TRAFFIC GURU
By Ed Drass
Pinch me -- I
must have entered dreamland. The governments that are directly
responsible for ensuring your economic future seem almost ready to
wake up … to the grave challenge facing Ontario’s transport network.
Our well-travelled mesh of highways and rails has served us
surprisingly well, but we really must stop expecting it to function
at a 1960s-era capacity.
With 100,000
people coming to southern Ontario yearly, our near-clueless leaders
(and their accomplices: the millions of us who already live here)
are pretending that the fight against congestion is well in hand.
We’ve got a few HOV lanes here, extra bridges and tracks on GO lines
over there, more transit buses -- they’re definitely needed. Such
expansion looks like great progress in press conference speeches --
but only when compared to the decades of paltry transport
investment.
The Ontario
Tories who ran the show prior to the current regime do deserve
credit for realizing how pathetically they were managing the
transport file -- particularly transit -- just before the province’s
voters gave ‘em the boot. The McGuinty Grits properly turned the
corner by finding new money, and the federal Liberals somehow woke
from their Senate-worthy snooze by noticing that the national
economy might suffer if trade goods and people become lodged in
traffic.
Thanks, guys.
Now smell the other million cups of coffee. Massive growth is aimed
at the Brass Horseshoe because we have many of the other
fundamentals right -- health care, education, economic stability --
but we have fallen so far behind on mobility that we probably can’t
avoid a transport crisis. How long the crisis endures will depend on
the integrity and wisdom of the political and financial class, plus
expert counsel from planners and citizens. Oh, do I need another
pinch?
Somehow the
feds and Queen’s Park have overlooked the fact that they belong to
warring parties, and created cross-sector bodies to advise them how
to keep the trucks, cars, trains and buses moving. Planning wonks
may be the only ones who actually memorize the precise names of the
new “Gateway” councils and the GTA regional transport agency (it’s
the Greater Toronto Transportation Authority) -- but these
recently-created boards will save some political hide if they can
work properly.
Fortunately for
commuters, there’s still a bit of room left on the highways during
rush hour. (For a wee fee, I’ll let you know where.) Since free road
is exceedingly rare, our politicos and these newly-minted advisory
councils had better become real congestion-fighting heroes.
First up -- we
desperately need rigorous financial and planning criteria for
proposed highway and transit projects. Despite dwindling cash, we’ve
become addicted to sausage-making transport decisions. Behind closed
doors, big developers and elected officials appear to have
green-lighted decades worth of subdivisions and industrial parks
with almost no real research. Did anyone sincerely inquire whether
the wider road and transit network can support such sprawl? Planners
and taxpayers somehow go along with the farce, and presto -- we’re
gridlocked.
So many
development proposals are in the works, accompanied by poorly
thought-out transit schemes and questionable highway planning, that
we are condemning our kids to decades of unnecessary commuter angst.
At least there is little worry they’ll come throttle us in our
retirement homes -- the traffic will probably be too bad.
Ontario’s
decision-makers cannot pretend that current efforts are even close
to adequate. If they are, show us the numbers. Divulge the
projections. As for the new set of advisors: prepare yourselves to
raise absolute hell if any more half-assed or quarter-baked plans
proceed without vigorous -- and transparent -- cost-accounting and
impact analysis.
edrass@nationalpost.com