Why experts say work on these 5 fronts is needed to tackle Toronto's congestion crisis
Solutions include more transit, better co-ordination, tech and incentives
Unfortunately, there's no single fix for Toronto's congestion problem.
"You have to do everything," said Baher Abdulhai, an engineering professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in intelligent transportation systems.
"There is no silver-bullet solution."
Instead, Abdulhai explained, we'll need significant investment in and changes on five key fronts. A variety of other experts CBC Toronto spoke to for this series, Gridlocked: The Way Out, said the same.
Some of the work is already underway, while other solutions remain controversial. But at the heart of the issue, Abdulhai says, is supply and demand: There are too many cars for the existing roads.
1. Build more and better transit
Toronto has about 5,600 kilometres of road, and the city says it doesn't plan to build any more.
Those roads reached their maximum potential in the 1970s. And since 2000, the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has added 1.2 million more cars to the system, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
So experts say there's a need for attractive alternatives — namely public transit.
"Building out the system is the critical piece," said Giles Gherson, TRBOT president. "We've known we had to build transit for decades — but couldn't quite get around to doing it."
Several projects are in development. Construction began on the Ontario Line, a 15-stop, 15.6-kilometre subway, in December 2021. The line will run through Toronto's downtown core connecting the Eglinton Crosstown LRT in the northeast with Exhibition Place in the southwest. It's supposed to be complete in 2031.
Other projects include the Yonge North Subway Extension, which will add five stations to the TTC's Line 1 service north nearly eight kilometres to Richmond Hill, and electrifying GO Transit trains for faster service.
Abdulhai says we can't afford to stop there.
"We need a lot more, especially at the regional level," he said. "Expand GO Transit, and have a transit solution to the 401."
But building transit requires construction, which also impacts congestion.
2. Minimize impact of construction
Between transit, infrastructure upgrades and building housing, there is plenty of construction in Toronto.
"This past summer, we saw as much as 18 per cent of all road capacity taken away due to construction," said Roger Browne, Toronto's director of traffic management.
Overwhelmingly, experts told CBC Toronto the city needs to improve its oversight and management of construction projects.
"Space them apart, don't close all the roads at the same time," said Abdulhai.
"[Otherwise] you're not looking for a traffic engineering solution, you're looking for a magician to be able to move infrastructure that's clogged everywhere."
The city is working on it. Council passed a congestion management plan last fall that includes a levy for builders who block lanes of traffic for construction. The fee would increase based on the size and duration of the closure.
"They're incentivized to minimize their construction work zone."
There will also be a new online booking system for builders to see what road closures have already been approved before they apply to close a road for construction.
"That gives us an opportunity to make sure that we're not closing too many roads all at the same time," said Browne. "And [builders] see themselves [for] first-hand."
3. Embrace tech on existing roads
While construction continues on new transit and other projects, technology can help keep existing roadways moving.
"If you put too much demand in the infrastructure," Abdulhai said, "then it comes to a halt … and that causes significant further delays.
"We want to use technology to kind of smoothen the operation of how the demand fits in the infrastructure."
For him, that means using AI to create smart highways and traffic lights. He demonstrated the difference for CBC Toronto using funnels representing two highways and rice kernels representing cars.
For the uncontrolled highway, he poured all of the rice into the funnel at once, creating a bottleneck that took time to drain — representing congestion.
"In the smart freeway, possibly controlled by artificial intelligence, what we do is control the pace of how [the rice] traffic is poured into the system so everybody goes through without stopping and without delay," said Abdulhai.
Practically, that pacing could be accomplished by adding traffic lights to highway on-ramps, also called a "ramp meter," that would control traffic merging onto the highway in a way that doesn't slow it down.
Browne said the city doesn't currently have plans to implement highway metering within Toronto, because there isn't much space for queuing vehicles off highways.
It also might not be within Toronto's control, he said, given the city uploaded oversight of the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway to the province in 2023.
When it comes to traffic signals, hundreds of the city's nearly 2,500 traffic lights already use artificial intelligence. But Browne says his team is exploring more AI use for signals to alleviate pressure on staff, who otherwise have to remotely adjust them when there's an issue.
CBC Toronto also explored how automated enforcement technology for traffic violations can change driver behaviour and alleviate gridlock in the first part of this series.
4. Incentivize changing behaviour
The public and private sectors should offer incentives for changed behaviour, experts say — like an insurance break, or a free TTC pass.
"People aren't going to be motivated to change if they don't have a reason," said Taryn Grieder, assistant psychology professor at the University of Toronto.
Gherson of the TRBOT is amazed by the number of businesses he knows are already doing this. He also says many companies are running private shuttles between their workplaces and transit hubs.
"This building here has a private sector shuttle service to get to Union Station because we don't have much along Queens Quay and it's going to inhibit the ability to grow this area," he said about the office tower where the board of trade is located.
Gherson also believes there should be incentives for businesses that do deliveries overnight to avoid clogging up roads during the day.
"Businesses' role is going to be to support hopefully the action plan, because governments aren't going to make big moves if they don't feel there's a lot of support behind them."
5. Consider congestion pricing
A lack of public and political support hangs around the final piece of the puzzle for many experts: congestion pricing.
Several major cities including London, Stockholm and most recently New York City have some charge levied on drivers in their most congested areas. The fees are intended to convince some to pursue alternative transit options or to drive in off-peak hours with time-of-day pricing.
Previous efforts to implement this in Toronto have failed. But Abdulhai and others say there's no way around it in reducing the gap between road capacity and demand.
"It's inevitable."
In the third and final part of Gridlocked: The Way Out, we explore why the idea of congestion pricing and tolls is so deeply unpopular in Ontario, despite helping congestion elsewhere, and why some planners say drivers are already paying a significant cost for congestion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
