[Denny]

You'd think after seeing the price of a litre of gasoline increase by about 30% since last November, I would have had enough, right?

Well, looking around this evening on the road, I am looknig forward to higher prioces for gas. This was at 9:30 pm, and traffic was backed up on two arterial roads. This is August too, when about 20% of the people are out of town on vacation.

One Toronto news station I was listening to in the car was running a traffic report! It ook them about three minutes to detail all the hot spots. When I was young, you only heard these during the rush hours, 7-9 a.m. and 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

So, I can use the bus to do normal commuting, but I am hoping higher prices will finally squeeze out some car traffic, so when I do want to drive I won't be in the stop and go mode in the late evening.

Toronto traffic has just become a bizarre experience, and I want out of here if the situation does not get better. I want to live in the sticks.

[jimmydean]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Denny', 'Y')ou'd think after seeing the price of a litre of gasoline increase by about 30% since last November, I would have had enough, right?

Well, looking around this evening on the road, I am looknig forward to higher prioces for gas. This was at 9:30 pm, and traffic was backed up on two arterial roads. This is August too, when about 20% of the people are out of town on vacation.

One Toronto news station I was listening to in the car was running a traffic report! It ook them about three minutes to detail all the hot spots. When I was young, you only heard these during the rush hours, 7-9 a.m. and 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

So, I can use the bus to do normal commuting, but I am hoping higher prices will finally squeeze out some car traffic, so when I do want to drive I won't be in the stop and go mode in the late evening.

Toronto traffic has just become a bizarre experience, and I want out of here if the situation does not get better. I want to live in the sticks.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimmydean', 'D')enny I'm a Torontonian myself and I have to agree with you

For the little that I do drive $2/liter would be fine for me if we could encourage those daily commuters to use public transport.

[falser]

I grew up in Kitchener and worked in Toronto for several years, so I know your pain. The 401 is one of the worse highways traffic-wise in North America - I was lucky enough not have to drive it. If you work downtown Toronto consider moving to North York on the Sheppard subway line. That's where I lived when I worked downtown. And even back then before the subway was completed the commute by bus+subway wasn't that bad, it should be even better now. Pay the price to live where you work because you will eventually have to get used to it.

[jimmydean]

Been in T.O. all my life but been lucky enough to be able to work from home OR be able to subway to work for the past 5+ years. BTW the most efficent place to live is the west end unless you KNOW you are working downtown in which case a subway line/condo is the best bet. If you live within 10 min of Kipling subway it's all good: subway commute downtown, 427/407 N/NW city.

5+ years ago when I commuted on the 401 it was aggravating. Now when I go on it I think to myself how the hell do people hack this on a daily basis? Seriously it's just 10x worse than it was 5 years ago.

I heard a stat that the 401 is the 2nd busiest freeway in north america next to Santa Monica in SoCal. No idea if it's true but I can tell you it's one giant cluster <you know what>.

Hey maybe us T.O. canucks should have a PO beer gathering sometime

[jmacdaddio]

I'm waiting for prices to rise so I can have some vindication. I've made the choice to live close to where I work so I won't be at the mercy of OPEC. While everyone else is whining about how expensive it is to commute 45 miles in their Ford Explorers, I can laugh as I drive 3 miles each way. Maybe with fewer people on the roads driving can once again become an enjoyable experience. In my mind car dependency is the enemy, much more than cars themselves. The optimist in me thinks that mass transit improvements, more cooperative transport arrangements, etc will be a result of the price increases. The realist knows that the sheeple will just whine to their governments for a bailout.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimmydean', 'I') heard a stat that the 401 is the 2nd busiest freeway in north america next to Santa Monica in SoCal. No idea if it's true but I can tell you it's one giant cluster <you know what>.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jmacdaddio', 'I') can laugh as I drive 3 miles each way. Maybe with fewer people on the roads driving can once again become an enjoyable experience.

[jimmydean]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Snowrunner', '
')My last job in T.O. was for Rogers, here's the stupid thing about them:

They made people like me who lived downtown drive up to Markham every day (good luck subway, I tried that, no go, you end up spending two hours on the road) and made all the people from the 'burbs had the "pleasure" of driving downtown and finding parking.

I was lucky that I went against the stream, so most of the time it took me "only" 20 minutes to get to work (bad road conditions prohibiting) but man I had collegues who came from Mississauga to Markham everyday and were crawling across the 401.

But, as one guy said: "But hey, my house value increased by 100K in the last five years." MMhhhhh....

Still no interest in the 'burbs, that is what makes Edmonton so unlivable for me, it's one giant suburb. Trying to find a job in Vancouver now

[evilmonkeyspanker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Snowrunner', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jmacdaddio', 'I') can laugh as I drive 3 miles each way. Maybe with fewer people on the roads driving can once again become an enjoyable experience.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jimmydean', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Snowrunner', '
')As per the 100k burb note ... only thing I can say positively about living in the "near burbs" is that I bought my house for 485k 2 years ago and houses in my neighborhood (on busy streets nearby) are selling for 690k! I can only imagine how in-city folks made out like bandits that past year or so with $1-1.5M prices on previously priced $800k homes.

As you can imagine I'm thinking of selling while I can.

[sameu]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('auctionmonster', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Snowrunner', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jmacdaddio', 'I') can laugh as I drive 3 miles each way. Maybe with fewer people on the roads driving can once again become an enjoyable experience.

[spudbuddy]

Welcome to the Big Smoke, Denny.
(You'd better hope that your sticks location has public transit, or that you
can walk to work.)
A few things to consider:

Roughly two thirds of all that population creating all that traffic congestion is suburban.
The more money they spend on gas, (and most of them have no choice - they don't have the same public transit out there that you have in the inner city) the less money they will have to contribute to the economy of the greater Toronto area. Which will bring back a recession, of course.
Cities around Toronto like Brampton, Oshawa....can contract somewhat into economic business areas in their own right.
But remember...cities like Markham, Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga, Vaughn......these are all cities with a combined population of over 2 million people....and most of their population (unlike Toronto itself) is suburban.
Mississauga has no downtown. It has no mass transit system to speak of, really. It is well over half a million people. Everyone drives there.
Care to guess how much money a city like Mississauga contributes to the Toronto economy?
It does no good to just wish that all those Mississauga cars would vanish and stop contributing to Toronto's gridlock.
Until the time that a city like Mississauga contracts into a liveable, walkable collection of communities and neighbourhoods, with workable mass transit...it's going to implode into an economically depressed dysfunctional bunch of people who are unable to afford any kind of mobility.
The entire ring around Toronto is in for this.
As for the Greater Toronto Area highway grid:
Here's a bit of perspective.
The entire northeast Iowa highway grid...which covers a triangle roughly the same size...Dubuque over to Cedar Rapids down to Davenport.
This area has roughly the same highway carrying capacity as the GTA.
Guess how many people use it?
About half a million people - or less than one tenth of the population of the GTA.
If you look at a road atlas of the States...you'll find that many smaller cities (Omaha, Indinapolis, Memphis, Columbus, Arlington, Sokane, etc, )....all have a more extensive highway grid pattern than does the GTA.
The money has never been there for a highway system around Toronto (inspite of the 407, etc.) Of course...the mass transit system around the city is a joke.
They just haven't spent the money, period.

One thing we can look forward to in the years to come...is a much greater, denser population in the inner city. This will happen all over North America. Many of the largest cities have become hollowed out. There is still a lot of real estate that can be developed or re-developed to create greater population densities (Manhattan style).
This will surely happen, as people realize they're better off closer to work, and want to take advantage of mass transit systems already in place.
Not to mention...smaller inner city homes that will cost much less to heat and cool.
The whole idea of cross-suburban commuting is a joke. Someone living in northeast Markham and working in southwest Mississauga...will become next to impossible.

Just had a funny thought:
Imagine 850,000 solo suits all going downtown to Bay Street, to roll the wheels of finance, all with their spiffy briefcases...all driving Smart cars.
(all tooling along at about 35mph...because that's as fast as they feel they can safely drive.)

[jmacdaddio]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U')mmm.. Pardon me asking, but you DRIVE 3 miles????? Why not bike or walk?

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('spudbuddy', '
')Roughly two thirds of all that population creating all that traffic congestion is suburban.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jmacdaddio', 'A') fair question. I have tried some test runs. The only route to work takes me through a housing project past a soup kitchen. I could deal with that, but then I would need to bike on a high-traffic road which is dangerous since there is no bike lane. Drivers in the US have no consideration for cyclists whatsover and I'd rather not get killed on the way to work.

[shady28]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Snowrunner', 'M')aybe you can do what a buddy of mine did: He befriended one of the bus drivers on the route and the guy liked him enough to call his cell phone (let it ring once) a couple of minutes before he made it to the stop. Very nice, especially in the winter

[Omnitir]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')What's even more pathetic is that there is a bus that I could take from my apartment almost directly to work, but it runs once every 50 minutes even in rush hour (the people who take the bus are happy if it shows up at all). If it ran every 10 minutes I'd take it.

[jmacdaddio]

From my days of playing Sim City for hours ... and hours .... and hours ... I remember one critical item from their hints: a poorly planned public transit system is worse than none at all because you're stuck with the costs but the city doesn't get the benefit.

Here in the US we're in a downward spiral where transit budgets are slashed due to poor ridership, leading to worse service, eroding ridership some more, then politicians slash more from the transit budget while scoring road projects for their districts.

With the GOP in charge there is no hope for mass transit or any other scheme which diminishes the supremacy of the personal auto. This is in line with their ideology of extreme individualism (so long as you don't accidentally run over the Bible in your F-150), but it makes about as much sense as Soviet horticulturalists under Stalin trying to pack trees together in order to force them to form a collective (really happened). Ideology should not drive public policy - pragmatism should.

[Snowrunner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shady28', '
')
Suck up to the bus drivers?

OMG, the world really is about to end!