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Those who said that Toronto would come to a complete standstill and crumble into chaos if you reduced the number of lanes on multi-lane roads, using the space for bike lanes, were absolutely right. The storm last Sunday was proof positive of this. The snow reduced widths on hundreds of City roads and very few have yet to be returned to their full width.
Since the storm the City has not moved. The financial community is in complete chaos. Retailers are slapping up "Bankruptcy Sale" signs in middle of the Christmas rush. The Mayor is thankful that it is so cold outside, thousands of seniors are suspected of passing away in the ensuing chaos and if it was not for the cold the air would be filled with their rotting stench. Garbage is piling up and attracting rats wearing wool sweaters the size of poodles... or are those poodles abandoned by their overwhelmed masters.
Yes. Toronto is at a complete standstill. Things are hopeless and probably will not get any better until spring when those lanes get returned to us.
PLEASE DO NOT PANIC. STAY IN YOUR HOME. HELP IS ON THE WAY.
4 comments:
This is also true of the countless construction allowances where a lane is closed for a year or two when a building is going up. Traffic survives somehow. I wish someone were doing studies to show the effect of these and whether the lane really needs to be restored to regular traffic after construction.
(Or perhaps Ootes could get on the case of the construction industry for increasing idling.)
yes, it is astounding how road and building projects can constrain the roads but somehow life goes on.
The city may not have collapsed, but it has been sheer hell getting around this week for me. Fine while on the subway but the surface routes have been awful. My normal 20 minute bus ride to the subway has stretched to as much as an hour due to the constricted lanes. Did the sky fall in, no. Am I miserable, yes. Don't get me wrong, I'm agitating as loud as anyone for bike lanes. But I'm not so selfish as to do it at the expense of public transit riders.
True, restricting lanes may have an impact on transit but this isn't a closed system with only cyclists and transit being able to change. You are talking about the symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. The problem is that there are more cars than necessary on the streets. Whether those drivers get in a bus, on a bike, or just pile up 2-4 people per car doesn't matter to me but I don't think we should hold up progress in what is obviously the right direction because there are too many cars on the road. Get a congestion charge or restrict access to the city to cars with odd (or even) numbered plates on alternating days. Others from the 'burbs have to drop their car off at the most convenient commuter lot.
This cartoon seemed somewhat appropriate btw: http://tinyurl.com/2dawd7
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