Toronto quadrupling traffic agents to fight congestion: mayor

The City of Toronto plans to quadruple the number of traffic agents on its streets to help reduce congestion.

Speaking to reporters beside the busy intersection of King Street and University Avenue on Thursday, Mayor Olivia Chow said the city will spend $3 million this year to bring the total number of agents to 100. Funding for the new traffic agents will be included in the proposed city budget for 2025, she said, which is scheduled for release Monday.

Traffic agents are deployed to heavily congested areas around Toronto — something the city monitors in real time — directing the flow of traffic and preventing traffic violations like "blocking the box," where drivers stop in the middle of an intersection as the light turns red.

"Anywhere there's traffic jams, you can expect to see them — to give Torontonians their time back," Chow said.

The city began expanding its traffic agents program a few months after Chow came into office. Currently, there are about 25 agents citywide, Chow said. Last year, she said, the total number of hours worked by traffic agents was doubled to 20,000. 

That has helped reduce congestion at major intersections, Chow said.

Traffic agents have had a nearly 100 per cent success rate preventing vehicles from blocking the box in the busy intersection of King Street and Spadina Avenue, Chow said, and have increased the speed of the King Street streetcar by 33 per cent.

WATCH | Mayor Olivia Chow says Toronto's congestion plan is working: 

Mayor Olivia Chow touts success of Toronto's traffic congestion plan

4 months ago

Duration 2:05

The City of Toronto has shared new data that shows its congestion management plan is working to improve travel times in certain parts of the downtown core. The mayor says dedicated bus lanes and the addition of traffic agents at some intersections have reduced gridlock and sped up commutes.

Barbara Gray, the city's general manager of transportation, said 48 new traffic agents will graduate in the spring, with recruitment continuing to add more later in the year. With more agents, Gray said the city will be able to better tackle congestion beyond the downtown core.

"We're able to track the congestion issues and then apply the agents where we think they'd be the best tool," she said.

The supervisor of the city's traffic agent program, Yusuf Manjar, told Radio-Canada in December that agents have so far been mostly focused on moving traffic in and out of the downtown core, "especially during rush hour."

Agents work in tandem with Toronto police, he said, to keep cars moving and enforce violations.

In recent years, Toronto has ranked as one of the most congested cities in North America. In September, the city announced new plans to ease congestion. Those plans included speeding up construction on major streets, coordinating road closures to keep traffic flowing and improving enforcement against traffic violations.