Is Lake Ontario the real reason you’re late for work?
When looking at the GTA's traffic troubles, it's hard not to compare our region with other city designs
Every day, tens of thousands of vehicles crawl through the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), nestled on the northern shores of Lake Ontario.
We know how bad the traffic is when it snows, but could the real villain be...Lake Ontario?
It didn’t have to be this way. To be blunt, Lake Ontario is in the way. Read ahead to find out why Lake Ontario is against your commute.
Why is Lake Ontario against your commute?
The City of Toronto utilizes a grided system of roadways, using a few north-to-south highway funnels that naturally create bottlenecks. This design doesn’t offer many diagonal shortcuts, adding more stress to the traffic flow. Toronto’s roadways grew out of original rail lines and the natural shoreline of Lake Ontario, which doesn’t optimize modern traffic flow.
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You can’t drive on water
Lake Ontario acts like a natural barrier, preventing southern expansion and forcing all urban development – and traffic, northward. This simple geographic constraint limits the amount of flexibility the system has and creates chokepoints along the network of roads.
Spiders know best
Unlike the literal gridlock of Toronto, many major cities use radial or ‘spiderweb’ road networks, which consist of ring roads and diagonal connections that disperse traffic more effectively.
Even if Lake Ontario occupies a chunk of the hypothetical radial network, it would still allow smoother commutes.
Most cities that use the radial road system approach have shorter commute times than Toronto.
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Notable spiderweb examples
Cities like Edmonton and Calgary utilize the radial approach in Canada, and routes such as Anthony Henday Drive and Stoney Trail in Calgary take advantage of this interconnectedness. Commutes in these regions are often about 10 minutes less than Toronto’s.
Going somewhere? Check out the current highway conditions before heading out!
The weather doesn’t help: Toronto’s traffic amplifier
Although Lake Ontario sets the stage for traffic nightmares, it’s the weather that increases the chaos. Here are a few of the main reasons:
1. Lake Effect snow - Occasionally, reverse snow squalls form in the winter when a cool, easterly wind passes over the moist lake, impacting the western end of Lake Ontario, and creating serious road hazards. Bursts of snow also occasionally overshoot Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, pushing through the GTA.
2. Foggy dangers - Fog in the GTA can be a frequent occurrence, especially in Spring and Fall. It’s often caused by temperature differences between the land and the lake. The thick fog can blanket the shoreline, lowering visibility to below 400 metres.
3. Slick elevated expressways - The Gardiner Expressway can be particularly slick and prone to icing hazards because it’s receiving cooling from not only above, but also below. This means the Gardiner can freeze before the ground-level roads, increasing the risk of skidding and losing control.
These unique weather-driven hazards exacerbate the already bottlenecked traffic in the region.
The Lake Ontario microclimate
In short, be prepared for everything. Because the lake regulates the temperature, it creates microclimates where conditions change dramatically over short distances.
For example, differences can exist between the shoreline and Vaughan and north of Highway 407, you could encounter numerous precipitation types during a single commute. An ever-shifting rain-snow line can create volatile driving conditions, so being over-prepared is an asset.
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Although significant weather often does impact the GTA, it’s not the root cause of the city's traffic woes.
The weather amplifies the pinch points of an archaic grid system of the roadways, so perhaps it’s time the city reimagines the road networks and how people commute. Lake Ontario’s beautiful geography has dictated Toronto’s layout, but it doesn’t have to dictate the future.