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Roads: Traffic catch all

newearthling

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Cllr Josh Matlow posted on Twitter today that he asked traffic staff about what is the biggest reason behind gridlock.
The answer was dev. hoarding!
I thought that was very interesting.
Here is the exact tweet:
Josh Matlow 2 hrs · Twitter
According to Toronto's traffic management staff, the real #1 contributor to gridlock is development hoarding on curb lanes. I asked them.
@JoshMatlow on Twitter

I didn't see another thread devoted to specifically talking about traffic in general.
Mods if there is a better place for this discussion, please move.
 
If that is the case, then it seems like it would not be that hard to institute some rules for construction companies. And the City could work on restricting construction activities that impact traffic on arterial roads - especially during the morning and evening rush hours.
 
Depends on the spot. 1 bloor is bad, ryerson student learning centre is harmless, bay Adelaide is meh. It's because 1 bloor makes it so there is no left turn lane IIRC.
 
Not sure where else to post this but this should alleviate some of the traffic nightmare that exists around the Ex particularly when there are events at one/two/three of BMO/Ricoh/DirectEnergy going on.

http://www.newstalk1010.com/news/2014/04/11/dufferin-st-bridge-reopens-to-traffic-

As for the hoarding....one need only look at Adelaide....in stretches it loses as much as two lanes to hoarding and you can really see the impact....probably not an intuitive thing to most people when thinking of of their list of traffic issues/impediments but it does make some sense.
 
http://www.thegridto.com/city/politics/sorry-gridlock-is-unfixable/

WED APR 16, 2014
POLITICS
Sorry, gridlock is unfixable
Which political candidates are lying when they promise to ease congestion on Toronto’s roads? All of them.
BY: EDWARD KEENAN
Sitting in traffic sucks. And Statistics Canada tells us that we do a lot of it. The average Toronto auto commuter spends an hour driving to and from work. So it’s no mystery why pretty much all of the mayoral candidates—and the provincial parties, too—are pitching solutions to traffic congestion in the GTA. A new subway relief line, improved bus service, getting streetcars off the roads, introducing higher-tech traffic signals, rebuilding the Gardiner… the list gets longer every day. But the hard truth is that none of these ideas will reduce traffic congestion. At all.
The research is pretty firm on this, and has been for decades. One of the most authoritative recent studies, a 2011 report by University of Toronto economists Gilles Duranton and Matthew Turner, summed it up as “the fundamental law of road congestion,†which says that whenever you increase road capacity, either by adding lanes, adding new roads, or improving traffic flow, the space will be filled by additional drivers in less than 10 years. This is true not just of major highways, but of all roads. Not only that, the law suggests that even if you get people out of their cars by increasing transit service, roads will fill up again with more cars in less than a decade.
So, at the risk of repeating myself: nothing being proposed now will have any significant effect on gridlock. It works like this: If you build more roads and traffic starts to flow better, people who didn’t drive on that road will start doing so. If you build a highway to make it easier to commute downtown from Etobicoke, people in Mississauga will quickly realize they can drive in faster, which jams the lanes with traffic. If you widen the highway and engineer the flow of cars to make things faster, more people will realize they can start commuting from Oakville. If you build a subway line to entice people in Etobicoke and Mississauga to use transit, drivers will realize they can now drive in from Hamilton, and fill up the newly free road space very quickly.
Traffic doesn’t change—or if it does, it doesn’t stay changed. No matter what you do, it still grinds along at the same speed. I spoke to Prof. Turner on the phone last week, and clarified the things that do work to alleviate congestion. But they aren’t ones we’re likely to hear from mayoral candidates or those looking for votes at Queen’s Park.
The only thing that has historically worked in practice to reduce congestion is not something anyone’s likely to propose. Since traffic is caused by a city’s prosperity, it can be eliminated by what you could call the “rust belt†approach—have the economy totally tank. If there’s mass unemployment and the office towers downtown become vacant, then congestion will be significantly reduced. But no one wants that.
Another idea that could theoretically work is a command approach, where some people (based on licence plate numbers or postal codes or eye colour or some other criteria) are forbidden to drive on certain days of the week. It seems like a straightforward solution: banning some cars means less traffic, right? But in Mexico City, where a system based on licence plate numbers was implemented to fight pollution, studies have shown it had no real effect. People found all kinds of ways to cheat the system—many bought second cars, most of which were were cheap and actually emitted more pollution—and the congestion and air quality failed to improve. But even if you could enforce it properly, it’s unlikely that such a dictatorial approach would go over well in Toronto, where the electorate is already wary of any policies perceived as a “war on the car.â€
Which brings us to the approach Turner thinks would work in Toronto: make drivers pay to use roads through a toll or congestion pricing system. In London, Stockholm, and Singapore, where they have implemented meaningful prices on the roads, Turner says, the evidence shows that congestion actually eased. He suggests that a system where a trip from Bay Street to Hamilton would cost $5 to $6 could have a very significant impact on this city’s traffic level—some people would move closer to where they work (or work closer to where they live), some people would switch to transit, and some people would pay. We’d see fewer cars on the roads.
But as of right now, no prominent politician is willing to support road pricing to fight congestion. Instead, they focus on things we know—or should know—will not work. Which is not to say we shouldn’t build transit and fix traffic lights and do the other things politicians propose. Adding capacity to roads allows more vehicles to travel on them—even if they don’t wind up going any faster—so more people get served. Adding new bike lanes encourages more people to ride, and lets them do so more quickly and safely.
Most significantly, though, transit changes can improve commute times even if they don’t ease gridlock. According to Statistics Canada, the average Toronto transit commuter spends more than an hour and a half getting to and from work. Any express bus, LRT line, subway line, or new GO train service that gets them to work faster cuts that commute and makes their lives better. But we’ll still have just as much traffic on the roads when we’re done.
 
Whatever you do people complain:

If you repair the Gardiner, people complain because it has to be closed during repairs. If you don't repair, people complain about it falling apart.

If you close the subway to repair or maintain, people complain, if you don't, people complain about the resulting problems.

If you build a new transit line, people complain about the construction. If you don't, people complain that our transit system isn't big enough.
 
This would be an advantageous time to go on the offensive about needing more transit and more funding for transit, but none of the 'meryl cannidates' are doing that it seems.

It would also be an advantageous time for the car idiots to declare 'traffic chaos' if the city tears down the gardiner.
 
It would also be an advantageous time for the car idiots to declare 'traffic chaos' if the city tears down the gardiner.

Yep we are going to hit a wall soon.
With gas prices rising so high, people will be staying home more, so there will be less congestion.
But that will impact the economy etc.
 
It would also be an advantageous time for the car idiots to declare 'traffic chaos' if the city tears down the gardiner.

I couldn't make a left turn out of my street (Lake Shore & Fleeceline) due to the Gardiner closure. I basically had to drive into the middle of the street and clog traffic because the stream of cars never stopped.

If that's your idea of fixing a problem (clogging local roads) then you sir, are an idiot.
 

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