The 401 melted
down last week. Two hours to get to work -- that kind of gridlock. A
truck lost its load and froze the continent’s widest freeway smack
in the centre of Toronto. The Ministry of Transportation’s website
showed long lines of red, indicating kilometers of traffic at a
dead-stop.
As often
happens, all the parallel city streets jammed up while traffic
reporters flying above tried to locate ways around the mess. Local
commuters already using these arterials, including many thousands
aboard transit buses, shared in the chaos spilling off the 401.
Apparently even
the 407 toll road felt the strain, although it’s hard to get
accurate reports on traffic conditions there because the private
company that operates the highway does not provide them.
Such meltdowns
are often the result of a big vehicle overturning, but this isn’t a
rant about trucks. When these crises occur, either the driver of the
rig clearly screws up or, just as likely, a car cuts in front. A
truck operator has micro-seconds to decide if their machine can slow
in time, or whether to aim for the guardrail instead.
Not an
auspicious day for the new minister of transportation to start work,
but it does give Donna Cansfield an immediate focus for her
intentions. I don’t envy her. As much as we’d wish it, there’s no
easy way to protect our transport grid from the emergencies that
close expressways or subways.
The civil
servants who maintain the direction of the ministry, regardless of
which MPP gets their photo on the MTO homepage, hopefully grasp the
depth of integration between highways, municipal roads and transit.
If they don’t, let’s hope they are inspired by this week’s hearings
on the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority.
The GTTA is to
be born this fall, and it’s up to politicians and the public to help
define what the agency will do, and what it won’t. We have a complex
transport system, and balancing between road and rail is made more
difficult when both drivers and transit patrons are clamouring for
better commutes.
Take the 401.
We know that the road would be too expensive to widen along the
stretches that are already 12 or more lanes across. The province may
manage to shoehorn some extra carpool lanes on highways elsewhere in
southern Ontario and in Ottawa, but we can’t expect much more
pavement along the central part of the 401.
So when
congestion spills over onto nearby streets with their auto and very
high-capacity bus traffic, the total people-moving capacity of great
swaths of the city can drop precipitously. Only subway riders lucky
enough to get underground before the grid locks up have any hope of
getting to work on time. Alas, alternatives such as the short
Sheppard “stubway” are very costly to build, even if they do get
transit off the street. Light rail or express bus lines are a much,
much cheaper option, but they require exclusive lanes in order to be
effective.
That leaves
planners, elected officials and commuters with a difficult choice
that must be faced now. In built-up areas, do we pin our congestion
hopes on expensive subways that take 10 years to open or bite the
bullet and spread light rail lines down the centre of existing roads
across the region? Additional regular traffic lanes won’t carry the
numbers we’re going to need.
What’s worse,
many main roads cannot be widened at all. How can drivers possibly
concede space for transit when congestion is bad enough as it is? No
wonder it is so appealing for our politicians to avoid facing the
problem.
edrass@nationalpost.com