HOT Lanes GTA
 

Oh my !! So after the failings of the empty, low use stupid Pan Am HOV lanes comes the HOT lane!!! FFS if I want to pay thru the nose to travel X town I will use the 407.

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/...-highways.html

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

Will they allow motorcycles to use the HOV lanes like they did during PAG?

Have they heard of motorcycles?

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

I Suppose, as long as 3 or more are riding on board, like they do in New Deli

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

That'd be more like 5 or more on board. They should pay the rider.

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What we need is more access routes into the City, not changing the ones we currently have to cost more...:zzz:

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

You mean build more roads??? :blink:

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

Duh.

Building more roads costs money. Tolls bring in money. Governments will almost always choose collecting higher taxes over spending more to fix a problem... because, you know, moar moolah.

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

Shouldn't they be called SOT lanes? :confused:

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

the more I look at this HOT lane pilot proposal, the sillier it sounds.

First, the stretch of road they've chosen: the 403/QEW through Burlington and Oakville. This is one of the more lightly-trafficked highway segments in the GTA. Sure, it does get a bit full during morning and evening peaks, but there are many times of day when it's actually quicker to use the general purpose lanes than the existing HOV when carrying passengers. And when it snarls up, the HOV lane is as often as not the worst affected.

Second, there's already an alternate route for toll-paying drivers. The 407 meets this road right where the HOV lane starts, and bypasses all the traffic to meet the 403 at the western edge of Mississauga. I suppose it's a little bit of bother to get back onto the Toronto-bound QEW from there, but if saving time is the object, it's probably still quicker than sitting in traffic through Burlington and Oakville. And it joins the 403 just where the HOV lanes start again through that section (but that lane is not proposed for an HOT trial). So, they're offering an HOT alternative that parallels an existing toll road, but where it might actually carry some traffic out of the general purpose lanes, it's not being offered as an option.

Anybody would think that the thing is being set up to fail - so that the government can maintain that they honoured a promise but that consultation and trials showed there was not sufficient demand and the whole program will be quietly dropped.

That would be no bad thing, IMO: what Toronto really needs is a good reason for people NOT to drive into downtown, not fiddles to make it easier to do so. I would implement what London has done: a congestion charging zone for anybody driving into downtown, with "free routes" for crosstown traffic on the 401 and Gardiner/DVP, and maybe a couple of others, but every exit ramp and junction from those exempt routes would trigger a $5 a day congestion charge. If a metropolis the size and scope of London can do that successfully, so can a middling provincial city like Toronto. Of course, it would take political will, so it won't ever happen here.

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

there's an "or" understood in there somewhere. Still available for High Occupancy, now with an added option of Toll. It's a crap acronym, but it was coined elsewhere (by a Merkin, and a Californian at that, so we ought to make allowances and forgive the lack of coherence...)

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

Standard transportation planning analysis has shown that if you build it they will come. In other words if you have a 2 lane road (in each direction) and you add a 3rd lane to each after a certain number of years traffic volumes will be back to the same level per lane that they were when it was 2 lanes. The perception will be that there is now a 3 lane road which will allow for quick journeys and enough people will go that way in the misguided belief that their journey will be quicker.

Large SUV's and pickup trucks that aren't used for farming or construction in large urban areas in Canada plus the relative low cost of gas plus the relatively low cost of car ownership has created a lot of this problem. The sprawly nature of our suburban areas has also created the high number of vehicles on the road compared to our population.

I'd be for the idea of charging once you get off a 400 series highway in the downtown area if you don't live there.

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

Amen. Can we have some transit now please?

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

That's what happens when you refuse to build enough transport capacity to meet demand. 'We built a new road, but those sick bastards who pay the transport taxes actually used it! It's not fair!'

But it's all kind of silly anyway. In twenty years, we'll rent a drone body at the destination when we need to 'go' somewhere. Roads will be just so passe.

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

Roads are already passe in more civilized countries.

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

What people fail to understand about this, is that sometimes people don't want to ride transit. For one, I like driving, and nothing can really live up to that. Its also alot quicker to hop in a car and drive someplace than to have to adhere to a specific schedule of the transit, etc etc. So the save the environment brigade can piss on people for driving all they want, but for the people that just want to drive, you aren't going to get them on a train or bus. I don't know, maybe its because i've grown up here and we've never used public transit very much, so its probably a cradle mentality.

I think "HOT" lanes are a good idea, but they've put them in a redundant spot where the 407 already exists. They should put them on the QEW heading eastbound towards the Gardiner/427 after it splits from 403. 401 already has a gazillion lanes, the QEW eastbound through Mississauga is the only one thats lacking IMO.

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

The crap transit is the biggest reason more dont use it. In BC including Vancouver its time consuming and over crowded much of the day.

My old bus route to work on avg was 2 times longer vs driving the same route.

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

Well yes, there is this too. Its never on time, dirty and overcrowded and thats one of the reasons it isn't appealing to drivers. But you just can't beat the convenience of driving.

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'Public transport' is always crap, because it goes from where you aren't to where you don't want to be via places you don't want to go. Until we can get a bus that arrives at our door at the time we want to leave, goes direct to where we want to be, and doesn't require us to share it with crazy people, we'll continue to avoid it if we can.

In theory, there's a bus that goes from a stop about ten minutes' walk from my house to a stop right outside where I work, but a) it takes nearly an hour vs fifteen minutes' driving, and b) half the time, the scheduled service doesn't run, and the bus from home terminates at the downtown depot where I have to catch another one for the rest of the route. And if my bus is late, that bus leaves before I get there, so I have to wait half an hour for the next one.

On one snowy day, the bus trip home took three hours. The car would have been slowed down by the snow on the roads, but I'd still have got home in half an hour.

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

Don't be silly. North Korea has plenty of roads. It's just that only the Great Leader is allowed to use them.

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

:nod:+1

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

My route took the same route you'd drive to get there, and the bus was right outside the house, and ran every 7 mins most of the day, however it stopped like every block, something like 85 stops between the house and work, there really needs to be less stops and people need to walk a bit more to speed the trips up.

Of course it doesn't help when drivers take a random break when already behind schedule further delaying the trip.

Commuter rail (heavy kind, not subway/light/sky train style) isn't bad, pretty comfortable, almost as fast as driving, and during rush hour sometimes faster, and generally has never been a sardine can. But there is only 1 route Mission to Vancouver, so it's useless to majority of the commuting public.

Re: HOT Lanes GTA
 

Apart from the ones where you want to get on and get off of course.

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No, I am more then willing to walk an extra block and go to stops every other block instead of every block.

Then for BC of course, most city's have piss poor transit, so driving is the only viable option.