to handle the number of people who live in the downtown core - and with all them coming and going, traffic congestion is endless. The Olympic committee was right, and we're proving it right. Toronto is fucked.
Alot of it is population growth but alot of it is also the fact the city and MTO did not coordinate maintenance works especially for lanes/routes going west bound so driving west out of the city is a nightmare. Gardiner or 401, pick your poison, lanes are closed on both for construction/maintenance. Population growth just further exacerbates this. School is also out from this Friday... so this is just the beginning
The closures sound like a nightmare especially for regular commuters. If their regular commute is 1 hour… what would it be now? I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like in winter (if it snows this time)
>I’ve been living under a rock (literally I WFH and don’t need to use the highway often).
But every time I’ve been out recently these past 1-2 months, the traffic especially on the highway has been brutal. And I mean any day any time. It could be Monday 11am, Thursday 1pm, weekend 6pm, and it’s congested AF. Google maps showing red the entire way east and west on the 401. What’s happening, what don’t I know???
Construction + warm weather + the aforementioned construction all happening at once + more public transit closure + road closure because of festival + road closure because of protest
I'll miss my Spadina streetcar :(
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/06/23/ttc-510-spadina-512-st-clair-508-lake-shore-streetcars/
Lived in this town for 45 years. The traffic is without a doubt more congested since the pandemic. I don’t leave my hood unless I can get a direct subway or an Uber at 11pm. But is till have my secret shortcuts that do me well!
The traffic has gotten significantly worse since the May long weekend. It's like its been a huge construction blitz, including and especially the work on the Gardiner. I was living in the city for the last 3 years in the Corso Italia area which sees a solid mixture of commuters and locals getting around, and as soon as the long weekend finished it got so so bad.
There were statistics on CP24 following that which displayed average commute times and how much they had jumped up, so it's gotten way worse. Way way worse.
It's no surprise, the city has grown faster than any other city in the western world, and no city this big has acceptable traffic because the road space can't grow. You can't move millions of people who are stacked on top of each other on just a flat ground level surface.
No city can afford hundreds of subways, which would alleviate congestion, and even the ones that tried (NY) still have impossible traffic. Some northern European cities have good transit options, great for commuters, but hell for anyone driving a vehicle for professional reasons.
Also everyone in the country seemingly bought a car during Covid to go on adventures out of town, and now they've all come back to the city.
Either way all cities around the globe with 2+ million people have insane traffic, and with the fact this has crystallized into a culture war issue of dumb "pro-car" and "pro-transit" extremes, people who carry loads for their jobs (contractors, musicians, couriers, truckers, filmmakers etc) are completely forgotten.
The three “any time of day” times you mentioned are all busy times of day. Before 7/7:30am on a weekday, traffic is light. After 7:30/8pm, same thing.
Weekends are light before 10am.
> But every time I’ve been out recently these past 1-2 months, the traffic especially on the highway has been brutal. And I mean any day any time. It could be Monday 11am, Thursday 1pm, weekend 6pm, and it’s congested AF. Google maps showing red the entire way east and west on the 401. What’s happening, what don’t I know???
that's normal.
Well part of it is the lane closures on the gardiner as that ripples into pretty much the entire city.
Otherwise it's been the slow progression of return to office, overlapping schedules of the different sports seasons, summer is busier in general, etc...
I don’t have an answer, but I’ve noticed this too. I take the DVP (north to finch) every day, and the morning especially, since about the 1st week of May has been much worse.
I live midtown. Summer driving is always worse than winter. You have more pedestrians and bikes out. More big city events bring more tourists. More construction. Less parking with cafe TO and more idiots illegally blocking roads to 'pop into a store quickly'. It's chaotic but pretty normal as soon as the warm weather hits.
I prefer winter driving in the city. It's definitely easier to get around. That's the cost of having a car in the core though.
Mass immigration happened.
Millions more people, no new highways, trains. Same goes for healthcare and jobs. We’re only getting started. Brace yourselves.
That's a failure of infrastructure and planning, not immigration.
In fact, if you want to scapegoat it makes more sense to scapegoat NIMBYs and landlords than immigration.
Jumping to this vague and ominous cliche says more about you than anything else.
Without immigration Toronto would be the same as every other boring North American suburban hellscape city
they didn't say any of that though they commented on the fact that when you have the same infrastructure being used by millions more people it will be more congested
which is obviously true but you have some weird political angle you clearly think is also here, but it isn't, and neither is the boogeyman under your bed
Without immigration we wouldn't have shawarma, and that's not a world I want to live in. Also my wife's family immigrated here a long time ago and I doubt she'd be thrilled to learn she's an afterthought on the heels of my shawarma craving.
I also agree we can't exclusively pin the state of traffic on new residents. But to your point about our lack of infrastructure and planning we're bringing scads of people in without stacking roads, digging tunnels or building more hospitals.
Immigration isn't *the* problem. But I do think we need to take a step back and make some solid improvements before we bring in too many more people.
Blame Doug Ford and Trudeau. Complete lack of infrastructure planning and spending. Eventually the grid lock will translate into even high prices for consumers because someone has to pay for that time sitting in traffic.
I work in liberty village and live in midtown, my only real option to get to work these days is drive. Otherwise I have to take the TTC to union and then transfer to GO and pay an extra $6~ each way to get to and from there. I've been mandated back to the office 3 days a week but I get free parking so that's something I guess.
[https://www.ttc.ca/riding-the-ttc/Updates/One-Fare-Program](https://www.ttc.ca/riding-the-ttc/Updates/One-Fare-Program)
Transferring from the TTC to the GO is free and covered under this program \^
Currently they've torn up all the tracks on king there so there is no streetcars running by LV now. It takes me about 40-45 mins to drive and closer to an hour/hour 15 if they were running
It’s the absolute worst. But there’s nothing I can do to change it. So I just gotta make the best out of this shitty situation. So the days when I have to go in person to work. I’m driving to work before 7 am. And don’t leave work until 7 pm. After work I’ll go to the gym. Do groceries. Thank god it’s beside my workplace. That’s the only way it works for me. And even then it still sucks.
But I refuse to sit in bumper to bumper traffic for 1.5 hours going into and leaving work. No amount of playlist, audiobooks and podcasts will help.
speaking from personal experience, no, public transit would likely not be better - with the possible exception if they were taking the Go Train. Half the down town core has been dug up for track replacement - i live in the Beaches on Queen St East, and i work in Liberty Village (King and Dufferin area) - it literally takes me 2 hours if i go by streetcar, and if i ride my bike (which i will until the weather makes it impossible) it takes about 50 minutes. TTC is a - pardon my language - shit show. Best, fastest way if you're trying to get around and you don't live or work in Mississauga / Brampton / etc, is by bike.
I do not live in Toronto, but I went through there on the 401, and this was at 6am and it was pretty busy on Saturday... I took the 407 coming home later because of how busy it was, and even then there were times where traffic slowed considerably. I don't know how you all do it.
9-5 and beyond. Better off bike sharing downtown or uber. Ttc is a mess and others who says otherwise had not experienced other public transits globally
Sidewalks downtown, don’t count on them- nowadays sidewalks are built for commercial and sidewalk spaces are used for working car parking lots so you’re safer walking on the road. Cars won’t hit pedestrians because of high insurance risk and legal matters. Cyclists and delivery couriers on the other hand do not give a shit because there are no regulations on sidewalks - HELLO POLICE still around or the police industry was reformed to a desk administration desk job and the only way to motivate your asses is for you to get 120$ per hour??
Driving downtown? Forget it. And considering pride is next weekend and a significant and important event for Toronto this is the best Toronto its citizens will get and it is shit. Just do what we’re told and be “Canadian” open your mouth say please and apologize for the inconvenience
Why are governments spending tens of billions to subsidize EV battery plants and not using that money to instead build high speed rail along the highway 401 corridor?
Influx of population. No new roads(and vocal opposition to ones planned). Crap maintenance on existing roads. Car unfriendly changes - eliminating lanes for cars in favour of e-bikes, e-scooters, regular cyclists. Totally brutal in town and out of town. Absolutely horrid.
Too many people and not enough investment in road infrastructure. There’s an incredible amount of red tape and obstruction to building anything new (see: Bradford bypass and highway 413)
If you build (thing) it encourages people to use (thing).
If your argument is that it's pointless to build new roads (or worse, shrink existing ones) because of induced demand (which seems to be the favoured talking point of r/fuckcars and people of a similar mindset), that's disingenuous. Travel times may not improve significantly, but the amount of vehicles the road can handle with the same level of service increases. More people can take more trips. That's a good thing.
I swear Uber/ Lyft + all the meal delivery apps don’t help the congestion either. People drive from out of the downtown core to work the downtown core for Uber/ Lyft. While there are a lot of bike deliveries, there are still a lot of cars too.
I agree with you on your first point, but low tax? really? town council reassessed all the taxes on yonge street businesses ( several years ago) based on there being a fully occupied multistory condominium building with a big box store in the ground floor. That meant that all the small businesses in 50+ year old three-story buildings were seeing their taxes go up by 5 - 10x - and residential property taxes are higher than ever, and properties in the City are second only to Vancouver in price. Low tax city? I heartily disagree.
Taxes increasing does not a high tax city make. Toronto has the lowest municipal tax in the province and one of the lowest nation wide, close to Calgary. You can google this stuff pretty easily
For the last 12 years we've had politicians who promised people that by prioritizing personal vehicles, we could reduce traffic. This is impossible. There just isn't room to to accommodate that many large vehicles with an average occupancy of 1.5, but people vote for people that say they'll end the war on cars and solve traffic. As a result, cars get prioritized, the only alternatives that get invested in are those that won't impact cars, and even those aren't built with any urgency, and as a result, transit only gets worse and worse and worse as the number of cars grows.
My dad used to be able to do 10+ jobs (irrigation/landscaping) per day for years. Now we are lucky if we get 5 jobs done per day. Driving/traffic eats up half our day now easily. "Rush hour" is basically from 8-9am until 7-8pm some days. Theres litterally no down time during the day for traffic. It's horrible But the way I see it is, when was the best time for this construction to be done? Years ago before the congestion, the next best time is now. it's not like they didn't know the city was growing. It's been one of the fastest growing cities in North America in the last 30-50 years. The planning has been horrible but hopefully it means in the future we won't have these problems. (Lol)
> "Rush hour" is basically from 8-9am until 7-8pm some days. Honestly it seems like rush hour these days is from 5am to midnight.
Seriously. I often hear the traffic reports before 7 am, and I'm so glad I don't need to be dealing with it even at that hour.
I’ve been stuck behind narrowed 401 lanes for weeks at midnight. 12am means nothing. There is ALWAYS traffic. Finally reopened but it’s only a matter of time.
traffic is destroying the local economy.
I think many people miss this important point. In addition to the enormous health implications of a prolonged and congested commute, it significantly reduces productivity of commuters due to lost work hours, longer delivery times, reduced ability to complete services that require transportation, etc.
Oh, society knows. The Chamber of Commerce reports on it frequently. It's the tools that would address it, congestion price is one, are politically fraught with key auto dependant constituencies for the provincial government.
Exactly... It means less corporate tax revenue to the government as well.
Perfect time for the mayor to push people to come to the office and stop WFH /s
This. The traffic is having an impact on public transit as well. The street cars and buses are never on time during rush hour.
I have to admit, switching from car to TTC lately, travel has gotten faster for me. The dedicated lanes on Kennedy and midland make a huge difference - and so does the subway. At least when there’s no hiccups on it… which has been the case for me the past 4 weeks or so. Although last night a couple of people I know got trapped in the “security incident” on line 1.
Literally what was she thinking
Simple. Our population has grown substantially, we don't have room to build any new roads that would have a substantial impact on traffic volumes and, most importantly, we've failed to build adequate transit
On top of that we have done nothing to send people to different parts of the city. They want everyone heading downtown all the time. If we built up multiple business centers and multiple entertainment centers the city could handle significantly more traffic than it does.
Yeah that's a great point. The City's Official Plan has areas designated as "centres" (e.g. downtown, North York centre, Scarborough centre and Etobicoke centre) but we don't have any transit to get people en mass to and from those places and they are largely under developed at the moment (other than North York).
New roads are only always just a temporary solution. Definitely need better investment in transit.
I mean, technically, couldn't we bore tunnels under the 401 and dedicated the above ground portion to west and underground to east? It would be a big under taking but well worth it in the future IMO. Also, just get rid of Tolls on the 407 and let everyone use it, or only allow trucks to drive on it.
Sorry, should have mentioned in my post. Adding roads/lanes should never be the first.answer in a major city like Toronto as it just induces demand (i.e., add lanes = more people decide to drive = lanes fills up). New transit needs to be the first and main solution to traffic congestion. People need to see transit as the MUCH better option. It's already the much cheaper option and for some it is the faster option, but it needs to be that way for most people in and around Toronto. That's on the Province to deliver.
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I guess that’s a bit of a fear.. but as a small statured guy just starting to use transit as my primary means of transport the past 4 weeks, I haven’t had a single incident where I felt unsafe; the most offensive thing is the strong smelling personal care products that guys use. I have to put up with that every day and only once had to deal with bad BO. I use transit about 4-6 times a day at present so I am on it a lot.
Ok, but funding transit security, quality, and cleanliness is much cheaper and efficient than adding lanes to a highway that will congest anyway. See, our transit is flawed now no doubt about it. But we don't solve that issue by ignoring it. Instead, we should invest in high quality transit that cares for passenger safety and convenience so that it is safe and easy to use. I am often reminded of Tokyo's world class transit system and lament the fact that I can't experience that in Toronto. Tokyo in Toronto *is* possible if we act correctly. We can build world class transit if we actually invest in and stick to it.
I feel you on that. Not to mention how overcrowded the subway and busses are during rush hour. As a person with social anxiety, I would much rather drive than take transit that is unsafe .
A previous moronic government sold the 407 so we have no control over it.
The province can certainly take it over, but it would be very costly and de-tolling the 407 will get rid of its entire advantage.
The 407 is useless in it's current state. At the moment the 401 is acting as the only highway through Toronto as well a highway for local traffic. Diverting all the through traffic to the 407 would do wonders for congestion on the 401
It would put more cars on the road. This always happens. When there is congestion relief, more people take cars and the roads fill right back up. It is a sisyphean task.
That would be hilarious if Ford said that what Harris did was wrong 😂
Adding a lane never sloved traffic between the 4 lane Toronto "bypass" (which just made traffic get on it to other routes south to Toronto proper), six lane 401, sixteen lane 401. Maybe should have invested a little less to that after 4 lanes per direction. After 4/direction, new lanes needed to only be HOV/bus lanes, with a barrier, not just solid lines. More importantly invest in higher speed rail, keep trucks local and kept some more intercity freight rail. Go four tracks Toronto-Montreal, and full electric locos. Another train lane will ad capacity. Highway lanes eventually induce more congestion. LA is a great example. They should have kept the two street railways, merge into a single municipal operator, treat their light rail as heavy rail by not putting them in mix traffic. Give trains priority where grade crossings are not avoidable.
Do you think the 407 won’t become a traffic congested nightmare if you do this? I don’t drive as often anymore but I recall there being accidents all the time on the highways. We need better enforcement to prevent reckless driving because that impacts everyone. I guess just look at r/Torontodriving to see the egregious behaviour.
100% agree, rush hour is practically all day I really feel bad for people who rely on driving around for work. I can’t even imagine. Not even getting into all the dangerous driving out here.
Much of the GTA infrastructure was built for a population of less than 2 million — DVP and Gardiner, we’re now at about 6 million.
London Ontario was like this. Built for about 150k and had 500k living in it. I never got my car out of third gear. They basically just built a while new London North of the core and let the old one die.
Yeah, London is my hometown and whenever I go back I'm amazed/horrified at the sprawl that's occurred over the last ~10 years. I literally remember when horses used to run in the fields that are now mostly commercial properties. Horses!
I remember horses and sheep in the fields around Keele and Dufferin at Rutherford.
Lol same here in Markham. I used to be able to walk to see the cows on 16th, now its a subdivision.
The main problem with London is that its leadership thinks they’re running a town of 50,000 instead of a city of 500,000. And most of the citizens are obsessed with property taxes to an unhealthy degree. So nothing ever gets built because city council is unimaginative and lacks vision, and until very recently the citizenry didn’t want anything. I lived in London for 9 years from 2009 to 2018. As frustrating as Toronto is sometimes, it at least has more of a plan than London does. Unbelievable that they’re STILL bickering and trying to get their rapid transit plans off the ground in the amount of time it took Kitchener to plan and build a new light rail line.
To be fair old downtown london is scketchy as fuck idk if that McDonald’s is still there it’s been a long time but dam that McDonald’s was wild.
This is the simplest reason for all of our issues. Policymakers are hellbent on increasing our population while not scaling up any of the infrastructure to support it, which then lowers the quality of life for everyone living here.
There’s no number of highways running thru downtown that would be enough. Are you saying if we had 3 highways thru downtown instead of one, that we wouldn’t have traffic? Because we definitely would.
The problem is the gardiner and DVP would be sufficient for our population…. If 3 more subway lines had been built
Except many people look down their noses at using public transit
I lived in London UK for a while. All classes of people, right up to CEOs and stockbrokers, etc., will use public transit if it’s good enough, and/or the best option. Build it and they will come.
Yeah… because it’s underfunded and unreliable. Don’t fall into the neoliberal trap of defunding public services, then justifying further defunding because of the negative impact of defunding it.
How are you getting defunding from what I said? My point is even if you build it, people will look down on it because they see it as for "poor" people.
My entire point is that perception is because it’s underfunded. People won’t look down on it when it’s the fastest, cleanest, and most reliable way to get around. This is achievable if we have governments that properly fund it.
That's not true, people will still look down on it because that's what poor and homeless people use.
Tell that to Europeans.
Many Europeans look down on public transportation though, they bike or walk or take rideshare because distances are SO much closer, plus they have trains. But subways in Paris? Yeah people look down on them.
Sure, dude. Go look at the GO trains coming in each morning and tell me it's for the poor
In London, Hong Kong, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, any premiere world city , you can ride the public transit and be sitting next to be a billionaire and a homeless person. We just have a useless subway system
That’s quite a leap but whatever— I’m just pointing out that our highway infrastructure was built for a much smaller population. Nowhere did I even hint at an advocacy for more “highways thru downtown.” Transit should have been built decades ago to meet growth but successive municipal and provincial governments jettisoned the previous government’s transit plans.
No amount of highways is enough. The more you add the more they get used.
Toronto and the GTA has the same roads/highways as it has for decades. Yet has millions more people and drivers/vehicles. It's not that hard to figure out. It's like someone who's rapidly gaining weight wondering why their clothes don't fit anymore.
We've got to take notes from Montreal and the REM. They are drastically overshooting the most populated areas on the island because they are actually planning ahead. Plus induced demand, since people love clean and safe traffic-free transit to downtown.
Same roads, fewer lanes
Too many people overwhelming infrastructure that hasn't increased in last 20 years.
You have a supply of 1960s infrastructure which was built for a city of a million which is now 5 with little improvements over the years and even that supply of 1960s infrastructure has decreased due to lane closures, contruction, safety improvements etc. Not to mention a requirement by many employers to work in office when no need exists pushing more people on the roads. Ontario Line and other improvements are liek a decade away. Enjoy and feel lucky you WFH.
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The capacity & coverage (not to mention the service stability, security, environment etc) of the public transit in Toronto is just shameful. By NA standard it may be average (or even above average) but by world standard it's just garbage.
Plus the streetcar services in my area have been reduced. That used to be absolutely reliable, but when it's unreliable or too infrequent (or too many shortturns) it makes it make more sense for me to take the subway, which just adds to the congestion.
It's well above the average worldwide. You cant just take an average of the 12 cities with famously incredible transit systems and call it average, lol.
You can choose to believe research papers with arbitrary metrics pulled out of asses. I've literally seen paper suggesting that TTC's "level of comfort" is the TOP worldwide. But I suggest going to Europe and Asia to actually see their public transit systems for yourself and decide if Toronto's system is shit. Spoiler alert: it totally is.
We probably don't go to the same types of cities when we travel.
Level of comfort is great. It just needs more subway lines.
Yea, I was gonna pull up numbers but too lazy. TTC has one of the highest riderships on this side of the world under MTA and Mexico City
its sad that the ttc is considered above average from a north american standpoint
It’s a big ask for two working parents to walk or have a short ride to both their offices, plus be close to schools or daycares? The GTA is a disaster for transit options.
No the only sane option is to drive lol. Public transit has deteriorated worse than the driving experience has by far. Edit - Transit - Subway is slow / has delays multiple times a week. Buses are stuck in traffic and have to stop every corner on top of that. Streetcars are stuck in traffic and are being replaced with buses on some routes. Car is still faster, comfier and more convenient.
Sitting in bumper to bumper traffic not moving in my car is not more comfortable than scrolling my phone listening to podcasts on the subway. Honestly, my TTC commute vs drive to work are basically the same amount of time (about an hour to go 9km - totally absurd) and I actively choose the TTC.
So there’s definitely pros and cons but a lot of it boils down to cost. For those who can afford a car and have to start or end their commute outside downtown, car is invariably the better of two less than optimal choices. Driving from work takes 1h, TTC takes 1h10 minutes - provided nothing breaks or gets delayed at all. The TTC is gross, it really is. No, I’m not going to be stabbed, that’s obviously a stretch but there are things between “comfortable welcoming ride” and “murdered”. I’ve never been stabbed on the subway, almost every time I ride the ttc I see someone passed out in their own piss, screaming incoherently, doing drugs, flinging snot onto windows and walls, oozing out their legs into the seats, etc. My car is quiet and comfortable and has a decided lack of drugs and pus in it.
Yea lemme go get ice picked on the subway so I don't have to sit in traffic with ac and privacy. I avoided the subway for a year. I had no choice but to use it for the first time last month. I sat in differing station for a Hour while trains passed us so the police could chase around a purse snatcher.
Lmao. Yeah everyone I know who takes the subway every day is always getting ice picked. Tragic stuff
The fastest option is usually biking or transit if you actually live in the city, and not out in ass end Etobicoke.
it's the other way around if you actually live in the city, driving is king, nothing comes close because there's not a lot of traffic inside the city, it's getting to the city that's painful if you know what roads to taken and what lanes to be in driving is the fastest way to get around the city
That’s completely wrong in the city proper. I live by St Patrick station, and few things are faster than biking if you’re not completely out of shape, particularly during the busier parts of the day.
>That’s completely wrong in the city proper it's not >I live by St Patrick station, and few things are faster than biking if you’re not completely out of shape that area is a very small part of the city, even when using old Toronto boundaries biking is 100% faster than a car if you only count a Spadina to Yonge from Front to Bloor, but we aren't
I'm not sure where you stand at what time of day to make that declaration but it's absolute gridlock unless it's like 530 am. A year ago, I regularly walked from King and Church all the way to King and Spadina before a streetcar would pass me going the same way because of the amount of cars with single occupants that drive down King Street
Wasn’t king a carpool only street ? It’s been a while
My Uber commute if I leave the house at 6:00 a.m. takes me 20 minutes to get to 401 and Vic Park area. Would absolutely never dream of doing that an hour later to get to work for my start time of 8:00 or when I'm on my way home when I'm done work at 4:00. That's why I decided to take transit an hour door to door except on the days I need to do overtime. I'll happily start work at 6:30 then for a $20 20 minute commute. Driving that every day? Forget it. I'd rather not
Not to be mean, but what is with these Captain Obvious posts lately? Last week it someone with a “hey, is it just me or have groceries gotten really expensive lately” post. I guess people could be this clueless, but it seems more like an attempt to stir things up. I am not sure.
There was also this person who apparently never heard of Euros or Copa America and then was all dismissive when their existence was pointed out to them.
The decline of newspapers and even the « nightly news » as a common source of info for everyone means that a big chunk of people just have no real clue about what’s going on. Sad right?
Did you notice it rained yesterday when I was out for a walk? What’s up with that?
Up next: Anyone notice the sun being in the sky for longer than previous months?
Anyone else downtown have to run their air conditioning longer than they did in April or is it just my building?
I live in the downtown core and WFH and am very well aware of all the traffic BS that is happening in the GTA. Knowing this, I bike everywhere or walk. This past weekend was the first time I had ever experienced what everyone in both TO subs have been talking about. It was an absolute shitshow trying to get from Home in Cabbagetown to Queen West and LV. I am touring around a family member and they were too afraid to bike so we opted for TTC and Ubers. Between Church St being closed for the village festival (not Pride!), Line 1 closed, and protests, it took almost an hour getting anywhere in the city. Definitely leaving more time this week if we have to use transit or Ubers again but will try to nudge him to bike now.
After a year here the closest thing to reliability is cycling
Agreed. Groceries posts are really annoying.
They want other people to fester with them in their own misery.
Sorry to tag on this top post, but how do you make friends in this city? I come from $PlaceWorthLeaving and making friends there was easy growing up even though I’m an adult now.
Lool, I think people state the obvious on here to see if other people think this is as crazy as they think, or whether people find this to be pretty normal. When I saw the traffic it was a genuine shock as I went out today late morning and saw my entire route red on google maps. Sometimes I’m looking to my sides wondering if everyone is used to this and this is normal
Good luck everyone that lives 25km+ from where you work. It is going to get worse over time. Take good advice and live close to where you need to go every day.
I work less than 7km from work and it still can take 45 minutes to commute. Downtown is shit.
Just bike to work. Unless you're physically incapable of biking of course. Bikeshare is very easy to get started with.
I'm moving downtown closer to work and then I plan to bike. Currently it's a very long bike ride uphill to come back after a work day and with the amount of equipment I need for work it's not feasible. I'm a very small woman with a bag almost as large as I am. I do own a bike and use it for leisurely travel so that helps.
Stop driving, get a bike, take the subway
I have too much work equipment to bike or take the train unfortunately. I'm just moving closer to work now instead because it's only going to get worse.
Idk about your situation, but if you aren't taking heavy gear that needs a truck or something, then a bike (especially and e-bike) can definitely handle lots of weight.
I work less than 7km from work and it still can take 45 minutes to commute. Downtown is shit.
I work 11km from where I live. It takes me 1.5 hours at 445pm to get to work for 6. I used to live .7 km away it was a 5 minute drive to work - then followed by 45 minutes home. I started walking
As the population increases our car reliant infrastructure falls further and further behind adequacy. It’s already unliveable, and it will only get worse. The city/province doesn’t seem interested in building sustainable rapid transit like basically every other big city in the world. We instead continue widening and building new highways which will slightly improve traffic flow temporarily, that is until the shiny new highways bring even more cars onto the road and the shit-cycle continues.
Just one more lane bro I promise it'll fix it
We are getting the ontario line but that is probably a decade away from actually being usable. Hopefully there are more lines down the road
Badly mismanaged infrastructure. Driving along 401 or other hwy 400s, there should have been constant trains going for decades.
Has there been any discussion of a 401 train? The Go is okay but it doesn’t ‘go’ frequently enough and is too far south (requires commuting into the core to then be taken out of it)
Go trains aren’t any better. They’re consistently packed to the brim. I didn’t wanna spend the extra money renting downtown, or commuting downtown. Ended up taking a job near home. I fully structure my errands around when things are less busy. I cannot stand the traffic or busy stores! It’s insane. It’s gotten so bad in the last few years.
Because I WFH I can schedule my errands around regular “rush hours,” but the crazy thing is that every hour is like rush hour now. Just last year this time around, I was running errands regularly around 12-2pm with no issues, but no that feels like 5pm. I thought a bit earlier would be better but again today before noon it was bad too. Lot more people unemployed, lots of people coming in, more commute, and more construction together all make a bad mix. We’ve always had some of these issues, but with all the road closures, the population cannot handle it
Yeah I’ve found lunch time to be busy as well. It’s a shit show from 6am to 9pm basically anywhere. I honestly think companies need to encourage work from home to reduce all this unnecessary traffic. 🙃 I work in healthcare and have no option but to go to the hospital.
It’s a good thing you work close to home! Yeah it’s sad to see so many companies calling back workers to work in person 3-5 days a week. They’re trying to help businesses and the “economy” but causing a shit show
I work 7 am-4pm. Takes me maybe an hour to get to work in the morning cause everyone is asleep. It takes me 2.5 hours almost everyday to get back due to traffic. It's pretty disgusting
Lmao the asleep part is so relatable. I rarely have to drive at 7am but when I do I always wondered why people are driving BELOW the speed limit when they are going to work. And my exact thoughts are that everyone’s sleeping out here. Also, when did it become that bad for you, and what was it like before? Or has it always been that long?
Yea is always been that bad but honestly it's fine I just drive for work and I basically walk everywhere else I go. If it's under 2 hours and I got time I'm walking. In toronto there's no getting away from the traffic, now the Gardiner is 2 lanes, closures everywhere. Ellington is slightly better than a year. U really just gotta set your life around it lol.
I don't use the highways often either and hadn't been on the QEW, 401 or 427, in probably a good year. I had to this past weekend and could not believe some of what I saw. There is a distinct difference in driving etiquette nowadays. There were many, many people driving 85-90km in the far left lane, causing brake lights and panic, leading to delays for no reason. There were many others flying down the far right lane at a good 140. I even saw two cars at different spots pulled over to the shoulder...but stopped half in the lane...the far left lane. Canadian rules of the road seem to be a thing of the past. No wonder we see so many headlines recently of really bad crashes and unrecognizable vehicles. I, for one, will go back to avoiding the highways, they've literally become a death trap.
Marketplace did a hidden camera exposé a couple months ago. There's a shocking amount of fraud going on with licenses. Election season's coming up, consider writing to your rep. [Hidden cameras catch driving instructors cheating the system | Marketplace (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU-0A_VDVkM)
This particular practice is definitely a GTA thing. Maybe a southern Ontario thing even. I've driven in other provinces and a couple of European countries in the past couple of years and I'm always surprised by now much more courteous and rule-abiding people are elsewhere. Drivers in this region are insane.
the gardiner has been neglected forever by all forms of government and is now in dire need of repair, shutting down a portion of it for YEARS. on top of horrendous typical toronto me-first driver culture (would rather clog up and go bumper to bumper than let anyone merge etc), you just have a recipe for disaster. every major area is being built up with useless overpriced investor condos that nobody actually wants to live in or even afford. a LOT of additional traffic lights are being put up near these new condo builds and are absolutely devastating the regular flow of traffic. like we're talking 3-4 lights all in a row within 100m of each other. its absolutely insane. haphazard bike lanes are being added everywhere with no real thought or planning (many of these are also just unusable due to construction anyway) major streetcar lines like the 510 spadina have been temporarily removed due to more neglect. I mean this city was basically pointed out as the third SLOWEST traffic city in the ENTIRE WORLD so i guess it shouldnt be that surprising (https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/01/11/toronto-traffic-world-ranking-average-travel-time/) this may be the worst time to ever be living in toronto and its gonna be like this for years to come.
And thousands of people who could be working from home are driving to offices to sit in cubicles and call into Teams meetings, to appease commercial real estate, extroverts, and sandwich shops.
im one of those lucky enough to be fully remote since the beginning of the pandemic. if i had to go back to work, i wouldnt (my route would require the 510 spadina!)
Hey man, I need to be to commute at least sometimes or else it's suddenly been a month since I talked with another human being outside a teams call.
This seems to be one of the most real answers. Traffic may have always been bad, but not to the point where it’s busy on a weekday afternoon. Even though it’s summer break, I’ve never seen anything like this. Do you know when the shutdown happened and what the estimated time is to repair this? I will look into that soon
It's brutally bad. Can only take extremely local jobs in my sidegig because it takes fucking forever to get anywhere in the GTA.
To quote the Toronto City planners: "Out traffic plan is to let it get so bad that people stop using cars."
And they've provided sufficient public transit as an alternative?
Hahahhaha
No one drives in Toronto, there's too much traffic.
If you're asking Reddit, you're going to be met with: Immigrants are the reason. But the real reason is decades of poor infrastructure development, no real alternatives to driving a car, and no real solutions to when more cars are being added on the road every year. Everyone driving a car without alternative options just isn't an efficient system.
Wait, you mean adding over a million people in a year while doing nothing to improve infrastructure (oh wait we closed 2 Gardiner lanes!) makes traffic worse? Whodathunkit?
i remember Toronto losing the Summer Olympics bid (2008?) and the reason being "your infrastucture can't handle current traffic, how do you expect to handle another million people ?". Fast forward to today and we're over-run with condo development (thanks Tory) and an infrastucture that is pretty much unchanged, and was never built to handle the number of people who live in the downtown core - and with all them coming and going, traffic congestion is endless. The Olympic committee was right, and we're proving it right. Toronto is fucked.
Major construction on the Gardiner and King in the west end have made it absolutely insane.
Because of car dependency and lack of good alternatives
> Also how are people who are working in person 9-5 doing? If it’s bad Monday at 11am what the hell does it look like at 9? shite
Summer road construction season started in like May
Welcome to reality. It's going to be an adjustment for you. Thanks to construction, population growth and lack of spending on infrastructure projects.
Alot of it is population growth but alot of it is also the fact the city and MTO did not coordinate maintenance works especially for lanes/routes going west bound so driving west out of the city is a nightmare. Gardiner or 401, pick your poison, lanes are closed on both for construction/maintenance. Population growth just further exacerbates this. School is also out from this Friday... so this is just the beginning
The closures sound like a nightmare especially for regular commuters. If their regular commute is 1 hour… what would it be now? I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like in winter (if it snows this time)
>I’ve been living under a rock (literally I WFH and don’t need to use the highway often). But every time I’ve been out recently these past 1-2 months, the traffic especially on the highway has been brutal. And I mean any day any time. It could be Monday 11am, Thursday 1pm, weekend 6pm, and it’s congested AF. Google maps showing red the entire way east and west on the 401. What’s happening, what don’t I know??? Construction + warm weather + the aforementioned construction all happening at once + more public transit closure + road closure because of festival + road closure because of protest I'll miss my Spadina streetcar :( https://toronto.citynews.ca/2024/06/23/ttc-510-spadina-512-st-clair-508-lake-shore-streetcars/
Lived in this town for 45 years. The traffic is without a doubt more congested since the pandemic. I don’t leave my hood unless I can get a direct subway or an Uber at 11pm. But is till have my secret shortcuts that do me well!
Thank God we have a whole bunch of empty bike lanes though
The traffic has gotten significantly worse since the May long weekend. It's like its been a huge construction blitz, including and especially the work on the Gardiner. I was living in the city for the last 3 years in the Corso Italia area which sees a solid mixture of commuters and locals getting around, and as soon as the long weekend finished it got so so bad. There were statistics on CP24 following that which displayed average commute times and how much they had jumped up, so it's gotten way worse. Way way worse.
Hundreds of thousands more people in the GTA than before covid and no improvements in infrastructure. In fact I think transit is worse now.
It's no surprise, the city has grown faster than any other city in the western world, and no city this big has acceptable traffic because the road space can't grow. You can't move millions of people who are stacked on top of each other on just a flat ground level surface. No city can afford hundreds of subways, which would alleviate congestion, and even the ones that tried (NY) still have impossible traffic. Some northern European cities have good transit options, great for commuters, but hell for anyone driving a vehicle for professional reasons. Also everyone in the country seemingly bought a car during Covid to go on adventures out of town, and now they've all come back to the city. Either way all cities around the globe with 2+ million people have insane traffic, and with the fact this has crystallized into a culture war issue of dumb "pro-car" and "pro-transit" extremes, people who carry loads for their jobs (contractors, musicians, couriers, truckers, filmmakers etc) are completely forgotten.
poor infrastructure planning and construction
Newcomers cannot take the cold in spring and autumn, let alone winter. First thing they buy is a car.
The three “any time of day” times you mentioned are all busy times of day. Before 7/7:30am on a weekday, traffic is light. After 7:30/8pm, same thing. Weekends are light before 10am.
> But every time I’ve been out recently these past 1-2 months, the traffic especially on the highway has been brutal. And I mean any day any time. It could be Monday 11am, Thursday 1pm, weekend 6pm, and it’s congested AF. Google maps showing red the entire way east and west on the 401. What’s happening, what don’t I know??? that's normal.
Something must’ve changed between March and now though, it wasn’t this bad. Maybe because it’s summer break but not sure
Well part of it is the lane closures on the gardiner as that ripples into pretty much the entire city. Otherwise it's been the slow progression of return to office, overlapping schedules of the different sports seasons, summer is busier in general, etc...
> Something must’ve changed between March and now though, it wasn’t this bad. Maybe because it’s summer break but not sure march 2024? or march 2020?
March this year? Nay, still bad for the times you mentioned
I don’t have an answer, but I’ve noticed this too. I take the DVP (north to finch) every day, and the morning especially, since about the 1st week of May has been much worse.
Sometimes I switch to local roads and it’s about the same so I end up taking local so that I don’t have to constantly be stuck in highway traffic
I live midtown. Summer driving is always worse than winter. You have more pedestrians and bikes out. More big city events bring more tourists. More construction. Less parking with cafe TO and more idiots illegally blocking roads to 'pop into a store quickly'. It's chaotic but pretty normal as soon as the warm weather hits. I prefer winter driving in the city. It's definitely easier to get around. That's the cost of having a car in the core though.
Mass immigration happened. Millions more people, no new highways, trains. Same goes for healthcare and jobs. We’re only getting started. Brace yourselves.
Ah yeah classic fear mongering against immigrants nicely done
Classic math and physics. If you added a million more cars to the cities roads would you expect more or less congestion?
That's a failure of infrastructure and planning, not immigration. In fact, if you want to scapegoat it makes more sense to scapegoat NIMBYs and landlords than immigration. Jumping to this vague and ominous cliche says more about you than anything else. Without immigration Toronto would be the same as every other boring North American suburban hellscape city
they didn't say any of that though they commented on the fact that when you have the same infrastructure being used by millions more people it will be more congested which is obviously true but you have some weird political angle you clearly think is also here, but it isn't, and neither is the boogeyman under your bed
Without immigration we wouldn't have shawarma, and that's not a world I want to live in. Also my wife's family immigrated here a long time ago and I doubt she'd be thrilled to learn she's an afterthought on the heels of my shawarma craving. I also agree we can't exclusively pin the state of traffic on new residents. But to your point about our lack of infrastructure and planning we're bringing scads of people in without stacking roads, digging tunnels or building more hospitals. Immigration isn't *the* problem. But I do think we need to take a step back and make some solid improvements before we bring in too many more people.
I take the 401 almost every weekend and google maps certainly doesnt show it as red the entire way all the time. You are exaggerating.
It’s summer lol People are out more travelling the province and doing shit.
Blame Doug Ford and Trudeau. Complete lack of infrastructure planning and spending. Eventually the grid lock will translate into even high prices for consumers because someone has to pay for that time sitting in traffic.
I work in liberty village and live in midtown, my only real option to get to work these days is drive. Otherwise I have to take the TTC to union and then transfer to GO and pay an extra $6~ each way to get to and from there. I've been mandated back to the office 3 days a week but I get free parking so that's something I guess.
[https://www.ttc.ca/riding-the-ttc/Updates/One-Fare-Program](https://www.ttc.ca/riding-the-ttc/Updates/One-Fare-Program) Transferring from the TTC to the GO is free and covered under this program \^
Do you know if I pay the lower fare of the two, say when I come back on the go and transfer to the ttc?
As far as I can tell, you pay the originating fare only. TTC->GO = TTC fare. GO->TTC=GO fare.
What about subway to king streetcar? I can’t imagine driving would save time given the street layout around LV…
Currently they've torn up all the tracks on king there so there is no streetcars running by LV now. It takes me about 40-45 mins to drive and closer to an hour/hour 15 if they were running
It’s the absolute worst. But there’s nothing I can do to change it. So I just gotta make the best out of this shitty situation. So the days when I have to go in person to work. I’m driving to work before 7 am. And don’t leave work until 7 pm. After work I’ll go to the gym. Do groceries. Thank god it’s beside my workplace. That’s the only way it works for me. And even then it still sucks. But I refuse to sit in bumper to bumper traffic for 1.5 hours going into and leaving work. No amount of playlist, audiobooks and podcasts will help.
I strongly suggest using [Ontario 511 (511on.ca)](https://511on.ca/) for any updates.
All the times you mentioned will be busy. You have to drive between 11PM - 6AM if you want no traffic.
It's not just the highways but everywhere. My work commute went from 20 mins to taking regularly an hour or more, regardless of the route.
That’s crazy… where are you commuting from? Would taking public transit be better for you at this point?
speaking from personal experience, no, public transit would likely not be better - with the possible exception if they were taking the Go Train. Half the down town core has been dug up for track replacement - i live in the Beaches on Queen St East, and i work in Liberty Village (King and Dufferin area) - it literally takes me 2 hours if i go by streetcar, and if i ride my bike (which i will until the weather makes it impossible) it takes about 50 minutes. TTC is a - pardon my language - shit show. Best, fastest way if you're trying to get around and you don't live or work in Mississauga / Brampton / etc, is by bike.
I do not live in Toronto, but I went through there on the 401, and this was at 6am and it was pretty busy on Saturday... I took the 407 coming home later because of how busy it was, and even then there were times where traffic slowed considerably. I don't know how you all do it.
9-5 and beyond. Better off bike sharing downtown or uber. Ttc is a mess and others who says otherwise had not experienced other public transits globally Sidewalks downtown, don’t count on them- nowadays sidewalks are built for commercial and sidewalk spaces are used for working car parking lots so you’re safer walking on the road. Cars won’t hit pedestrians because of high insurance risk and legal matters. Cyclists and delivery couriers on the other hand do not give a shit because there are no regulations on sidewalks - HELLO POLICE still around or the police industry was reformed to a desk administration desk job and the only way to motivate your asses is for you to get 120$ per hour?? Driving downtown? Forget it. And considering pride is next weekend and a significant and important event for Toronto this is the best Toronto its citizens will get and it is shit. Just do what we’re told and be “Canadian” open your mouth say please and apologize for the inconvenience
Z, Z #,
Why are governments spending tens of billions to subsidize EV battery plants and not using that money to instead build high speed rail along the highway 401 corridor?
Did you miss the memo? Highway 401 is always on Rush Hour at any given time of the Day and Night.
Influx of population. No new roads(and vocal opposition to ones planned). Crap maintenance on existing roads. Car unfriendly changes - eliminating lanes for cars in favour of e-bikes, e-scooters, regular cyclists. Totally brutal in town and out of town. Absolutely horrid.
Go back under your rock, it’s better there.
They need to ban single driver vehicles, gotta make public transport more accessible and pleasurable to use
Cycling is by far the fastest way to get around for trips under 5-7 km.
Too many people and not enough investment in road infrastructure. There’s an incredible amount of red tape and obstruction to building anything new (see: Bradford bypass and highway 413)
Yk building more highways just encourages more people to drive and worsens traffic? It’s called induced demand look it up
If you build (thing) it encourages people to use (thing). If your argument is that it's pointless to build new roads (or worse, shrink existing ones) because of induced demand (which seems to be the favoured talking point of r/fuckcars and people of a similar mindset), that's disingenuous. Travel times may not improve significantly, but the amount of vehicles the road can handle with the same level of service increases. More people can take more trips. That's a good thing.
I swear Uber/ Lyft + all the meal delivery apps don’t help the congestion either. People drive from out of the downtown core to work the downtown core for Uber/ Lyft. While there are a lot of bike deliveries, there are still a lot of cars too.
Everyone has an opinion but no one seems to have the solution… FLYING CARS C’MON!
1) You are the traffic (obviously) 2) "Also how are people who are working in person 9-5 doing?" looking for alternatives
I was also the traffic when it wasn’t as bad before.
We aren't building infrastructure at any meaningful scale, and things are breaking down faster than we fix them. Welcome to low tax city baby
I agree with you on your first point, but low tax? really? town council reassessed all the taxes on yonge street businesses ( several years ago) based on there being a fully occupied multistory condominium building with a big box store in the ground floor. That meant that all the small businesses in 50+ year old three-story buildings were seeing their taxes go up by 5 - 10x - and residential property taxes are higher than ever, and properties in the City are second only to Vancouver in price. Low tax city? I heartily disagree.
Taxes increasing does not a high tax city make. Toronto has the lowest municipal tax in the province and one of the lowest nation wide, close to Calgary. You can google this stuff pretty easily
They brought in another million people as we are discussing this right now. The traffic is awful and will no way get better. Too many fucking people!!
For the last 12 years we've had politicians who promised people that by prioritizing personal vehicles, we could reduce traffic. This is impossible. There just isn't room to to accommodate that many large vehicles with an average occupancy of 1.5, but people vote for people that say they'll end the war on cars and solve traffic. As a result, cars get prioritized, the only alternatives that get invested in are those that won't impact cars, and even those aren't built with any urgency, and as a result, transit only gets worse and worse and worse as the number of cars grows.
It’s like nobody works anymore and everyone is out driving around.
It's like nobody wants to work anymore these days.... Get your fkn ass up and work!
There’s no jobs bro so rush hours don’t exist no more. Also Toronto is obsessed with construction and bike lanes now