UTTRI associated faculty Professor Baher Abdulhai is quoted in a recent article about Ontario’s Highway 413.
Abdulhai says in the article that “the highway would inflict ‘irreversible damage’ by further cementing the region’s dependence on the automobile, leading to more pollution and other negative effects,” and recommends more sustainable approaches, such as increasing transit or introducing highway tolls, to reduce car dependence and alleviate congestion.
Read more in the full article: “Doug Ford’s government says building Highway 413 will get us out of gridlock. Its own research suggests that isn’t true,” Toronto Star, November 24, 2021. [paywall]
Abdulhai shares his full thoughts on the issue:
Do motorists want more highways? Of course yes, much in the same way kids want more candy and ice cream. Responsible parents will say no. Although ice-cream can be satiating a tasty it is not a healthy choice, especially if it becomes a daily habit. It is not good for health on the long run even if it is momentarily joyful and satiating!
Make no mistake, I want one too, one of each, one highway and one ice-cream cone with maple crunch, but neither is healthy!
So, yes, a new highway in the GTHA will alleviate congestion quite a bit, initially. It is common sense. Split the 401 traffic on two freeways and they will run. It will be beautiful on day one. However, it will exacerbate trends of car dependence and induce more car-based travel, new trips, longer trips and trips taken away from the other modes such as GO transit. At equilibrium on the longer run, with induced demand, driving times will deteriorate compared to day one. However, the improvement will not be entirely negated, and travel times will not be as bad as they were before the highway, so some benefits will be sustained. The irreversible damage though is more car dependence.
Moreover, the highway may be of great help only along it route for the trips from it is beginning to its end, but what about upstream of it and downstream of it? While it will likely relieve the 401, it can very well overwhelm and deteriorate other roads before and after it. The net effect needs to be calculated and not speculated.
The solution is not more candy. Not eating candy is the painful but wise decision. The solution may not be a new highway.
I am not a fan of living in a shoebox condo which is neither feasible nor desirable for families, and these days not affordable either. Therefore I will not suggest moving people from the burbs to downtown TO.
The transportation problem in the GTHA, and everywhere else for that matter, is because demand for travel exceeds infrastructure supply. There is no singular solution. Solutions come in a basket as a portfolio of solutions. The solution for the GTHA is threefold:
- Demand reduction with congestion pricing and telecommuting;
- Sustainable infrastructure capacity expansion, particularly higher order rail such as GO rail, and better yet, electric GO rail;
- Intelligent management of both demand and supply using technology which is known as ITS.
Dynamic congestion pricing is not for creating empty roads. It is for pacing demand into the road network without gridlocking it. It is hard to explain to people that holding back a bit will result in faster travel, but it is true and scientifically proven. It shifts demand in time and space, to less congested periods of the day and less congested locations. It not intended to shift everyone and hence shift the problem elsewhere. It shifts only some demand to save the system from breaking down. It can also encourage mode shift to transit if transit capacity is there, which is a plus.
GO rail is a good alternative to the Gardiner. But where is the transit alternative to the 401? It does not exist and no one is talking about it. This is why the 413 seems direly needed.
Decades ago, there were thoughts about a crescent GO rail line connecting cities and hubs across the GTHA, but that thought seems to have evaporated! Would the GTHA be better off with a crescent GO line? It is at least worth investigating and modelling to come up with evidence-based answers.
Also, part of the solution for commuting, as COVID taught us, is more telecommuting. We survived without roads and without transit for two years. They were not fun two years but we certainly realized that working from home, for many, was a viable alternative. Therefore, telecommuting should be considered as a serious contender and a tool in the portfolio of sustainable solutions. It should be supported with policy.
As for the environment, the answer is electrification. Traffic will not disappear, no matter what, so we must electrify it to save the environment. The province should consider reinstating electric car incentives.
Last but not least, we live in the era of smart everything. Where are smart transportation systems in the GTHA? Smart traffic lights? Smart congestion pricing? Smart freeway control? Road reservation systems? These too are solution tools that reduce infrastructure breakdowns and reduce delays.
Finally, if we succumb to a new 413, it should be tolled and the revenue should be put in a crescent GO line. A win-win, maybe. It should also be used to suck trucks away from commuter routes, which is better for trucks and better for motorists.
But if a new highway is a bad thing, should we also dismantle existing highways? How many highways are the right number? I argue that one way to know whether we need more highways or more transit is to look at weekend traffic congestion, which is not that addressable with transit as opposed to the case of weekday commuting. Weekend congestion arises from trips that are not home-to-work single-person trips. They are often family-oriented and recreational in nature, and are not easy and not cost-effective to shift to transit. Weekend congestion may indicate need for highways. Weekday congestion, on the other hand, is better handled with commuter transit as it is predominately single-person home-to-work trips.
– Baher Abdulhai, PhD, Professor, University of Toronto