A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, letβs try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
I feel sorry for them. But then again, this is what they want.
They oppose making parking expensive.
They oppose bus lanes
They oppose bike lanes.
They oppose trains
They oppose train stations.
They oppose congestion pricing.
They oppose any measure that might reduce car dependency.
Fuck Ford for trying to rip out already built bike lanes.
Not sure what the latest is on that but I know the people sued and at least delayed it.
Latest was that Ontario appealed the decision which stopped the government from arbitrarily removing them.
AFAIK we're waiting on the appeals court decision.
Just one more lane bro
Take 1 lane away, and put a subway down the middle of that bad boy.
Absolutely not. Motorway median metros are the worst kind. Build transit in better places, and remove highway lanes on its on merit.
Induced demand is a real thing. You can disinduce demand just the same. Remove lanes to decease traffic.
No one is pointing out the other side of this that gets neglected and that is βthe demand to live just outside the core but commute to the core dailyβ.
That just does not work, full stop. There was a time that it seemed to work but we already reached the capacity.
Even if we have great transportation, having people move so much on a daily basis is a bad idea.
We really need to move away from the one big city mindset, but itβs not easy to do
It works if you just have railways, the finger model is extremely good.
(Finger model means cities like Copenhagen and Stockholm, where you have "fingers" of development stretching away from the "palm" in the middle, with each finger being built around a railway)
Yeah, it worked when people were okay with riding bicycles.
Work from home should be encouraged. It helped a little during the pandemic, places outside of Toronto saw an influx of people; Orilla, Peterborough, Owen Sound. But Ford ordered all the employees back to the office, and now that model is suffering.
one big city is fine as long as you don't want to have city where you work separate from the suburbs where you live. this is one completely artificially created expectation that only exist in america due to a century of car lobby and propaganda. if your work, doctor, pub, park and shop are all within 5-15min walk from your home and you can get everywhere else by public transport it's ok if the city stretches wide and it is actually quite pleasant to live in (ymmv).
Another lane, maybe?
According to Doug Ford, a huge ass tunnel.
He is, without a doubt, a fucking moron.
But somehow, Ontarians still vote for him.
*A tunnel that will be built by one of his friends.
Ah darn. I lack the vision. Why another lane, if you can do another tunnel. Like a fucking wormhole connecting the ends.
Yeah, there's so much unused space in this picture: houses, trees, ... Those could all be roads. Really this picture just shows how the woke "not everything is a road" policy has failed regular, everyday drivers.
More lanes wil definitely fix this issue
Just one more lane....
Doug Ford wants to build a tunnel under it to add more lanes.
Yes, he's as stupid as he sounds.
No he doesn't he just wants a convenient way to funnel money to people paid to 'study' this boondoggle.
Metro Toronto is a disappointment. It should be have been doubling its subway network every 20 years. Instead it shut down a line, added a few stations on another, and built LRT that's slower than the bus it replaced.
It needs express subway tracks, GO with 10 minutes headways, and transit oriented development able to house 10k people within a ten minute walk of every GO stop which means zoning for density,
Pay for it by owning the land around stations like HK or Singapore and leasing it to developers for 40 story affordable apartments, increasing the gasoline tax, and putting tolls on the 401 and Gardiner.
Toronto is a transportation nightmare. It's time to adopt successful models from Asia to make transit fast, convenient, and cheap while making driving fast, convenient, and incredibly expensive. Fill in with protected bike lanes and the city will be liveable and affordable with great air quality
Toronto is one Ford family grift piled on top of another. All city planning is based on favours owed to their buddies or to keep their degenerate relatives afloat.
It's only 16 lanes. Have they try 32 lanes?
They want to build a tunnel underneath it to add more lanes, so unironically yes.
Just. One. More. Lane!
One more lane will fix that. /s just in case.
Worth calling out who "they" are, cause I know a LOT of people who don't want this.
The federal government certainly doesn't seem like they're doing much to reduce car dependency right now with the motion to fast track oil and gas pipelines. (Worth editing in this part for those in the UK: Yes, the current government is led by the same Carney you might know.)
The provincial government, where this highway is situated, proposed adding a tunnel, yes you read that right, A FUCKING TUNNEL!, underneath this highway TO ALLOW MORE CARS ON THE ROAD.
The Toronto City Council (which, to be fair, has less sway here) is filled with car-brained nutjobs from the suburbs who oppose every measure that they perceive makes it harder for them to get into the city.
Regarding all the "they" in the description: there's a huge difference in attitudes between people in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) and Trontonians proper...
Ontario Slow Way
I feel sorry for them. But then again, this is what they want.
No, it's what the GTA suburban people want. I live in Ottawa but travel to Toronto quite often and the actual city doesn't want any of that shit but our province is run by a petty mob boss
just one more lane bro. i promise bro just one more lane and it'll fix everything bro. bro... just one more lane. please just one more. one more lane and we can fix this whole problem bro. bro c'mon just give me one more lane i promise bro. bro bro please i just need one more lane
I'm not Canadian or Torontonian (is that the right word?) so I... fail to see why there's so many cars on both sides of this highway. Where are they going for this fucked congestion to occur in the first place?
Usually it's just people commuting to and from work. A large portion of workers in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) work in Toronto proper, and since Toronto, like essentially every North American urban centre, is so obnoxiously car-dependent they all have to drive in from every direction. It's like if a five year-old made a town in SimCity.
I read elsewhere here that this Ford guy also ordered a return to the office, and wants to build an underground tunnel below this road. Yep, it's gonna work out. He's deliberately making this thing worse. He could've solved this if he didn't have that kind of pro-employer agenda, damn.
You can thank my fellow Ontarians for being fucking morons and electing Doug Ford who rewards his contractor buddies with expensive projects like making another layer of highway instead of improving our ailing railway infrastructure.
Doug Ford wants to double it by digging a tunnel underneath the 401. Not for electric trains. But more cars. Because I really want to drive in darkened smoggy tunnels.
I can't wait for the entire tunnel to be closed by an accident. If you thought being stuck on the 401 was bad enough when there's an accident, now try having absolutely nothing to look at while you do so! And if something catches fire, it'll be far worse than above ground.
Tunnel ventilation is a solved problem. I'd actually prefer if all city highways were underground.
Ok. You got me there. In a perfect world, fast subterranean mechanized electric transport would be ideal, freeing the surface for more parks, forests and bikepaths.
Edit: that is not what Douggie is planning.
Nothing like getting stuck in traffic underground
I see the problem right away, too many trucks! Theyβre everywhere!
Having visited Toronto recently... this is average, even at night. It's hellish.
Yeah these stupid anti car people donβt get it. We just need an extra lane! Get rid of train tracks and bike lanes to free up more space!
Maybe instead of cars everyone can have motorhomes. Then we wonβt have houses or neighbourhoods getting in the way of us building more lanes!!
/s just in case
If only traffic was that light.