This Highway Almost Destroyed Toronto
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- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
- In the 1950s Toronto wanted to build a network of “superhighways” all across the city. Part of this was the Spadina Expressway, which became one of the most controversial projects the the city's history. But most of this wasn’t built, and today, the city center is relatively free of highways, especially when compared to other major cities in North America.
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➜ References & Further Reading:
The Expressways of Toronto
transittoronto.ca/spare/0019....
The Spadina Expressway Controversy
www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs...
Challenging the Spadina Expressway through the Ontario Municipal Board
www.erudit.org/en/journals/uh...
The bad trip : the untold story of the Spadina Expressway
archive.org/details/badtripun...
Segregation By Design
www.segregationbydesign.com/
Widening Highways Doesn’t Fix Traffic. So Why Do We Keep Doing It?
www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us...
North Houston Highway Improvement Project
mycity.maps.arcgis.com/apps/w...
Houston commute times quickly increasing
www.click2houston.com/news/20...
Allen Road & Lawrence Heights
thelocal.to/where-the-spadina...
Lawrence Heights Revitalization
urbantoronto.ca/database/proj...
Allen Road Individual Environmental Assessment
www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2...
➜ Timestamps:
0:00 Highways In Toronto
1:04 Spadina Expressway Controversy
1:57 The Annex
3:07 Highways of Segregation
4:09 Aftermath
5:00 Highway Median Transit
6:43 Divided Neighborhoods
8:01 Urban Feeways Were a Mistake
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#urbanplanning #urbanism #toronto
Problem is toronto cancelled highways but to this day has not built enough transit to make up for them & huge growth hence gridlock
Thank you! Either finish the connection or continue focusing on transit, But don't leave either unfinished.
Yup, spot on
Exactly !
Instead they think painting bicycle lines is the answer
Yup we have a huge population but we pretty much have the infrastructure of a small city
2 years ago I retired out of Toronto to south west Ontario after many decades. When I have to go back a couple of times a month I wonder how I ever lived on a daily basis in that stressful traffic nightmare. The best view of Toronto is in the rear view mirror.
The Gardiner is not the only issue with he lakefront. If it were removed then Lakeshore would either have to be widened or it would become even busier. It's already nearly impossible to cross. I would rather have the traffic elevated and out of the way while creating walking and hiking spaces below such that the elevated highway is almost forgotten.
Then there is the issue with the takeover by condos such that you can't really see the lake. There are trails on the lake, but this has really cut off the lake from people. And you have a provincial government that is far too close to developers and thinks purely in short-term corporate terms. Thus, they want to turn Ontario Place into a pay per use spa for tourists.
I'm not sure many Torontonians would consider our transit system in positive terms. It's small, in desperate need of funds, and every attempt to expand and intensify takes an unforgivably long time to construct. We are still waiting, but almost despairing that the so-called Eglinton Cross Town will ever be opened. Never mind the Ontario line and the downtown relief line.
I'm still angry about the Ontario Line Extension, if only because the proposed changes forced them to start over from scratch.
But yeah, the Gardiner Expressway is a crucial piece of Toronto infrastructure. I think removing it would do more harm than good
I think that Boston buried a downtown highway in the Big Dig
but that is extremely expensive and construction is very disruptive and takes a long time.
@@geofflepper3207 It was Boston, it was expensive and now they're having second thoughts.
@stevencooke6451 Making any of it better is impossible now thanks to whatever idiot decided building condos 20 feet from the Gardiner was a good idea. It's bad enough in slow traffic I can see into someone's bedroom, I wonder how they feel. In Chicago the waterfront belongs to the people, here it belongs to people with money. Some of those "master" bedrooms are 2 feet wider and 2 feet longer than a twin bed. Starting at $850,000, what a steal!
You guys don't understand how traffic works and is created. The Gardiner induces demand by existing, and imagine pumping more water into a bucket from a new hose, the bucket doesn't change size, it just fills up faster. It is known by experts that a highway dumping cars right into the core of a city that cannot meet the capacity will always result in gridlock etc. The sensible solution is to remove the Gardiner and meet demand with alternative transportation, it doesn't necessarily mean adding more lanes to Lakeshore.
He's from warden and sheppard.... that explains everything
Super Moron
Farms are shutting down because generation farming isn't attractive for young people so farms close.
ya so different from warden and finch
Jane Jacobs, when she moved to Toronto, moved to The Annex. She found herself right in the path of a proposed expressway. To this day I don’t know if she chose this place because the expressway was being planned to build there or if it was just plain dumb luck.
Regardless JJ was an amazing woman. I had the honour of meeting her before she passed.
Bill Davis was also a great Premier - for a Progressive Conservative. He was definitely of the Progressive wing. More transit was built under his watch than any other Premier since. The disaster of the Harris/Eves years & the ensuing decades of sprawl across the Province has led to nightmare traffic as our transit system has not kept pace with our population and our built form has grown increasingly car dependent. We need to change it - starting now.
No. The vast majority was built before Davis or was already under construction. What little that was built later was for the suburbs. It will be 60 years when the Ontario Line opens that anything has been built downtown, from 1970 to 2030 if we are lucky that it opens then.
I would tend towards just dumb luck, got to know Jane and family not long after they arrived thru my brother and his wife who stayed with them for a short while until they found their own place. Some fun memories complete with a Christmas Dinner.
I remember riding my bicycle in the Annex and looked to my right and there was Jane Jacobs looking at me from
her house, cool.
She said it was by design.
@@billyehh Davis built the 401 from Windsor to the Quebec border. The first freeway in Canada.
As someone who takes Allen Road to work every day, I've always wondered why they chose to stop it at Eglinton and not continue it all the way downtown - thanks for the fact!
I recall seeing old TTC advertisement (which is on their website) which says "One subway line can replace 20 lanes." Also, I recall seeing this message on a digital highway sign, "If you're reading this sign, you're stuck in traffic" - TTC. That made my chuckle.
But for real, even a "light metro" like the Vancouver SkyTrain which uses shorter trains with a narrower loading gauge can carry just as many people as the monstrous Hwy 401.
Also, I notice that highways with less lanes, maybe two or three in each direction has less traffic than the monstrous Hwy 401. That's induce demand folks, and cars can never handle induce demand.
At my train station there's currently posters proclaiming that one commuter train removes 600 cars from the roads.
That's a silly comparison. The purpose of the 401 is to carry ~1/2 trillion$ worth of goods and services per year. The main tonnage is trucks, commuters are incidental, especially given the rise in work from home. Public transit cannot possibly replace truck traffic.
A better comparison would be to look to look at how much more efficient an expanded freight train network would be over the 401.
@@tommyshanks4198 The 401 is simply an East-West/West-East corridor. Anyone who wants to get from one end of the city to the other quickly (still faster than surface roads) or is driving straight through will use the 401 unless they want to pay for the 407. Personal vehicles are not excluded from driving on the 401 in favour of truck traffic, anyone can use it. "Commuter" is also a simplistic catch all for personal vehicles using the 401. It can be commuters, people using it locally, people driving to appointments, shopping, visiting friends, dropping off their kids, etc. There doesn't seem to be any 401 data directly from MTO before 2019 so it's a toss up on whether work from home has meaningfully impacted traffic on the 401 since post-Covid.
@@tommyshanks4198 The 401 shouldn't have to carry all of that truck traffic either, that's part of it too. Expanding freight trains is an option, as you've observed. However, it would take a combination of that, as well as other solutions. For one, forcing trucks to use the 407 to bypass Toronto unless they have to make a delivery in the city, and also putting a size/weight limit on the size of trucks allowed within Toronto city limits.
@@mikeamber2528CN and CPKC are addicted to the same PSR koolaid that the US Class 1s have been drinking.
The problem isn't getting politicians to care. The problem is convincing people that narrowing or tearing down some of these roads will do any good. You'll be accused of waging a "war on cars" and other such nonsense, when you're trying to improve things for everyone, including drivers.
I'm all in for the "War on Cars" as cars have declared war on cities, people, and the environment (not to mention contribute to actual wars via wars for oil). We're merely on the counterattack, trying to take back what cars have taken from us.
What we needs is not a war but segregation, between cars and pedestrians, car-depended suburban areas and walkable city centers.
I'm honestly tired of our fetishizing running trams or as the politicians call them "LRT" down the middle of roads, makes zero sense, run it a block off the main street on it's own designated path.
The difficult thing is the transition. You have the present, which is bad but which everyone is familiar with and has arranged their lives around, and you have the future, which is infinitely better but is still in some distant time that will take many years or even decades to reach.
Also, the transition almost always means the removal of the old before the new can even begin and it's that transition period which people find very hard.
Well the war on cars (a.k.a. bike lanes), has killed Toronto. These primitive street cars have also ruined the city. If they had any brains they would have kept the trolley buses. Why? They can pull to the curb and pick up passenger and traffic can still flow. When they break down, they are towed out of the way- traffic can still flow. They can pull over for emergency vehicles. They don’t pollute (electric). They are much cheaper than street cars. Tracks do not not have to be torn up every 5-7 years for maintenance ( causing shear gridlock and chaos). Because they can pull over, there is not 20 cars stopped behind them idling causing more pollution than traffic just flowing. Pedestrian injuries are a problem also. People dart out from a stopped street car and get hit by cars. With a trolly bus that is pulled over to the curb safety is increased. The reason for street cars….. tradition. That is the logic of these idiot politicians in Toronto. No vision, no common sense. They think they can turn Toronto into a bicycle city like Amsterdam by eliminating full lanes for bikes. Such ignorance. The tree hugger/bicycle lobby will never know what makes a great functional city.
one of the best public transit in North America 😂
I literally cant help laughing
Even the private bus lanes on the road is still slower than driving lmfao. The spadina streetcar in its own private lane is slower than driving because it only goes at 10km speed the entire way through.
“Concrete prisons”
Better than wood prisons
I was born and raised in Toronto, I'm middle aged now. Moved out of the GTA last summer. I don't miss it one bit, best move I ever made.
“please bro, I just need one more lane, I promise it would fix traffic this time😂”
Trains ❌
One more lane ✅
The amount of land that's used for highways is insane. That same amount of space can be used to build chains of new neighborhoods or even small towns and cities. A waste of space that can be used to solve the housing crisis with a railway/subway line connecting these new chains of livable areas.
Also, maintaining these high maintenance highways on an annual basis eats up a majority of Toronto's budget that could instead be used to restore low maintainance infrastructure that is long overdue for repair.
we have more landmass than anyone other than like russia.. we have room for highways.. duh
The Gardiner and Don Valley Parkway are no longer the city's responsibility. You can thank Mayor Olivia Chow for that: in exchange for giving up the fight against the Ontario Place debacle which she never had any hope of winning anyway, the province took over the highways. In essence, she got something for nothing.
@@cmmarttifunny part, those 2 highways were originally owned by the province so technically the province got leverage for nothing 😂
Convenient when you ignore trucks, buses, emergency vehicles, trades workers, etc. that depend on highways to get around.
Not everyone’s job only requires carrying a backpack.
@@arcum you can tell who owns a car and those that only ever you public transit but see no reason for anyone to ever own a car. "Intellectuals" always think they know better
My personal iconic phrase: "Be slaved by cars wasn't in _"American Dream"_ list".
Building a lid and greenspace over the Allen is a better option than getting rid of it. Its safer than a surface boulevard with roaring cars
From 1970 to 1995 I mainly took the streetcar to get to work unless I needed for something else. When Bill Davis stopped the Spadina Expressway, they also stopped building transit. The Queen Street subway would have been relatively cheap with only the downtown section underground from Parliament to past Bathurst. It would then run in a trench similar to Line 1 north of Bloor. Since it was using streetcars it would eventually merge onto Queen Street for the local traffic. It is so bad now that basically I don't go downtown. It doesn't matter what mode you use, "You Can't Get There From Here!!!".
Another well made and very interesting video. Thank you.
ONE MORE LANE BRO!!!
The highways in Toronto were built 'around' the city. Unfortunately the city sits on the shore of a large lake, unless you want to spend ridiculous amounts of money and put a highway out in the water the Gardiner was the only option. The 401 was built back when the city was for the most part south of it as was the 427 in the west. Only the DVP really went through the city but there really was no option to have a eastern north/south access near the city.
This video is amazing and validated my entire experience living next to the 401, Allen road to be more specific. Walking into 2 highway onramp lanes just to get across to the Subway system is one of most laughable excuses of public "access" to a TTC station I have ever witnessed.
They tried doing the "rooftop park" thing over the rail yard downtown, but it got squashed by politicians because it would have been "too expensive." (Plus you know, NIMBYs didn't want to look at the construction, like a giant train yard is any better.)
Last summer I went to Toronto to stay with some relatives for 2 weeks, and boy was Ontario 401 busy! There was so much traffic that it took almost 2 and a half hours just to get from Queenston at the Canadian border to Toronto!
A few weeks ago, my family and I went on the 401 between the 404 and Dixie Rd. It was a weekday noon. It was the worst traffic, even worse than *RUSH HOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!* Rush hour isn't even the busiest time on the 401 based on that experience!!!!!!!!! I recorded two videos on my mom's phone (I'm a teen), and between & after them videos, other drivers were crossing *SOLID LINES!!!!!!!!!!* My mom told me they felt someone recording, so they knew *EXACTLY* when to *BREAK THE LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!*
A day later, a CZcamsr named CancerMan88 posted a YT short of a bad driver crossing a *SOLID LINE* on *THE 401* in Toronto. I replied about the experience my family & I had the day before.
Oh wow.. you actually had a short commute
@@Mart_7512Report them. Get their plates and car make.
The 401 doesn't go to Queenston. The Queen Elizabeth Way goes to Queenston. A completely different road that runs parallel to the 401 and never crosses it. You're confused, kid.
@@georget7028 From the 405 to QEW, then to the 427, then 401
I get a panic attack every time I have to drive thru Toronto , the traffic on the 401 is insane crazy and downright dangerous !!
???
@@georget7028 If you drove thru you would understand.
If we'd kept up our planning, we would have a new or expanded highway system to relieve the traffic on the 401 and we'd all be a bit safer.
@@IntrepidRobot I guess they thought the 407 would fix it but the cost to use it keeps a lot of traffic off it. What other planning are you referring to?
Why is it in europe they can build transit & high speed ring roads = less traffic
Don’t let Doug Ford see this 😅
Eglinton and the Allen worked fine before the Crosstown project began construction. Sure it was always mildly inconvenient at times like rush hour - but now (and ever since construction began) it is massively inconvenient almost all the time.
What an insanely informative video! You got yourself a new sub, keep up the great work! I love the subtle humor as well haha
In the pic where the video zooms in to see Bill Davis, he is the man on the left.
Great video
It seems to me that urban sprawl isn’t the number of cars but the number of people crammed into a small area. There’s so many people coming into the GTA that you need space for them. And you need a way to move them around because it transit or roads. The social engineers don’t seem to take into account that not all of us want to be jammed into a small area. My family left Toronto 40 years ago because it’s too crowded. There’s the occasional reason to visit Toronto but that’s become less and less a priority.
Compared to NYC, Toronto is empty.
"urban sprawl isn’t the number of cars but the number of people crammed into a small area" No. urban sprawl is just that, sprawl. fewer people in a greater area. ie: the burbs. actual urban areas have high density and public transit works, which is opposite of the burbs
Nice video. You filmed with what device?
Oh wow, never knew about Allen Rd. I always was curious why they decided to make it and why it stops abruptly.
I used to use that road a lot more often, coming from Vaughan to downtown. But now with the Subway in Vaughan, I just use that and it's so much better than taking the car.
I'm also upset about the new Highway 413 being built....just more suburb sprawl....
Thts what cities do when they grow since Toronto is getting so many new residents this is bound to happen unless someone sets a cap on immigration back to 150k to 200k/year or less but no one has enough balls to do so smh
Don’t forget for transit we are getting GO electrified Finch LRT line plus eglinton crosstown and Ontario O line whole new subway line 🙏🙏🙏
@@VAPOURIZE100 Assuming the Eglinton Crosstown LRT opens and the Ontario Line is completed on schedule. The Finch West LRT should open soon (by the fall, I believe).
3:07 "Rowdy Robert Moses??!!" LMAO 😂
Armour Heights north of Avenue & Wilson was cut in half when the 401 was built.
Allen Road should have been built all the way down to the Lakeshore and Gardiner Expressway. It was a mistake not finishing what they had already started. It would have decreased the traffic on the DVP.
Honestly, a mid-town highway would have been life-changing. It's either DVP or 427, which is too far east or west to be helpful to a lot of people
It was a mistake that they even built it in the first place. Allen road, the Gardiner, and DVP need to be demolished and replaced with rapid transit, affordable housing and green space.
My high school was next to lawrence west station. Incredibly loud and the walk to the mall next door during recess was dangerous
i read somewhere years ago 75% of Los Angeles was dedicated to cars .If you think about it it does seem true,, we need some kind of serious change
Yes, it's ridiculous.
Awesome video! I recently moved to Toronto and live near to Wilson Station. Sometime ago I realized that allen road was a comically short and leaded nowhere and I waa really curious about it
robert moses is the final boss of segregation
9:00 I didn't expect to see that, I walk by there almost every day
The most controversial issue now is the Eglinton Crosstown. Been almost 20 years and it's still not done.
Man, cars and their infrastructure have destroyed so much. Absolutely disgusting.
womp womp
Yea I know right!! We would all have had to live in crowded inner cities.
True
@@Red.Hot.Chili.Beans63why have I heard this exact wording on every second urbanist video?
@@jens_le_benz I have no idea what a "urbanist video" is or what's it about. I do know cars have made our lives better.
My daughter lives in east York, we took a hotel room a bit north of there, and discovered that the Don Valley Parkway was called the Don Valley ParkingLOT! LOL. The next time we visited we rented another scourge of modern cities, a VRBO about a half hour walk south of her apartment. However we could take public transit in between. Win, I guess.
You're wrong about traffic being just as bad. Before widening the 401 it was stopped dead for most of its length. The 401 is the busiest because traffic moves.
What Toronto needs is more transit and turn some office space into housing
Bulldozing single family homes nearby cities to build highways is a good thing IMO especially when it helps reducing car traffic in city centers.
Highways should never cut though city centers, but having them AROND city center is nothing but beneficial to establish walkable and safe streets.
I really cannot understand the people who's demonizing cars and car infrastructures or treating them as the symbol of r*acism, which is crazy.
While cars and car infrastructures are essential constructs in our civilization, we have been misusing and overusing them so badly and that is what we need to fix.
AWESOME video: One of my favourite places to bike in Toronto is around the Annex and the low traffic and parks makes it a great place.
Toronto is growing, more cars are on the road, the volume increases, the downtown is jammed as hell. If there are no highways, how will people commute to work? I live in Mississauga, my work is in Scarborough, by highway it takes 40 minutes if the road is free, but in mornings and evenings this time increases to 80 minutes. It doubles! If I don't use highway, the time is even much longer, through all of those traffic lights and rush hour traffic. If I use public transportation as suggested in the video, the time on the way will be 180 minutes. Come on... 3 hours!... It's not an option at all. It is insane to recommend such things. This video doesn't consider people who have a long commute. You think we didn't want to find a home closer to work? We did, expensive, unaffordable... You think it's easy to find another job? No, it's not! Especially when you have a mortgage on you... We need a public transportation, but it doesn't mean we don't need highways. There must be at least one more highway in Toronto to reduce the amount of cars on 401 and Gardiner. They are busy because too many cars use them, and there are no alternatives. 407 is too far up north.
Toronto traffic is awful! I've been to a number of North American cities, and Toronto traffic is by far the worst I've seen. Even Manhattan has better traffic than Toronto.
@@BWyatt76oh rlly? As a Torontonian I mean I live in (Mississauga) but potato tomato, I thought NYC will be 100x worse than Toronto lol
@@AgressiveAndre To be honest, it's not. One thing New York does well, is their public transit. Also, they have a lot of one way streets, so traffic moves well.
@@BWyatt76 yeah I heard NYC has good public transit and lots of one ways, always wanted to go there lol
Not only would it have gone through the Annex, the Spadina Expressway would have gone right next to U of T and (gasp) would have basically razed Chinatown and Kensington Market. Can you imagine Toronto without Chinatown and Kensington? Yup, would have killed the heart of our city.
This explains why Toronto traffic is so bad. I've been to a number of other North American cities, including NY, and I notice how much better traffic moves in those cities, and how horrible Toronto traffic is.
currently living in vaughan, hwy 413 feels like it'll alleviate a lot of traffic on the 401 eastbound for ppl heading towards sauga or brampton, but obvi if we had more transit within the city and on the outer edges, ppl wouldnt have to commute to the gta/toronto core jus to get to extreme ends of the city
Hwy 413 will be a clone of the 407 and it'll get built and used and the 407 will still not be used to capacity. Hwy 413 is being jammed down Ontario's throat cuz dofo has a big majority
you would collaborate so well with NotJustBikes
I've explained induced demand many times now. Lightbulbs going off everytime
I live right next to the route for the Kingston expressway. There's still a highway interchange.
5:35 as a CS player this part cracked me up
I have a question since I’ve been watching a lot of these videos, do you think the U.S. as a whole could adopt mixed use zoning?
It literally is somebody moving with a pencil. Any country could do it
Some very good points, and explained well in this vid.
Need more subway lines, yes they are expensive but makes the land above more usable.
Thank you for informing us about this, I take the Alan Road almost every day and I never knew what it was doing, and how it segregated two neighborhoods. I will never take that stupid highway again.
Is it possible for you to take the subway?
*I take the Alan Road almost every day and I never knew what it was doing, and how it segregated two neighborhoods.*
Highways don't really segregate neighborhoods. If that were the case then Tokyo would be one of the most segregated cities on earth.
@@UzumakiNaruto_ Sure they do. The Don Valley Parkway doesn't because it runs through the Don Valley which is a natural barrier, nor does the Gardiner expressway because it was built when the areas it runs through were almost exclusively industrial (and it also runs parallel to a major rail corridor along much of its length), but the Allen Road absolutely does. Tokyo definitely has neighbourhoods that were divided by expressways.
@@cmmartti
If the Allen expressway was built today then of course it would be near impossible with all the density that we have today, but if it were built decades ago back in the 1950s when density was lower the impact would've been much less. Even if they didn't want to build more highways in Toronto it would've made sense to finish what you started.
Also I've never heard anyone outside of the west constantly talk about highways 'dividing' a community when you have bridges or streets under elevated highways to keep the connection between an area that has a highway running through it. I don't know why people look at highways like that when its just a piece of infrastructure that you can easily go over or under like everyone does daily with the Gardiner.
Tokyo also has rail lines running through the densest parts of its city and they STILL build residential buildings and businesses right up to those rail lines and in many case right under elevated rail bridges. In otherwards instead of complaining about how the rail lines are ruining their city, they simply integrated it into their city. Don't know why we can't do the same in the west like we have with the Bentway under the Gardiner.
@@UzumakiNaruto_ It's because freeways are extremely loud and very large. A double-tracked rail corridor is neither of those. Heck cities like NYC, Chicago, Vancouver, Montreal, and Philadelphia have them running above the streets (the newer elevated lines are much quieter and less imposing fwiw). You could never do that with an elevated freeway.
i was born in 1960 in toronto . back then the 401 was a distance up north and going to yorkdale shopping center was a big deal. at the time it was in the guiness book as the world's biggest shopping center. there was no subway back then at yorkdale or anywhere on that route .
A single road can’t kill a place as massive as Toronto lmao
The original plan looks like Detroit's current highway network. Can't imagine what would have happened to Toronto had it gone with that plan.
Building a tunnel on Allen Road would honestly be cool, it would even cut subway commute times since trains go much slower above ground. And with the potential for transit-oriented development, you would not even need any more than two lanes per direction.
401 east is destroying me everyday
Vancouver chose not to have highways. It's a clusterfuck to get to the airport since you have to drive through downtown Van if you are coming from Whistler.
Honestly disappointed Ottawa has not learned Toronto's lesson of building highway median stations and if anything, puts TTC's LW to shame. Montreal Rd Station literally would be accessed UNDER a highway overpass/bridge with exits and onramps surrounding it once it's built. Jeanne D'Arc station will be accessed similarly to LW.
And good luck justifying demolishing the 174 because it's the only highway into Orleans and the city recently uploaded it to the province for a cash injection, presumably for more police funding... Our mayor makes John Tory look cool.
Unpopular opinion (among urbanists): Completing it might have been fine, compared to what we're left with. Or at least it's not obviously the wrong choice.
If you know Toronto's neighbourhoods, and compare the complete plan to the currently existing highways, there are only a few sections missing, and the missing sections are connections between highways, like the missing connections to Allen Rd.
The plan did not call for more highways through the city centre than currently exists. The unbuilt sections of highway are in the suburbs away from the urban centre.
Completing the plan shown at the beginning of the video 0:01 would only involve going through land that is suburban single story homes anyway. Right now it's still bad urban design because of the lack of density. It's not like the highways would have been built by demolishing through dense, walkable neighbourhoods. Those neighbourhoods are already unwalkable because of anti-density zoning laws.
Between crappy suburban houses and a half-finished highway system that only needs a few segments to make important connections, I think this is a case where you should plow through the suburbs.
Sometimes, highways can be the better alternative because the alternatives suck even more. I think that's the case here, since the alternative is badly zoned density where people try to use stroads as highways.
I’m what dimension does Toronto have one of the best public transit systems in North America? Are you kidding?
If you live in the downtown core or on a subway line and don't need to travel during the morning and evening rush (e.g. to work) it is OK. Otherwise the TTC transit system is hopelessly behind where it should have been by now i.e. pitiful.
don't get me wrong, the TTC sucks, but how many north american cities have better transit than toronto? I can think of maybe 3
Right, Toronto is one of the worst for public transit! There isn't enough subway lines, which is one of the major problems
@@BWyatt76okay go to a big American city (besides NYC, maybe Washington, and Chicago) Toronto would be best compared to Miami in terms of public transit
I would like to suggest lowering the volume of the sound effects and musics in your future videos , they can be quite distracting and make listening a lot more difficult, like at 1:48, thank you for the video !
Unfortunately, we really didn't learn much it seems, as the highway 413 is still on track to be built after so much delay and backlash
only thing doug ford is doing that gets applause from me.
on every other issue i prefer his brother despite the crack smoking.. RIP rob ford the GOAT
@@notastone4832 He destroyed Toronto bit by bit
You live in Sullivan?
If Toronto’s transit is one or the best in North America, Houston is the most walkable city in the States
I think there needs to be a case for more parking garages and below ground roadways in llaces thst are growing. Meanwhile in places thst are in decline infilling old freeways make sense and in some places we should design asthetic above ground freeways that look nice so they're less of an eyesore.
That would be great if I could get to Toronto. But car is still the best way to do that, both in cost and time. Build good transit first, then you can complain about the roads. No cramming into a petri dish filled with people, only for it to cost more and take an hour or two longer than simply driving.
I used to ferry visitors to our office all over the city. All of them could not believe the sheer ugliness of the Gardiner, the Berlin wall of Toronto. Just waiting for the day a 1,000 pound chunk of concrete goes through my car. That it's named after the city's biggest screamer "My way or not at all" Frederick Gardiner is a disgrace.
Say, *who is that fat guy* at 8:21? Isn't he the guy that wants to pave over the city's aquifer? Well, we did get "buck-a-beer", I guess that's something.
4:37 big cap statement fam 😂
What leaders?
The only mistake was Toronto and the GTA not building more highways. Currently There are only 3 highways going through Toronto. The QEW/Gardiner which runs through the south and main downtown core. This highway is only 6 lanes and theyre currently doing traffic for the next few years thats reducing it to only 4. This is the only highway downtown and the alternatives are roads with 60kmh (40mph) speed limits. The north has 2 highways. The 407 a toll road and the 401 a mega highway thats more than 16 lanes wide that is the main highway linking canada that happens to run through Toronto. Despite all the lanes it still has traffic. These are the E and W highways. If youre trying to go N and S you only have 2 highways. The 427 on the extreme west and the DVP on the extreme east. No highway runs through the center of toronto going N and S. The Spadina Expressway would have been a good solution. Instesd youre forced to either take one of the 2 highways and backtrack or youre forced to go through downtown toronto at a crawls pace. Toronto is not a friendly city for people commuting into the city from the suburbs. Oh and before you say public transportation think again. None of Torontos suburbs share 1 transit ticket so you need multiple tickets from each city plus constantly switching buses and subways. This is why the few times i worked in toronto it was only during night shifts or weekends when the traffic is bareable
with a lid? why? so you can open it?
Highways are useful and they should be built BUT most should be built how Boston has built highways which is underground. It was stupidly expensive but is so worth it, Boston would be impossible to navigate without it.
Cities are supposed to be hard to navigate by car. There just isn't room for that many cars, and making the room makes life worse in every other way.
Toronto residents get downtown overwhelmingly by transit, and the cars are still the worst part of downtown.
Burying the physical highway is only a minor improvement.
Highways don't belong in a city. Major cities should have a loop highway/boulevard, and all rural highways should become urban boulevards after intersecting with the loop and entering the city. These boulevards should be intermodal, surrounded by sustainable transit and pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.
Welcome to Seattle and check out the lids, my friend!
i use to live in the city of toronto. 15 years ago.
15 to 20 years ago. i use to deliver products all-over toronto, one hour to commute into the city, and would take 1 hour for approximately five drops. and an hour back out of the city. three hours total.
2023 was a different story. i had six similar deliveries and it took 3 hours, and an hour and a half in and 1 hour a half out. 6+ hours total or double the time.
what is my point? inefficient deliveries into and out of toronto means product scarcity or massive increase in costs to delivery. aka inflation.
three out of four companies we use to deliver our products into toronto have closed down. (leading to our delivery diacovery in 2023). businesses in yoronto will need to deliver after hours now? or atop delivering products to toronto.
so far. the costs have gone from $20 per drop 2009 to over $80 per drop. in short, pricing our products out of the market in Toronto. where by the products delivered costs less than the delivery. suddenly our farm is now in a logistical buainess, not in diary business.
what changed in such a short period of time?
what is the solution?
My man, you didnt mention Rathnelly!
Why not show a video of the Gardiner on a Friday at 4pm instead of the Annex on a Sunday morning. Might be a bit less biased
Gardiner is a disaster. Walking even under it is a horrible experience, not mentioning people living here. Traffic around it constantly stuck, and there are 5+ lane crosswalks. It must be torn down for the good, and fuck everybody whining about "but how I drive here": you won't.
@@andymod So you think driving in Toronto will be better without an east/west 6 lane expressway?
@ms22784 Did you even read my comment to the end? It won't be better, it won't be worse, it will just become impossible and that is the whole point.
@@andymod You said tear it down. My point is that less highways and roads isn't the answer
@ms22784 Yes, I said tear it down. We need fewer cars in the downtown.
CZcams algo and data tracking is not even a coincidence atp LMAO. This video shows up in my feed the same day I drove by Lawrence West station to drop something off. I think I watched a vid or 2 from you before but that was probably months ago
I doubt those cities in Europe that ppl escape to have to deal with -30C winters. So yea it'd be nice if highways were around cities but it's not feasible for a city like Toronto when it's freezing your nuts off weather for like 3 months of the year.
Toronto is always a shitshow of useless traffic. Take 2+ hours to get from one side of the city to the outskirts of the metropolis area 🤢🤮
I THINK MOST PEOPLE IN TORONTO ARE SO HAPPY IT SO UNCONGESTED.
We should call it induced traffic gives a more negative connotation
If only Toronto has a stronger subway system....
Ain’t no way, I got a PC add right after this video ended 💀
Eww. You don't use adblock on youtube? wtf
9:02
Hey I know that tram
It would have destroyed a bunch of neighbourhoods where artsy weirdos, hippies, and rich do-gooders lived, that's why it was cancelled. That group of extremely annoying citizens is often able to get their way.
All the words other than 'rich' in that list were redundant and mostly inaccurate.
Rich people do indeed mostly get their way.
I was just passing through Toronto the other day (been through dozens of times), and it blows my mind how the Gardiner and Don Valley Expressways aren't toll roads.
Yeah I would assume you were passing through because it’s only people who don’t utilize it who complain you don’t live outside the city yeah make it a toll road and only have to pay once a month when I’m coming into the city meanwhile like most people come from outside the 416 into the 416 in order to make a living and then they take off back to the suburbs with money from the city and they pay taxes, In Newmarket or MISSISSAUGA Pickering etc. people coming from outside the city always seem to have the brightest ideas why is that….? And I was being facetious when I Mentioned brightest ideas
@@davidburnell8635 It's just that cars are the most inefficient way to move people, so helping to shift those commutes over to other methods would be overall better for the city, stop slowing down intercity buses, and help recover the cost of the expensive infrastructure instead of making everyone else who doesn't use it pay for it through their property taxes.
In my city of Calgary, I'd love to see Deerfoot tolled, because a freeway going through the centre of the city while there's a convenient ring road next to it should be discouraged from forming habits of using it on a daily basis. Instead, the province is dumping billions of dollars to widen the road, because "one more lane oughta fix it".
its not really just the politicians. people have been completely spoonfed the idea that public transportation is an actively bad thing for the poors (and other various more racist and classist reasons) and would undermine their car usage. if you bring up a bus system in a sprawling less dense city like say, raleigh, you'll get lambasted not by the politicians, but the citizens.
Wow, ur perspective on traffic is so 17
985 views in 4 hours, bro really fell off
The transit system is not the greatest and it needs to be way better. I have looked into taking transit and for me to get from my home to work would take 3 hrs and that is a combo of Walking, Bus, Go Train, and Subway. That is just one way so I would be on transport for 6 hours a day on top of working a 12 hour shift. Then if something happens to the Go train or Subway I do not know how I am going to get home. I also can work every day of the year so Holidays our transportation system is not good. Where if I drive depending on traffic could take me as fast as 45 min up to 2 hours unless major accident.
4:40 ...but we did keep building hiways and traffic IS pretty bad...
No he's correct, Allen Road was the last municipal highway built in Toronto.
If only the 905 hadn't been infested with new highways. That created tons of sprawl, though at least most people going right downtown do so by more efficient means.
I lived downtown Toronto for 30 years moving to Vancouver Island in 2018. Watching this video..with its ghastly reminders of how horrible Toronto is…puts a smile on my face as I know I made the best decision of my life. Have fun ya’ll….I’m going for a stroll on the beach just north of beautiful Victoria.👋🏻😄
Don valley parking lot!
TTC one of the best in North America? this guy has NO clue, go ask the people in Scarboro how good the TTC is. it was a short sighted move back then and today with a huge city having just ONE north south highway in t he city limits has led to chaos.
Scarborough is a shit show
Did you really say 'bakfiets'? 🤩
He is not even Dutch. I give him credit for his promotion of cycle infrastructure.