Michael Taube: Move over bike lanes. Doug Ford aims to reduce gridlock

Published Oct 21, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

A portion of Highway 401 going through Toronto. Ontario Premier Doug Ford vows he will build a tunnel underneath an as-of-yet unknown length of the highway to help reduce traffic congestion. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

Driving in Canada can be an ordeal. High volumes of traffic. Significant gridlock on roads and highways. Lengthy travel times. Increased levels of frustration, road rage and unsafe driving conditions.

That’s why Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his PC government recently announced some changes designed to reduce gridlock, “making life easier for drivers.” These measures will also tackle the long-running war on the car, which has gotten out of hand and needs to be reined in.

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Ontario plans to introduce legislation requiring municipalities “to receive approval from the province before installing new bike lanes that would result in the removal of lanes for traffic.” Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria highlighted this proposal in an Oct. 15 news release. “Cities in Ontario have seen an explosion of bike lanes, including many that were installed during the pandemic when fewer vehicles were on the road and their impacts on traffic were unclear. Too many drivers are now stuck in gridlock as a result, which is why our government is bringing informed decision-making and oversight to bike lanes.”

Gridlock needs to be reduced on roads and highways. It’s been a massive bone of contention with provincial drivers for years.

Here’s an example. The Feb. 28, 2014 roundtable on gridlock and traffic congestion in Toronto held by then-deputy mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong produced some startling statistics. “If left unabated, the cost of traffic congestion is estimated to balloon to over $7.8 and $7.2 billion for commuters and the economy respectively,” he noted. “The economic potential being withheld by issues directly related to gridlock is immense.” More than a decade has passed. Toronto’s growing population has surely made gridlock and traffic congestion even worse and more costly. The Ontario PCs’ plan to take necessary steps to reduce gridlock is therefore the right strategy.

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Ontario also plans to increase speeds on provincial 400-series highways to 110 km/h “where it is safe to do so.” The PC government has been experimenting with this for a while. A 2019 pilot project received 80 per cent approval from respondents, which led to one-third of the 400-series highways acquiring higher speed limits in 2022. Everything has worked well to date.

This proposal is a long time in the making. Decades, in fact.

Speed limits on three Ontario 400-series highways (400, 401 and 417) and the QEW used to be over 110 km/h. They were lowered during two major international energy crises. One was related to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries placed an oil embargo on countries that supported Israel, which caused a global recession until 1975. The other crisis occurred due to the 1979 Iranian Revolution. This led to a drop in oil production and spiked the price of crude oil.

Why didn’t then-Ontario Premier Bill Davis re-establish the old speed limit after the second energy crisis ended? Some individuals and groups had arbitrarily reached the conclusion that reduced speeds made the highways safer for drivers. Many Ontarians accepted this analysis on its face and didn’t question it.

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Fortunately, several experts have pushed for higher speed limits on highways. University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute director Baher Abdulhai is one of them. He told the CBC on April 5, 2002 that Ontario’s highway speed limits were “outdated” and should reflect newer technology. “If the highways are straight and the geometry is favourable, then I don’t see why not … We are not proposing higher driver speeds, we’re proposing legalizing the current speeds.” He also told The Canadian Press on May 6, 2019 that there should be “dynamic” speed limits on major highways and stricter enforcement with radar technology in “vulnerable areas” like schools and construction zones. These are logical ideas that the Ford government should consider.

An additional proposal will be the creation of a “potholes prevention and repair fund.” The Ontario government is consulting with municipalities to identify the best path forward to deal with potholes that slow traffic and damage vehicles. This fund will hopefully be launched in 2025 as construction crews and road repair ramps up.

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These are all good ideas. Ontario’s war against the car has been going on for too long. It’s been largely aided by left-leaning environmental activists and academics who repeatedly push for slower highway speeds and more bicycles on the roads.

Both of these so-called solutions are badly flawed.

Slower highway speeds and a wide range of speed variations can potentially lead to more accidents and fatalities. Germany’s autobahn system has an advisory speed of 130 km/h, for example, and there’s no blanket speed limit for cars and motorcycles. While accidents and fatalities obviously occur, most German drivers are seemingly able to reach their destinations safely. And while there’s obviously nothing wrong with individuals and families riding bicycles for exercise and travel, Ontario doesn’t need more bike lanes to slow down the overall traffic flow to a near-crawl. Municipalities have to realize that, whether they like it or not, cars and trucks are higher priorities and more valuable financial resources than bikes ever will be.

Can Ford and the Ontario PCs bring an end to the war on the car? Time will tell. The key is in the ignition, and the political road will hopefully remain clear of any gridlock.

National Post

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