Urban planners: city council on right track in dropping Wonderland project
But planners say resources should be put toward other improvements
Two urban planners say London's city council made the right decision in dropping its $212 million plan to widen Wonderland Road.
During Tuesday's meeting, council voted 9-5 to follow a staff recommendation to stop the environmental assessment for the project. The move is one of the city's first decisions made through the lens of climate change.
"If you add more lanes, you just add more cars. And after a few years, those lanes of traffic get clogged up," said William Pol, professor in the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and urban planning program at Fanshawe College. "You've got to look at other types of transportation."
Pol said that instead of expanding major roadways, working on solutions such as the bus rapid transit system is the best way for London to cope with its growing number of drivers.
In 2019, the City of London declared a climate emergency, and developed a Climate Emergency Action Plan.
In August, transportation staff submitted a report to the city's Civic Works Committee advising against widening Wonderland to alleviate congestion. The report said the project would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
Alexander "AJ" Wray, a doctoral student in Western's department of geography and environment, said if the city doesn't widen lanes, it should still use its budget to make improvements.
Wray agrees that more lanes would only attract more drivers. He suggested alternatives like a cycle track going all the way north and south along Wonderland Road, or an independent bus rapid transit line going in all directions.
"Instead of it taking anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half to get across the city, east, west, north south on a bus, it should take anywhere from 20 to 25 minutes," he said. "This is where we need to think about how can we achieve that, either by increasing service frequency or increasing the reliability of routes, by having buses being in their own dedicated lanes, or even upgrading infrastructure to light rail."
Other "smart" investments could including bus jump lanes and more smart traffic signals , Wray said. And, he added, the city needs to reorient the public to not treat Wonderland as a thoroughfare.
He said when it comes to infrastructure, the city has fallen short on developing a minimum grid system for daily travel. This kind of system would enable cyclists to ride in protected separate infrastructure through most of the city.
Wray added that it would be better for the city to decide its next move for Wonderland sooner, rather than later.
"We're kind of heading for a perfect storm of issues in regards to vehicular-based transportation, where we might see this city actually truly gridlock up and people being stuck on the road for an hour to an hour and a half," he said.
"I think we need to truly recognize that it's not only a climate emergency, it's generally an infrastructure emergency," he added. "We have to spend that $212 million on other things that will get the mobility system working along Wonderland Road."