I think that's the name.
SchlongConery said:
Well they must have sunk right into the quicksand then because there are no condos built near the Don Valley Golf Club.
Across the street is far?
Toronto traffic is now the worst in North-America
- Thread starter Phil C. McNasty
- Start date
SchlongConery said:
Well they must have sunk right into the quicksand then because there are no condos built near the Don Valley Golf Club.
Across the street is far?
So true, add to that, the ebikes and scooters that fuck around zipping in and out of the bike lanes onto the roads. Fuckers are starting to piss me off and I understand the road rage shit. I just know one day I'll see a driver beating the shit out of a scooter or ebike person. They have complete disregard for the rules, they figure they can bend them because they're on a smaller vehicle and can zoom in/out and turn sharper.
Plus a lot of them ignore stop signs and traffic lights, and go right through intersections
They sure do. If and when I can, I'm not shy, I'll put the window down and ask them if they notice the traffic light, some will play stupid shake their heads like they don't understand, others will drive off and the bold ones just sit there and stare at me like idiots.
I make sure they know what's going on, screw them. This is my country, if I did whacky shit over there I'd be beaten with a bamboo stick or beaten by a group of thugs.
Wow, what a raving, ranting, raging, road hog! "The roads are mine, mine. mine, all mine. Bwah, bwah, bwahaha ....." Sheesh.
There is so much, "the car is king!" nonsense in your post as to render it and you as unhinged.
"How does Palmerston Ave. bicycle lanes make sense?", you asked. Ask the 60% expressing support for those bike lanes as opposed to the 17% against them in response to the proposal with a significant majority of those responses coming from the postal code of those from the affected areas. it's all here : Palmerston-Tecumseth Cycling Connections (toronto.ca)
So now, instead of Palmerston being utilized as an quasi-arterial road, which it was never planned nor constructed for that use, it is now a safer, more people/family oriented, multi-use neighborhood pathway. Makes you fume now doesn't it.
No one is "tearing down the Gardiner". What a load of shit if you believe someone is tearing down the Gardiner. Right-wing mayor and majority suburban right-wing councilors voted to enroll it into rehab, shove it a few meters to the north at it's eastern end and prop it up on life support systems for yet another eternity. So, if you hafta rage at the pols and kooks who are causing this Gardiner congestion, blame John Tory, right-wing suburban car loving councilors and Doug Ford, the proud new owner of the debacle that is now the Gardiner parking lot and the traffic congestion, gridlock and mechanical mess surrounding the Gardiner from car lover's hell.
Most of the congestion, most of the gridlock is being caused because of the Gardiner. It's solely motorized vehicles that use the Gardiner. So, for you to suggest that congestion is not caused by cars is ludicrous.
I breeze around quite easily, but also vigilantly on my bike, scanning, scanning, processing, processing motorized traffic, even parked vehicles, always, always on the lookout for FUCKERS in vehicles who will do just the most amazing, negligent, careless, reckless shit with their vehicles that endangers me, other cyclists, pedestrians and any and all things that they believe are subservient to their long held God given beliefs and rights to rule the road as they see fit.
The shit on display from drivers today is astounding.
More data confirming that vehicle drivers are completely out of control, cause congestion, gridlock and mayhem within our city and the fucker standing in the way of getting Toronto traffic moving and obeying the rules.
Doug Ford won’t let Toronto use cameras to get traffic moving. The city should do it anyway
Sept. 10, 2024
By Matt ElliottContributing Columnist
THE BIG NUMBER - 147,251, the number of automated tickets issued using bus-mounted cameras to drivers illegally using bus-only lanes in Washington, D.C. since November.
There have been a lot of bad stories about Toronto drivers lately. They’ve killed cyclists. They’ve run down pedestrians at pedestrian crossovers. They’ve ignored transit lanes and blocked intersections and somehow gone the wrong way down highway off-ramps. But there is some good news amidst all this bad behaviour: it turns out there’s a ridiculously simple and obvious thing that would help stop it.
It’s cameras. The answer is cameras.
Lots and lots of automated enforcement cameras.
When it comes to traffic enforcement, the data suggests automated cameras are much more efficient and much more effective at catching bad behaviour than police officers.
That’s likely to be especially true in our city, where some police officers seem to regard traffic enforcement as an unwanted chore. In an article last week by the Star’s Mahdis Habibinia about drivers who get away with “blocking the box” — stopping in the middle of an intersection during a red light — former Toronto police officer Matthew Wood said there’s a culture amongst officers that prefers “action-oriented, high-adrenalin, high-octane” calls and does not consider issuing traffic tickets to be “real police work.”
Acting Supt. Matt Moyer, the head of the Toronto police Traffic Services unit, also pumped the brakes on the idea of a police crackdown of drivers who block the box. He noted that the police generally need to block a lane of traffic for an extended period while pulling over a driver to issue a ticket, so a crackdown may not actually improve traffic conditions.
I’m not thrilled with either of those explanations. In my mind, any would-be candidate to be a Toronto police officer who says they want the job for the “high adrenaline” thrill of it should immediately get screened out of consideration.
And I’ve never really understood why, in my experience, cops spend an eternity sitting in their cars during traffic stops. It feels like the process could be sped up significantly with a bit of urgency.
But again, the good news is that automated cameras don’t have an adrenal system and are capable of issuing tickets in a literal snap.
Cameras work. I recently stumbled across a segment from a local news station in Washington, D.C. reporting that cameras mounted on buses have resulted in a whopping 147,251 citations to drivers for improperly using bus lanes since last November.
And D.C. is not unique. New York City has long had bus-mounted cameras to catch bus lane violators through their Automated Bus Lane Enforcement (ABLE) program. In June, the ABLE program was expanded to also issue tickets to drivers who are double parked. Chicago’s city council approved an ambitious “Smart Streets” pilot last year that will see drivers mailed tickets when they’re caught on camera parking in bike lanes, across crosswalks and in other no-parking areas.
Compared to these cities, Toronto is way behind on automated enforcement. Sure, city hall complemented its long-standing red-light camera program with photo radar cameras for speeding in 2019, and sure, they’ve been effective at issuing tickets and slowing drivers down, but city hall has been slow to roll out new ones. The program started with 50 cameras in 2020. These days, there are 75. Another 75 are on order. It’s progress — but it’s slow progress.
And more importantly, there’s not been enough movement toward getting cameras that can enforce other traffic violations, like driving in transit lanes or blocking the box. That’s despite TTC streetcars running with active external cameras since 2019, and the city’s speed camera supplier — Verra Mobility (formerly Redflex Systems) — offering tech that can also catch box blockers and transit lane violators.
At city hall, the explanation for slow progress is usually to blame Queen’s Park. But while it’s certainly frustrating that Premier Doug Ford government hasn’t yet passed legislation allowing vehicle owners to be charged for offences like blocking the box even if they weren’t behind the wheel, I’m tiring of that excuse.
If the legislation isn’t yet in place to allow automated ticketing of more traffic violations, I see no reason why the city couldn’t activate more cameras now to at least capture better data — and to ensure we’ve got the tech in place to immediately start issuing tickets whenever Ford gets around to changing the rules.
This would mirror the approach taken by former mayor John Tory when he was advocating for photo radar. When Ford was dragging his feet on enabling the regulations to allow the use of cameras, Tory pushed for council to move forward with the cameras anyway — almost daring Ford to stand in the way. After cameras captured some drivers exceeding 100 km/h in school zones, it got a lot harder to say no.
With city council set to debate a congestion management strategy later this fall, Mayor Olivia Chow should take a page from the same playbook: push forward aggressively and dare the provincial government to block it. Don’t accept a slow small-scale pilot project. Other cities have already tested this for us. And with the police abdicating responsibility, it’s so clear what Toronto needs to do to hold drivers to account: get the cameras rolling.
Doug Ford won’t let Toronto use cameras to get traffic moving. The city should do it anyway
Sept. 10, 2024
By Matt ElliottContributing Columnist
THE BIG NUMBER - 147,251, the number of automated tickets issued using bus-mounted cameras to drivers illegally using bus-only lanes in Washington, D.C. since November.
There have been a lot of bad stories about Toronto drivers lately. They’ve killed cyclists. They’ve run down pedestrians at pedestrian crossovers. They’ve ignored transit lanes and blocked intersections and somehow gone the wrong way down highway off-ramps. But there is some good news amidst all this bad behaviour: it turns out there’s a ridiculously simple and obvious thing that would help stop it.
It’s cameras. The answer is cameras.
Lots and lots of automated enforcement cameras.
When it comes to traffic enforcement, the data suggests automated cameras are much more efficient and much more effective at catching bad behaviour than police officers.
That’s likely to be especially true in our city, where some police officers seem to regard traffic enforcement as an unwanted chore. In an article last week by the Star’s Mahdis Habibinia about drivers who get away with “blocking the box” — stopping in the middle of an intersection during a red light — former Toronto police officer Matthew Wood said there’s a culture amongst officers that prefers “action-oriented, high-adrenalin, high-octane” calls and does not consider issuing traffic tickets to be “real police work.”
Acting Supt. Matt Moyer, the head of the Toronto police Traffic Services unit, also pumped the brakes on the idea of a police crackdown of drivers who block the box. He noted that the police generally need to block a lane of traffic for an extended period while pulling over a driver to issue a ticket, so a crackdown may not actually improve traffic conditions.
I’m not thrilled with either of those explanations. In my mind, any would-be candidate to be a Toronto police officer who says they want the job for the “high adrenaline” thrill of it should immediately get screened out of consideration.
And I’ve never really understood why, in my experience, cops spend an eternity sitting in their cars during traffic stops. It feels like the process could be sped up significantly with a bit of urgency.
But again, the good news is that automated cameras don’t have an adrenal system and are capable of issuing tickets in a literal snap.
Cameras work. I recently stumbled across a segment from a local news station in Washington, D.C. reporting that cameras mounted on buses have resulted in a whopping 147,251 citations to drivers for improperly using bus lanes since last November.
And D.C. is not unique. New York City has long had bus-mounted cameras to catch bus lane violators through their Automated Bus Lane Enforcement (ABLE) program. In June, the ABLE program was expanded to also issue tickets to drivers who are double parked. Chicago’s city council approved an ambitious “Smart Streets” pilot last year that will see drivers mailed tickets when they’re caught on camera parking in bike lanes, across crosswalks and in other no-parking areas.
Compared to these cities, Toronto is way behind on automated enforcement. Sure, city hall complemented its long-standing red-light camera program with photo radar cameras for speeding in 2019, and sure, they’ve been effective at issuing tickets and slowing drivers down, but city hall has been slow to roll out new ones. The program started with 50 cameras in 2020. These days, there are 75. Another 75 are on order. It’s progress — but it’s slow progress.
And more importantly, there’s not been enough movement toward getting cameras that can enforce other traffic violations, like driving in transit lanes or blocking the box. That’s despite TTC streetcars running with active external cameras since 2019, and the city’s speed camera supplier — Verra Mobility (formerly Redflex Systems) — offering tech that can also catch box blockers and transit lane violators.
At city hall, the explanation for slow progress is usually to blame Queen’s Park. But while it’s certainly frustrating that Premier Doug Ford government hasn’t yet passed legislation allowing vehicle owners to be charged for offences like blocking the box even if they weren’t behind the wheel, I’m tiring of that excuse.
If the legislation isn’t yet in place to allow automated ticketing of more traffic violations, I see no reason why the city couldn’t activate more cameras now to at least capture better data — and to ensure we’ve got the tech in place to immediately start issuing tickets whenever Ford gets around to changing the rules.
This would mirror the approach taken by former mayor John Tory when he was advocating for photo radar. When Ford was dragging his feet on enabling the regulations to allow the use of cameras, Tory pushed for council to move forward with the cameras anyway — almost daring Ford to stand in the way. After cameras captured some drivers exceeding 100 km/h in school zones, it got a lot harder to say no.
With city council set to debate a congestion management strategy later this fall, Mayor Olivia Chow should take a page from the same playbook: push forward aggressively and dare the provincial government to block it. Don’t accept a slow small-scale pilot project. Other cities have already tested this for us. And with the police abdicating responsibility, it’s so clear what Toronto needs to do to hold drivers to account: get the cameras rolling.
The Gardiner is a vital artery that connects Hamilton and Niagara with downtown Toronto and the 401.
Sure, you can tear down all the roads and make downtown Toronto into a politically correct "bicycles only" empire of woke nonsense, but you then have to deal with all the downtown people who need cars to travel to jobs in the burbs getting about as angry as I am.
Cars are not going away. The transit system is not nearly good enough to service the burbs for anyone who has the option of a car. You want to live in a car free city, go live in a place without burbs like London or Paris. It doesn't work in Toronto.
Sure. You bike from your 100% subsidized coop penthouse to your fancy designer consultants' office a few blocks away. I'd do that as well if I both lived and worked downtown. But you don't accept the fact that 99% of Canadians need cars.
So you can whine all you want about cars being "road hogs". Next time you have a 9 AM court appearance in Newmarket, you can fucking well bike there.
Your poll re Palmerston Avenue must have come just from you and your buddies planning how they could cycle from their consultant's offices at Jarvis and Gerrard to that really cool new Asian-Spanish bodega at Ossington and Dundas while humming their favourite Liszt piano sonatas without being annoyed by the noise of car engines.
You're a politically woke, entitled guy who wants his own little insulated world and you give no shit whatsoever about people with workday jobs and errands. You got kids you need to take to soccer practice at Eglinton and Bayview?.... You need a car. You need to go to the supermarket to shop for a family?.... You need a car.
People like you should be made to live in the real world for a couple of days. You'd be phoning your therapist halfway through day one.
What a completely nonsensical reply from a completely unhinged, raving car-o-holic, congratulations.
The Gardiner's aorta is clogged, it's arteries full of plaque, decay and crumbling. Clogged, plaque filled and crumbling just like your mind is on this topic.
No roads in Toronto have been "torn down" and Toronto is not a politically correct "bicycles empire" of woke nonsense. The flow of most Gardiner/DVP traffic is into Toronto a.m./out Toronto p.m., except for event nights or week days. Maybe you should tell your clients to not commit their B and Es, drive-bys and gang banging in York region, huh? It would save us from a ton of your cringe worthy, "war on the car" crapola posts.
Cars are here to stay, we're never gonna live in a car free city, I agree with you. But, I'll tell you what, let's make they're commutes as hellish as possible, as spleen rupturing as can be and as smashing their heads into the A-pillars of their precious vehicles as possible. God knows, they're already making all the other car drivers commuting a living hell. Car-Hell denizens deserve to be with their fellow Car-hell denizens competing for every inch of asphalt, every second of every commute. Then maybe, some will wise up.
I don't live in a subsidized coop penthouse nor do I bike to a fancy designer consultants office. I am, have been and always will be blue collar, working class and as far from elitist as you appear to be from reality regarding this issue.
A child of working class, dirt poor immigrants. Working class, working class, working class. Athletic, competitive sports, sweat, sun, toil, muscle. You're barking up the wrong tree fancy boi, attempting to paint me as an elitist , insulated, latte sipping figment of your enraged imagination.
I'm working class, a worker. I have commuted from inner burb to burb, from burb to burb for work in the past. Furthest person you or anyone could plausibly label as elite.
You do not live downtown. You believe you do, but you don't. You no more live downtown than I do. You and I live in the inner core of Toronto. The difference between you and I is that I cycle downtown a lot and I observe way, way more about traffic congestion in downtown Toronto and it's inner core than you angrily putt-putting around 2 mph in a hermitically sealed and enclosed coop of steel and glass with your assortment of $20 Starbucks quadruple pumpkin spice lattes and Biebs greatest hits tunes .
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You would do better to avoid ad personam rants and concentrate on what I am saying.
Cars aren't going away. In 100 years from now, people who live in Cabbagetown, Liberty Village and Little Portugal are still going to have to get to appointments in Richmond Hill. And they're still going to have to drive. Hating on cars and drivers aren't going to solve the problem that the GTA is 80%+ suburbs and people need cars to get around.
You and your elitist "Let's talk about what my blue collar great grandad did to show I'm a working class hero while I sip my cappucino in my designer sweater" friends fuck up the lives of 90% of the other people in this city in order to feel important and powerful.
Getting flustered when someone points out a few home truths that don't sit well with your woke mindset doesn't solve the problems in this city that people like you are creating.
Yeah right. You should talk.
As if: What %age of Cabbagetowners, Liberty Villagers and Little Portugueses would you estimate HAVE to get to appointments in Richmond Hill? 0.5%, 0.05, 0.005%? Your argument is laughable.
Lived in the inner core, then inner suburbs, then suburbs, then back to inner suburbs and now back to the inner core. Blue collar, working class all the way, not some Starbuck's pumpkin spice latte sipping, violin B-flat sonata loving elitist railing against the wishes of his Palmerston neighbors.
Motorists should be exploring alternatives because it is not going to get any better for them.
The sooner they do that, the better for people.
Toronto ‘has the most inconsiderate drivers I have ever seen’
Updated Sept. 9, 2024 at 6:01 a.m.
Dozens of people walk around cars blocking the intersection at Bay Street and Lake Shore Boulevard.
Nick Lachance Toronto Star
City Hall wants $450 fines for blocking the box — but Toronto drivers rarely get ticketed for causing gridlock, Sept. 4
Red light cameras get results as do speed cameras. Both catch drivers either speeding or running red lights. Why could these type of cameras not be permanently installed on perennially blocked boxes to catch and fine those responsible for causing gridlock? Police would not be necessary to write out the tickets and disrupt traffic even more. It may not deter all but would certainly reduce this offence, especially if the fines are high enough.
- Julianna Drexler, Toronto
The city will never fix gridlock. Why? Because Toronto is broken and it has the most inconsiderate drivers I have ever seen. I try not to drive downtown but on two occasions over the summer, I spent an hour trying to go 300 metres. The first time was on Jarvis Street going south from Front Street to the Lake Shore Boulevard, and the second was on Bay Street between the same two streets. There were times when we would not move an inch during several light cycles. Drivers in the left lane barge their way in to the right with impunity and drivers on Lake Shore block the intersection. Add in pedestrians who are in the intersection while cars try to turn right onto the Lake Shore and you have a recipe for disaster. One fix would be to have scramble intersections and keep pedestrians out of the intersection, allowing cars to turn. Cars get the green light going north or south, then east or west (with no pedestrians) and then pedestrians can cross in any direction with no cars. Another fix is to ticket scofflaws and to have traffic wardens at problem intersections all the time. At the very least, a solid white line needs to be painted on every street going southbound from Front to Lake Shore to deter merging (not that Toronto drivers will pay any attention). The article states “we’re giving implicit permission for these behavioural norms to become entrenched.” We are well past that. They are already entrenched. Lots of cities handle gridlock better than Toronto and it’s time we learn from them.
-Chris Churchill, Scarborough
Trying to ticket someone who is blocking the intersection is a logistical nightmare and will only further block the intersection. Considering the number intersections that need enforcement, a people-based solution is impractical and ineffective. Other cities like Seattle, Wa., uses their red light cameras to catch people blocking the box. This is fast and effective solution to the problem. Every problematic intersection in Toronto could be monitored for the cost of four cameras.
-Michael Yaffe, Toronto
While I agree that blocking intersections is a cause of worse traffic chaos, I can almost sympathize. Last year I was invited to a screening of a TIFF movie by a friend. I gave myself three hours to travel from Lindsay, Ont. It was busy but it wasn’t until I got under the bridges at Lake Shore Boulevard that I sat. And sat. It took me over half an hour to get through two lights. And the reason? When our light was red and some space ahead finally cleared a bit, cars would zip up the side and merge in ahead of those of us waiting. So by the time our light was green again, that section was full and not moving at all. There needs to be better co-ordination with the lights or some other sort of solution. I’ve not been tempted to drive to Toronto again since.
- Mary Sullivan, Lindsay, Ont.
I couldn’t agree more with the sorry state of traffic violations and lack of ticketing. Drivers are pushing the envelope on so many levels because they know they can get away with it. Driving through midtown Toronto to Scarborough Bluffs and back on Labour Day, I saw a driver running a red light when the pedestrian signal had come on, drivers failing to stop at stop sign (which happens regularly at the corner of my street), a driver entering a clearly marked “One-way — Do Not Enter” to get to a parking area and boxing at a busy intersection. I’m glad to hear red light cameras are making a difference for that offence and speeders are being caught by police, too. However, there are so many other dangerous driving situations that need to be stopped to prevent serious accidents. Perhaps more traffic police can be deployed?
- Barbara Pope, Toronto
Bad driving habits do not just exist at intersections. Drivers are routinely texting, speeding, turning right on a red light while barely slowing down, running red lights and having windows tinted so dark one cannot see the driver inside. I have not seen any enforcement since moving to midtown some six years ago. But, I do remember the time that cyclists were indeed targeted and fined for speeding in High Park. Car drivers are king and often have minimal punishment when someone dies with them at the wheel. According to the Toronto Police Service Public Safety Data Portal, 43,742 collisions occurred in the GTA alone in 2021. In 2022, there were 59,172. In 2023, there were 67,524. Over two years, pedestrian injuries increased 44 per cent and cyclist injuries a staggering 467 per cent. When is this lunacy ever going to stop? Unfortunately, the question is rhetorical. We all know that it never will, simply because there is no will to stop it.
-Alan Trufal, Toronto
My co is bidding on owner side role on rehab yonge out west to where redecking and bent reahb is under way now.
And on detailed design of the realignment and rebuild at the bottom end of the DVP.
Those two projects will bring the expressway users to their knees.
The first one imapcts at times 5 differnet on or off ramps as I recall. Active 2025-2030
And the second one will see the turn down at the bottom to the sum of Don Roadway one lane each way and main ramps to one lane each way in some stages that will happen between 2026 to 2030
Lack of enforcement at ALL levels. We have rules for the road to keep everyone moving. But it seems now, everyone is an "individual" and the rules don't matter. And if no-one writes tickets or impounds cars, guess what?
The result: I present to you Toronto Traffic!
The result: I present to you Toronto Traffic!
- Cars doing stupid shit like parking in a lane waiting for their UBER / LYFT client while holding up thousands of cars who now need to go around them... nothing happens
- People running reds or stop signs because they're too important to wait. ("but I'm LATE!")
- City building bike lanes on the stupidest roads. BLOOR WHY BLOOR?! Why the main roads? Why not secondary roads?! Also building them with zero regard for those who need to stop and deliver goods to businesses.
- Cyclists using all lanes everywhere vs the lanes they begged for... nothing happens. Shouldn't they be relegated to the bike lanes and fined if they use other main roads?
- Cyclists and e-bikes / scooters doing whatever the fuck they want (bike lanes - to side walk - to main roads holding cars up - back to lanes - back to crosswalks)... nothing happens.
- Pedestrians walking with their faces buried in their devices stepping off corners just asking to be killed. (and then they are killed, and the world cries out about evil cars!)
what alternatives? there are none!
one of the worst examples is Bloor St West
it was a two lane road that could easily take you downtown from the west end
it was Tory who build stupid bike lanes around High Park area and now Chow finished it with more bike lanes all the way to Islington
turning Bloor street into one lane parking lot
what took 5 to 10 minutes before now takes up to an hour of commuting
all done to benefit very few, there is hardly anybody using those bike lanes
you can see hundreds of cars struggling to get by and nobody using the bike lanes or just a few at best
pollution must be through the roof now compare to how it used to be because of hundreds if not thousands of cars just idling and getting nowhere
all businesses along the way are suffering too because delivery trucks have nowhere to park
also emergency vehicles are having a hell of a time trying to navigate this insanity
