Freeway Widening: The Gift That Keeps on Giving (More Traffic)

Highway 401 in Toronto is purportedly the busiest freeway in North America -- and maybe even the world. Today we take a closer look at this enormous, expensive, and extraordinarily dangerous piece of infrastructure -- and dig into how public officials talk themselves into doubling down on a bad idea by repeatedly expanding freeways.
We'll also look at the current state of freeways widening in the US, and lessons we can learn from Canada's leadership in building and widening this kind of sustainable, greenhouse gas-reducing infrastructure.
Book recommendation! The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis, available here: amzn.to/3mhNjoE
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Or...buy it at your local independent bookseller!
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Previous CityNerd Videos Referenced:
- Stroad Case Study: Aurora Avenue in Seattle • To Improve a STROAD: H...
- Is LA Salvageable? Walkability and the Historic Streetcar Network • In Search of Walkable ...
- The Exclusive Bus Lane, the Lincoln Tunnel, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal • What a Tunnel Should D...
- Canadian High Speed Rail vs Plane vs Car • High Speed Rail vs. Ai...
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Resources:
- www.407etr.com/en/tolls/tolls...
- toronto.citynews.ca/2022/12/1...
- www.blogto.com/city/2022/12/c...
- www.infrastructureontario.ca/...
- files.ceqanet.opr.ca.gov/2694...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_R...
- www.kvue.com/article/traffic/...
- www.texastribune.org/2023/03/...
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Images
- Highway 401 at Weston Road By Haljackey - Own workPreviously published: www.flickr.com/photos/haljack..., CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Thousand Islands Parkway 1944 By Department of Highways - 1944 Annual Report, Department of Highways, Public Domain, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...
- 1963 Toronto Bypass By Ontario Department of Highways - Archives of Ontario (Series RG-14-162-2, Box B986, Photo #648-10), en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...
- Widening 401 to 12 lanes By Ontario Department of Highways (Ministry of Transportation of Ontario) - www.gettorontomoving.ca/Don_Va... (originally from Toronto Archives), Public Domain, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...
- Highway 401 1987 By GoldDragon (talk) - Aerial photo provided by uploader - GoldDragon (talk), CC BY 3.0, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...
- Collector-Express System By AlbertaScrambler - www.flickr.com/photos/6215362..., CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- 401 near Pearson Airport By Clashmaker - Cropped version of File:Highway 401.png, CC BY-SA 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- I-105 in Los Angeles By Tony Barnard, Los Angeles Times - digital.library.ucla.edu/cata..., CC BY 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Katy Freeway congestion By Aliciak3yz - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- L Train 6th Avenue Station By Gryffindor - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Highway 401 Thumbnail By AlbertaScrambler - www.flickr.com/photos/6215362..., CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Highway 401 shield Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
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Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (KZbin music library)
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Business Inquiries: [e-mail]

[@Capitanvolume]

The story of the 407 bypass and its privatization is also a great story about terrible policy.

[@flargus7919]

The Harris government's decision to lease out the 407 for 99 years at a huge discount, all for a one-time cash injection to balance a budget, is a topic that still grinds my gears even years after leaving the GTA and Ontario. It might just be the single dumbest, most short-sighted thing an Ontario government has ever done (and there are some real doozies in that competition).

[@kaitlyn__L]

I recently learned almost all new freeways are tolls just because the funding it easier to get (investors see the returns on decades of interest) than state funding, which is… so sad. The entire point of government funding is they can get access to the cheapest debt.

[@theearlofwellington]

Bump. I would be so interested to hear his thoughts on this abomination

[@alannagroen-brunsting]

Also interested. And also on the highway 403 drama.

[@oddhampton]

its

[@Zachthesloth]

The fact that you can get into your car at work, drive past the corpses of your fellow human beings for an hour at evening rushour, then sit down with the family to watch a reality tv show about the people who scrape those human beings off the pavement you just drove over is quite morose.

[@bnmaster6174]

Cyberpunk is real

[@realrobertdenby]

My wife drove past a corpse in LA last week, and she spent time searching the Citizen app and the news channels that day and found nothing. Traffic violence is so common here that several people have to die before it is even covered.

[@jamesmacleod9382]

@@realrobertdenby Maybe he wasn't quite dead yet.

[@thefrenchbastard1646]

well it wasn't me so it must have been there own fault:P

[@stevenfetzer4911]

The body is the least of my concerns. Where did the souls go for eternity?

[@_d0ser]

Thanks Larry Hogan for widening a bunch of highways and cancelling Baltimore transit! Love that for Maryland. We deserve it!

[@quinton1001]

Larry was himself and is close friends with real estate developers (not inherently a bad thing!) who built… suburban projects and large highway associated green field projects (bad thing!)

[@markmiiwurdz4016]

The sarcasm is so thick on this comment I'm having trouble getting through to the like button. Know that somewhere in my heart I liked it though

[@njv1234]

Red Line cancellation truly upset me, to the point of anger. Never been this upset at a Governor since the Civil Rights Era

[@geekboy328]

Apparently We Moore says he wants to build the red line?

[@MarloSoBalJr]

​@@geekboy328 Him saying it is one thing; actually committing to it is another thing

[@erikoftheinternet]

I was driving on the 401 this weekend. It's really insane how little tolerance there is for leaving a reasonable following distance. I use the radar cruise control in my corolla and it leaves about 4 or 5 second following distance. This drives people absolutely insane. They will swerve into the lane on my right, swerve back in front of me, then slam on the breaks so that they can fill that tiny gap.

[@bonne_vie]

Agreed. That's how you get that 100 car pile up.

[@sunglassesemojis]

Lol I notice this every time I drive. If you leave more than a couple car lengths in between you and the next car, someone is gonna fill it

[@Gigaamped]

Unpopular opinion: there should be some law or campaign to promote the use of cruise control for common sense sake

[@ElWiggie]

We're they driving a Pick-up Truck or oversized SUV by any chance?

[@erikoftheinternet]

@@ElWiggie often, just as often its a sedan, especially BMW, Benz, Audi

[@naturallyherb]

Two fun facts I learned from random people about the 407: a coach bus driver once told me that the 407 is the most expensive tolled highway in North America per mile or km. There was an aviation enthusiast group online where a pilot who regularly operate from Buttonville Airport say that pilots of single-engine aircraft regularly plan the 407 for emergency landings when the engine fails, because the 407 is so empty it is safe to land on all the time.

[@jacnel]

And in fact a plane that was due to land in Buttonville in 2021 did exactly that! No one was hurt either on the plane or the highway. Not even a multi-car crash. That’s how empty the 407 is.

[@Nabee_H]

As someone who lives right beside the 407 (Used to live right beside the 401 which is ironic), I have to add a 15-minute drive to my day to drive down onto the 401 because I dont have the money to pay for that Toll and your average Canadian doesn't have the money for it either! 5 dollars maybe even 10 dollars i would understand but paying 50 dollars to get to Toronto for work/school and another 50 dollars on the way back eats up most of what you make in a day.

[@michaelvickers4437]

It's interesting what seems to have happened with the Hwy 407 toll road. We have friends who moved into a swanky new housing development near the eastern end of 407 some years ago. The husband was an executive with a company in Toronto, and part of his compensation was they paid his 407 tolls. I realized that much of the new development happening near 407 was quite high end because the toll road had become a de facto executive private expressway.

[@bonne_vie]

Peasants can take the death express

[@nunyabidness3075]

What does the average user pay? It cannot be $70 a trip from the suburbs to downtown.

[@kevwwong]

@@nunyabidness3075 It's free, because the 407 is primarily East-West, and you need to head south to go downtown. :) But driving into downtown TO is a colossal headache on it's own, and I will take public transit vs driving every time if I can help it. And even then, it can be frustrating. They switched my GO Transit service from trains to buses (because they're doing work on the line) and what would've been a 40 minute train ride became a 90 minute bus ride thanks to - you guessed it - traffic.

[@nunyabidness3075]

@@kevwwong Lol. I gotta go look at a map. Is this the same road he talks about in the video? How is it an east west artery has so much demand if people are not commuting on it?

[@kevwwong]

@@nunyabidness3075 You might be confusing the 407 (toll road) with the 401. And I never said that people aren't commuting on the 401 (or 407). And certainly people might take the 401 a bit to commute downtown. But it really doesn't make sense to take the 407 to go downtown, since it acts like a I-2xx bypass and avoids Toronto. Hope that helps

[@michaeldrabenstott9756]

When your highway has its own reality show about crashes and deaths, you're way overdue to rethink your approach to transportation.

[@WoodenViking]

but… but that keeps the economy going tho

[@ecurewitz]

That’s what happens when you let the oil companies buy your government

[@user-pq4by2rq9y]

​@Francis Petrik it costs more for the economy too.

[@WoodenViking]

@@user-pq4by2rq9y as long as the money keep flowing bud, as long as it’s flowing

[@CityNerd]

You'd think

[@davidreichert9392]

As someone who grew up in suburban Toronto and now lives in the heart of the city, all I can say is that you are being far too nice. The roads everywhere in the GTA are an absolute abomination and the 401 is the crown jewel of car awfulness in this area (hence the crown on the sign). I'm still hopeful that the expanding public transportation will be of significant help, but even though there's a lot going on, it's still only scratching the surface of what is needed. The only silver lining I see is that the general public is slowly coming on board to the idea that a car centric society isn't so great.

[@50gramsof]

Thanks! I don’t really want more videos about how bad things are out there, but would love to know how to actually do something about the whole mess

[@Zachruff]

also we're spending so much money on refurbing one stupid elevated highway right through downtown that really needs to go.

[@uis246]

Society isn't car cantric, city is

[@toastandpoop]

EFF the Gardiner

[@moho472]

@@Zachruff Partial refurbishment. They want to spend over 3 billion to refurbish the Gardiner East. It's a waste of money.

[@niephasus]

Thank you for the spotlight on this blight on Toronto and the GTA. I appreciate how you highlighted the Province of Ontario's disgusting rhetoric on how widening highways and temporarily easing traffic is a net positive for greenhouse emissions. It is blatant pandering to a voter base that is so infuriatingly addicted to cars.

[@serbansaredwood]

It's incredibly frustrating I can't even. And Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass are being constructed over sensitive protected lands, and the government says they are solving climate change by making traffic idle less. 🤦‍♂

[@CityNerd]

You got it!

[@railfanhunterjacob6353]

@@CityNerd One of the main problems about Metra is it's North Central Service and Heritage Corridors as they have six trains a day into Chicago and six in the opposite direction on the North Central Service and three trains a day from and into Chicago on the Heritage Corridor and the schedules are so bad. It's one of the huge problems with Metra Another major problem with Metra is it's obsession with EMDs locomotives and their locomotives are aging quickly and EMD had been shut down since the mid-2000s, since Metra had refused to buy Amtrak's Genesis engines because they're not EMDs, they decided to come up with a stupid idea to convert older freight locomotives an SD70MAC into SD70MACHs Over the years, Metra has not received any funding to improve it's services and upgrading infrastructure. But a change of state or local government would help Metra, which is part of solving the problem The other problem is that Metra doesn't own all of their tracks as their tracks are shared with major freight companies around the Chicago area such as Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, CSX Transportation and CPKC Some of the freight companies would help Metra such as Union Pacific as Union Pacific recently announced that it would transfer of it's three Metra lines to Metra while Union Pacific owns the right of way and BNSF with helping Metra to extend Metra's BNSF Line to Kendall County, Illinois Others like CPKC, Norfolk Southern and CSX are just openly hostile towards Metra's commuter trains Metra has to buy out the right of ways of freight companies in cases like Norfolk Southern, CPKC and CSX in order for the state of Illinois to own the right of way for Metra Fun fact, Metra's North Central Service used to have 10 trains per day and they extended the trains to 22 trains per day in 2006 which became one of the most busiest Metra lines until 2020 when the pandemic hit. Another problem with Metra is that Metra and CTA are run as completely separate agencies with separate constituents and separate goals despite the fact that the people of Chicagoland travel within the region and often need both services, there is connectivity between the commuter and local rail services. These systems are not integrated very well at all. The downtown Metra terminals don't even directly connect with the CTA rail lines downtown (except Millennium Station). This severely limits the options of Metra commuters to transfer to CTA rail for destinations not in the Loop as well as Chicago commuters going into the suburbs. There are only a few direct connections between Metra and CTA rail. This just underscores the lack of regional planning, vision, or purpose between Metra and CTA politically and functionally to the great disservice of the people of Chicago. If CTA wants to connect with Metra, they need to upgrade Chicago Union Station, Ogilvie Transportation Center and LaSalle Street Station for CTA to connect with Metra and have CTA have it's own yard A lot of it needs to be addressed about Metra

[@blakksheep736]

Yeah, I've heard BS, plenty of it, but touting something that will increase car use as "good for the environment" is a new flavour of ridiculous I hadn't yet tried. So, thanks gov, I guess.

[@EvanLeibovitch]

If you want to see a masterclass in Ontario pandering to developers and suburban sprawl, check out the marketing of Highway 413.

[@maumor2]

"They just dont give you the sense of freedom you get when you're sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on a newly expanded Interstate" BOOYAH!!!!!! MIC DROPPING EMOJI NEEDED

[@sashaespinosa3099]

"gets drivers home to their loved ones faster" sure, if they mean heaven

[@toastandpoop]

my eyes popped out of my head! having spent some time on the 401, esp from the late 80's to 2000....and revisiting in 2018,,, how did they manage to make things SO MUCH WORSE!

[@tonywalters7298]

And despite the investment in new roads and highways, commute times continue to increase, and average speeds decrease, so we are effectively throwing the money into a black hole.

[@dbolt6543]

Easyily, they are a government run project.

[@kevwwong]

I can't be certain, but I think it comes down to one man, Mike Harris, and the perfect storm that swept his PC party into power.

[@toastandpoop]

@@kevwwong NJB did a good video about the making of the GTA.

[@kevwwong]

@@toastandpoop Not a big fan of NJB. But I'll give you the thumbs up because I think other people might like the content there. I've found CityNerd and RM Transit are more to my liking.

[@steadystate4015]

On a North American road trip in 2002, I drove on 401 from Windsor to Toronto at night while it was snowing. The amount of truck wreckage in the center divider was too much to count. I made it while holding my steering wheel for my life. That and all the speeding/skating/honking giant trucks killed any preconception I had that all of Canada is nice & polite.

[@NebulonRanger]

There was a MASSIVE pileup on the 401 near Belleville in like 2016, because the Ford government cheaped out on snow removal

[@carlinthomas9482]

@@NebulonRanger The Ford government wasn't in power in 2016, that was the Wynne/McGuinty government.

[@stringlarson1247]

My in-laws live in Windsor. I drove that stretch of 401 during snow, rain, etc. to/from TO a number of times. The bit out of Windsor was (is?) brutal. I've not been on it for almost 20yrs now, so I don't know what it's like now.

[@Ont785]

You driving in a snowstorm in the middle of the night, and you’re upset at other people? Really? Doesn’t sound like you’re to Canadian

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

Oh Canadians are generally quite polite until they pack into their private two-tonne tin cans.

[@Skip6235]

I am a civil engineer who has worked in both the US and Canada, and I can confirm that highway widening is a bad idea. I’ve found that even if the planners and engineers think it’s a bad idea, though, politicians get involved and that’s the end of it. Without naming specifics, I did a congestion study for a major suburban highway in a very very very large US city. I concluded that widening it was not going to have a significant effect on delay. My boss pulled me into a meeting and told me “I read your report, I need you to conclude that we need to add two more lanes in each direction, because it’s already been decided that that is what they are going to do.” Sure enough, several years later, it’s four lanes wider and traffic is still just as bad.

[@omeganik]

Thats sad

[@russetwolf13]

Hope you kept the report and sent it off after you quit.

[@mr.ducarbre9065]

Wouldn't this go against your professional ethics when you have your PE license ? Sorry for asking, I'm currently finishing my bachelor's degree in civil engineering and I'm quite intrigued on how I should react in this situation.

[@robthomas5827]

I've had the exact same experience as a planner. We're always producing EIS docs to comply with NEPA and there's almost no consideration made for the "no build" design alternative. Management basically gives the direction to make sure the document concludes that the project has to be built - even though the project really doesn't.

[@jintsuubest9331]

​@@mr.ducarbre9065 It depends on where you works, but values of ethic ranges from none to divided by 0. Do you want your promotion? Do you want your bonus? Or you want to be replaced?

[@DWNY358]

AI got at least one thing wrong. The 401, an Ontario provincial highway, by definition goes nowhere near Quebec City. Rather, it ends at the Quebec border where it gets renumbered as Quebec Autoroute 20, which is what goes near Quebec City and beyond.

[@purplerabbit638]

Was about to point out the same thing.

[@knarf_on_a_bike]

I happen to live in Toronto. About 15 years ago I had a minor medical emergency, and went to (true story!) Sunnybrook emergency. A major pile-up occurred on the 401 and I sat in the waiting room and watched about a dozen gurneys rush by with bloodied, moaning bodies on them. It was pretty gross. So yeah, your story about Sunnybrook is a true one. So glad I don't own a car. . .

[@bensteedman100]

This is the type of video I've been waiting for. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Toronto and always hated my life being stuck in traffic on the 401. Now I've moved out to Vancouver for university, a city with no major freeways, and the quality of life difference is night and day. I can get most of my trips done by bike, and if I want to go downtown for a night out, I'll take the bus. Really amazing what living in a city with no major freeway does to your mental health. Maybe that's a good video topic?

[@theold1.]

ditto

[@locholoco]

Sure and you have to stop eating to pay rent... I was there 2 weeks ago and took me 1,5 hours to get to the airport as there are no highways.. No other options were available

[@pianoman47]

​@@locholoco other than the sky train 😉

[@rokulus7910]

Vancouver has plenty of freeways. The suburbs are for all intents and purposes still Vancouver. Toronto and Vancouver are quite similar in that the central parts of both are very walkable with a great quality of life while the suburbs are sprawling hellscapes. My experience of daily life in Toronto rarely includes freeways.

[@rabbit251]

I'm an American living in Tokyo. I couldn't imagine the city surviving without the train system. And the trains are very busy packed during rush hour, and they run every 10-15 minutes during that time. And popular lines have many cars. Before I moved here a friend and I drove up to Disneyland at night. All highways in Japan are toll roads. I was surprised that when the highway got to Tokyo, it remained 2 lanes. At night the highway was filled with delivery trucks. Also surprising, Japan isn't embracing all electric vehicles but instead is relying on hybrids. I've lived in Tokyo now 4 years and really don't even know where the highways are. If you were traveling across the city you would take the train and then a taxi. Cars are only for local (going to the supermarket) or long distance travel (going on vacation). Having a car in Tokyo is also expensive. When you buy a car you must also have proof of a permanent parking space. A space in my condo costs $300/mo.. Plus, every 3 years you must pay to have your car inspected and any defects found must be repaired before you can drive it. We are also just ending "Golden Week" in which Wednesday - Friday are holidays and so everyone travels. The highways were packed, so were the bullet trains. We went up to Yamagata by bullet train, then paid a taxi $300 to drive us over the mountains to Sendai (5 hour drive). From there we took bullet train back home. The road over mountain was packed. Pretty sure Japan is looking into building a train across the north.

[@MrGriff305]

1 more lane absolutely helps

[@EvanEscher]

I really like what you said at 5:15: "The marginal value of a freeway lane declines with each one you add" That applies to a lot of things in life.

[@nullifye7816]

arguably all of them

[@UnicornDreamsPastelSkies]

Indeed, the ratio of quality VS. quantity.

[@kelvinhelmholtz]

Civil engineers are taught in their first transportation engineering class that adding lanes doesn't alleviate congestion - it's been that way for decades - they are not the ones telling tax payers they need more lanes.

[@Droidman1231]

I'm still shocked the toll is $70 to bypass Toronto on the 407. I've seen some high tolls before but you can even drive the entire Florida Turnpike, 250+ miles, through multiple major metro areas and it only costs like ~$20.

[@Urbanhandyman]

They use the metric system which is different.

[@moho472]

It's also because Highway 407 is privatized. The Harris government sold it on a 99 year lease, and everybody realizes it was a stupid decision.

[@jacktattersall9457]

Highway 407 ETR is privately owned, so the tolls are set to make them a nice profit. It was one of the worst privatizations ever, because the province sold/long-term leased the highway for less than it cost to build.

[@NebulonRanger]

Yeah, elsewhere in the country where there're tolls it's WAY cheaper; the bridge across the St. Lawrence outside Montreal is a flat $2.50 and NS-104's Cobequid Pass toll section is like $4, and that's only if you have out-of-province plates. Only one that comes close is the Confederation Bridge at something like $63, and, much to the chagrin of Islanders, that only applies when *leaving* PEI.

[@jacktattersall9457]

@@NebulonRanger so then a two way trip on the Confederation Bridge would be $31.50 one way.

[@banovsky]

THANK YOU for following up on your 401 hints and making this video. What can I add? As both a GTA daily cyclist and automotive writer, it’s incredibly frustrating to watch local councils & provincial gov’ts continue to pour gas on highway building over several decades. Such terrible investments that have held back many areas of the city from truly flourishing.

[@shturmovik3033]

When I moved to The Netherlands in the 90s, I was appalled when I found out that the Dutch were changing a traffic lane to a bike lane ion a 4 lane road in the The Hague. I later met an official with the traffic planning authority and I quizzed him on why the planners were going retrograde on their traffic issue in the Northern part of the city. His answer was the idea was to “force everyone to ride bicycles and public transportation.” I thought these guys were nuts until I had lived there for another 2 years…and rather than traffic getting worse, it actually got better. The entire country can apparent exist without cars since their bicycle and public transportation net is that good.

[@crisissocoylike446]

It's true!! The Netherlands is the best country to be a car guy because there's hardly ever any traffic

[@lexburen5932]

@@crisissocoylike446 false. we still have a lot of problems with congested traffic here, especially because of comments like you, car guys come here, and congest our roads. Better use a bycyle and public transportation. Or have a car, but use that for further away distances, and do grocerys, and visiting family or whatever with public transportation. We are currently making even more lanes dissappear, make them to bycycle lanes, and improve our public transportation infrastructure. We are also forcing cars out of our city centers and nearby areas. Utrecht center is completely car free, you wanna park? Sure do that outside the city center, and take public transportation ( bus, tram) to go to the city center. This is our new model wich we are working very HARD on, as car infested people and oil companys try to undo all this, but this is futile. we will ban cars from our city centers, and make everyone cycle, walk or take public transportation near and inside city centers. the total oppossite from the USA. :)

[@crisissocoylike446]

@@lexburen5932 I thank you for correcting me. And I think that's so cool. I can't wait to visit your country and appreciate your people's civil engineering

[@knutthompson7879]

Your deadpan sarcasm on this, especially the bit starting at 11:18 is ...

[@thedownwardmachine]

The purpose of freeway widening is not to alleviate traffic. The purpose is to alleviate the complaints of constituents while covertly enhancing total flow for local business interests.

[@kaitlyn__L]

This! What it’s sold as isn’t what it’s sold for.

[@tonywalters7298]

There are plenty of people who think cars are the only way people can access businesses.

[@linuxman7777]

This, because stroad business have more leverage than downtown business this is the case.

[@josephfisher426]

@@linuxman7777 What downtown business? (Consumer business, anyway... there are plenty of corporate offices specializing in acquiring government money.)

[@tonywalters7298]

@@josephfisher426 urban renewal is a very sad chapter in our history. Unfortunately a main driver of suburbanization was racism aka white flight as a reaction to racial integration

[@patrickhehl9881]

Oh I love to see my home highway in the thumbnail. Even before I started learning about urbanism and transportation I always felt that adding a lane to the 401 didn't help a single thing, ever.

[@humanecities]

3:30 Wow… That’s depressing. Every time someone dies in a crash, it’s just part of life 😢

[@winterwatson6811]

feels like we still practice human sacrifice

[@roger1818]

The reason that the toll on the 407 is so high is that the government decided to privatize it with a99 year lease. The private company sets the tolls and have done so to maximize profit. If you double the toll but loose fewer than half the cars as a result, you are making more money. The under utilization of the 407 is one of the key reasons that the 401 is so busy.

[@GONINSANE]

One of the reasons why I am not opposed to the potential 413 project. 407 in its current state isn't a viable alternative for average people. Regional rail is only good for funneling people into the Toronto core, but it's useless to anyone who needs to travel through Toronto or north of Toronto. Another idea is subsidizing transport trucks to use 407, but the costs would be so high. Probably could build two 413s with that money.

[@davidfroth]

We’re broken and I don’t see much hope for fixing things soon, although I really do appreciate you speaking truth to this and other urban issues. The problem is particularly stark for me, having just returned from a couple of weeks in Japan. Hope you get to spend some time over there - would love to see some video commentary covering their transit system, land use rules, housing policy, and of course youth mobility independence!

[@DaDoubleDee]

Every time I'm on the 401 I feel like I'm about to die. Between cars flying by at 150km or tailgating you at 120km, I often dream of how life would be if they replaced all the lanes with train tracks and had ten tracks instead of ten highway lanes, how they could connect to all the suburbs.

[@1978dkelly]

Can't wait to see RM Transit and Not Just Bikes chime in here.

[@anthonyfox477]

Came for the hard hitting reporting; stayed for the world class snark. -A satisfied consumer

[@beanniederjohn1867]

I’m from Wisconsin and currently in Mexico. The walkability difference is insane.

[@zachweyrauch2988]

yup you would think given that we have SIGNIFICANTLY more space than many other places in north america, we might not have made such egregious errors, and here we are the worst offender.

[@lockphilip]

I am a transit user. Taking a GO Bus from Barrie to Toronto can take 3 hours due to heavy traffic around 401 interchanges. In 2007 - 2013, I could get to Toronto in 90 minutes on a greyhound bus.

[@sillasbispo7518]

i loved the 'keep calm and hoje tem churrasco shirt in the background' ! greetings from Brazil! Much love!

[@GladmanNow]

Riding my electric bike through Minneapolis traffic I often thank the cars and trucks for being what they are as an attempt to paradoxically embrace the awful present as an invitation to some wiser future. Spell check has a sense of humor and suggested I was inviting a wider future. Love will win but it may take some 😢.

[@philpaine3068]

One of the earliest successes of Canadian television was a series called "Cannonball," which ran in 1958 and 1959 and was syndicated in the U.S. It was based on the super-coolness of being a truck driver on the 401, where the outdoor sequences were shot. A crabby old and snarky young pair of truck drivers work on the glamorous futuristic superhighway, having thrilling adventures every week. The show's theme song was composed and sung by Merle Haggard! Episode titles include "Nitro Haul," "Trip to Buffalo," and "Moose Hunt," (can't have a Canadian TV series, no matter how futuristic, without a moose appearing in it). This show, probably more than Leave It to Beaver or Father Knows Best, is a window into the bizarre world view of 1950s North America. . . . I remember the first time I was driven through the infamous "basketweave" interchange of the 401 and marvelling at what seemed to be a science fiction dream --- but, of course, I didn't have to do the driving. Grown up, I ended up working in a suburban office building where the cafeteria windows had a good view of the continuous 401 carnage. Extra points in the betting pool if there was visible smoke and flames. Now I live in the heart of the city, where local politicians are at least passably urbanist, but the Tory provincial government, led by the brother of the infamous coke-snorting Rob Ford, controls the highways, and it still lives in the 1950s. . . . One of the truly pull-out-your-hair-with-your-bare-hands frustrations of the early 2000s was that, as soon as Highway 407 was built, the Tories "privatized" it..... selling it to a consortium controlled by the Spanish government, ensuring that all the money Ontarians spent on tolls not only left the country and went directly to Spain, but that all that money went to building high speed rail for the Spanish!

[@zachweyrauch2988]

I really think money export is a large issue in canada. Most of the commerce here is controlled by monopolies and almost anything else people need they get from amazon.... thats not alot of potential for re-investment.

[@HumanInk]

Meanwhile in NH, the Boston commuter rail extension is DOA (again), but the Rt. 3 highway widening is well under way.

[@tomgeraci9886]

Ouch. The NH Boston suburbs (Salem, Nashua, Plastow, etc) have insane sprawl and commuter rail needs to be expanded there asap, but of course NIMBYs are gonna nimby

[@HumanInk]

@@tomgeraci9886 mostly people around here still think self driving cars will be coming to save us.

[@NebulonRanger]

Haha, talking about DOA commuter rail projects, Bowmanville (my hometown, a not insignificant place with about 50k people in it) has been promised a GO station for the past 50 years and it still hasn't happened

[@frempy4426]

Your irony and sarcasm just keeps getting more powerful with each video 😤

[@runswithraptors]

This may be one of your best videos yet 👍👌keep it up

[@PlanetLinuxChannel]

It’s so weird, because Toronto (and most major Canadian cities for that matter) is doing so much right. Better transit, more workability, better cycling infrastructure, making wide suburban streets more ped / bike friendly, and for the most part, not building any more highways. Even the Ontario Ministry of Transportation has agreed that widening highways generally doesn’t help and they have stopped doing it for the most part. But we just can’t help it with the 401! Probably because it’s trying to catch up to decades of massive population growth. I think we’ve all accepted that it’ll always be bad and to just always find alternate routes unless the navigation says it’s perfectly clear! The one benefit is that most of Toronto’s highways (including much of the 401) intentionally avoid the dense urban centres, so it’s not like there are giant highways running through downtown (the closest the 401 gets to downtown is almost 4 miles away) Finally, that Toronto to Montreal high-speed-rail plan looks like it’ll be happening, and Toronto is starting a transformation of their commuter rail network into an all-day, high-frequency regional rail network (Deutsche Bahn is helping implement it). You should definitely look into covering the “GO Expansion” project. (unless you’ve done it already? I’ll have to take a look!)

[@HipsterShiningArmor]

yeah as bad as the 401, can you imagine how much worse it would be if it was, like, lodged between Queen and Dundas? cuz thats the situation that some american cities are unfortunately dealing with rn. horrifying to think about.

[@mitchc802]

The amount of sarcasm that you manage to stuff in a single video continues to amaze me

[@spastikman]

The last half is by FAR the most angry sarcastic video I've ever seen you make, haha! I loved it

[@tking3]

So much great sarcasm and dark humor here (slightly more the usual). Great stuff. Keep them coming!

[@mikekeenanphd]

As a resident of Houston for 34 years, I try to avoid the Katy freeway. There is little more depressing: 24 lanes of traffic near my office. I have driven on it maybe twice in the last 5 years.

[@ezeewrap66]

New viewer, old activist. Love the sarcasm. Also the truth telling about the politics of engineering/road building. I grew up near the 401. I did not know the story about Sunnybrook Hospital.

[@barrylinder1373]

I think your videos are best when you delve into the details. This video was too superficiial. Thanks for the channel.

[@jenandreas841]

I'd be delighted to hear more lambasting of the Katy Freeway. The fact that an earlier highway expansion ate the commuter rail line that used to run parallel beside it is particularly juicy.

[@caseyjones5145]

Great video! this channel is exceedingly adequate!

[@jthummell]

Hoping you can make a video on how people can fight things like this and make a difference in their home town/cities!

[@Sudz3]

The issue is that the "bypass" to get around toronto doesn't exist. the GTA area is SO LARGE it adds so much time to take a rural route around it. the 407 was supposed to be this, but it actually, literally, 100% true - costs $80 (EIGHTY!!!!) to drive around the GTA from Burlington to hwy 115/35. Its nuts.

[@JM-gs1gr]

The most amazing thing about this video is how you got pictures of the 401 with absolutely no cars on it. That is a miracle.

[@b_uppy]

If they can widen roads, they can add rail instead. Rail adds water permeability as well as real equity while taking up less overall space. We need more space for housing and trees rather than road space. Switzerland has rail so good even the rich use it, and therefore it is also well run. Likely the government should takeover ownership the rail itself, in addition to adding a lot more freight and passenger rail. Let private individuals and railway lines have access.

[@TheRandCrews]

I’ve seen rich people like office workers in suits be beside construction workers on the TTC Subway before when I was there but that’s because Toronto is so car centric still that it’s traffic everywhere. Was surprised to see subway have park & rides not just at the Commuter/GO Train stations.

[@b_uppy]

@@TheRandCrews In Switzerland rail is much better done, and more enjoyable. Think if they offered free wifi people would overwhelmingly opt for it because of the personal productivity increase.

[@TheRandCrews]

@@b_uppy oh truly TTC Subway has barely any cell service unless you’re a freedom user, Wifi are only on some of the stations and it works somewhat. Compared to Montreal Metro with better cell service, with their new REM trains having on board wifi as well, Vancouver as well having cell service underground.

[@ceruleanstone]

They are adding rail. Lots of it. The RMTransit channel does a great job of covering it, if you're interested.

[@andrepoiy1199]

Highway 401 actually wasn't just gradually adding lanes over the years. It used to be 4 lanes but it got expanded to 12 lanes in one go in the 1970s under the assumption that it will be future proof for any increases in traffic. If they had built it by adding lanes over the years, it probably would not have gotten this wide because of right-of-way. In the 70s the 401 corridor was pretty much empty and so they had the room to expand to 12 lanes.

[@sebastianignat8372]

Having been waiting for this for so long! Torontonian here

[@brucewilkinson8599]

Great video, Ray.

[@harrisonthorburn7415]

I grew up in the GTA and now live on its western edge. One thing we could use is a GO line (commuter rail for the uninitiated) that parallels the 401 and another that follows the 407. That would help people cross the city and change trains without the wasted time of going all the way to downtown Toronto and changing at Union station.

[@HipsterShiningArmor]

the Milton GO line doesn't exactly parallel the 401 but its still a pretty solid alternative that runs in the same general direction that also stops in some actually surprisingly dense neihgbourhoods in Etobicoke and Mississauga and, yknow, causes far fewer accidents. or at least it would be a decent alternative if canadian pacific would stop being buttholes and would sell the line already and let metrolinx run trains in both directions all day at 30 minute headways, which it very easily could have the ridership for.

[@mdhazeldine]

I ride on the 401 a few times a year to visit my Canadian in-laws. I usually think of Canada as "a bit like a America, but less people and less bad", so when I discovered the 401 and it's amazing accolade, my first question was WHY? Why did they feel the need to build something so massive and why is it so busy. I live in London (UK) and our M25 is bad, but it's not a patch on the 401. I think one reason is because Toronto is on a lake edge, you can't split the traffic around either side of the city in a ring road, but they made a good effort with the QEW (another horrible road). But also I think it's because Toronto is pretty massive and the public transit, while some of the best in North America, is still woefully under built for the size of city it is. There aren't many other options if you want to go around/past the city. Regional rail is terrible and commuter rail is below average. The good news is that they're not starting to build and improve a lot of it, so there's finally some hope.

[@Hogtownboy1]

the 401 was built when the population of toronto was and suburbs was 1.4 million it is now 6 million

[@mdhazeldine]

@@Hogtownboy1 That's quite some growth.

[@Hogtownboy1]

@@mdhazeldine fastest growing in North America for 50 years until 2016

[@davidreichert9392]

Part of the problem is also because the Windsor Quebec City Corridor, where more than half of Canadians live, is basically one long thin strip, as you elude to, proximity to the lakes and the St. Lawrence. It's been that way since the earliest European settlement in this part of the world. So basically almost all travel between places in the corridor involves driving along the 401 / A40 (same highway different provinces). The only cities of consequence in the corridor that don't lie on this stretch are Ottawa and Hamilton Niagara. So this one artery has to bear much of the load.

[@mdhazeldine]

@@davidreichert9392 All the more crazy that they haven't bothered to build HSR yet. It's perfectly setup for it.

[@the23er]

Not to dismiss your Top10 Videos, they are good and well made and researched, but i like to see this single topic video. This is more engaging for a european, as i am not debating which city to move to or dont. :)

[@briansieve]

Thanks for your usual outstanding content.

[@Souleymanbane]

Grateful for your channel! Always a great time, and highly educational. Thinking of taking a trip to Chicago because of you

[@profjonb6944]

Make sure you avoid driving on 90/94 like your life depends on it, because it probably does.

[@gurrierpl]

You got inspired by the waterfront freeway episode? :D

[@UserName-ts3sp]

@@profjonb6944 it’s definitely an interesting drive. chicago has a lot of bats outta hell drivers. compared to other cities you really gotta be alert

[@ninabeena83]

Just want to say how much I thoroughly enjoy this channel’s content and yes, absolutely love when you roast the absurdities of my local area’s (Houston) insane traffic and sprawl issues 😊

[@Towboatin]

It's absolute hellscape.

[@adam4n1um]

You really pulled no punches in this one. As much as I enjoy your wit and sarcastic methods of criticism, I really appreciated the bluntness of this video. This is malpractice and corruption plain and simple

[@edgarrodriguez8973]

Love your sense of humour, keep on this great trajectory, I enjoy your channel each day more. Greetings from Bogotá Colombia

[@levioficeland1425]

I love when you start talking ironically because your tone doesn't change at all, I follow along until you say something like "carbon-reducing infrastructure such as the Katy freeway" and I just lose it every time lmao. Please never change CityNerd

[@Token_Nerd]

My one qualm with this video is your last point on civil engineers being bad at city design. As a civil enginerd myself, I can confidently say that the disasters the Finch West LRT and Eglinton Crosstown LRT (as well as pretty much North American low floor LRT in general) is failure caused by leaving effective transit design to planners and architects who figured putting trains in the middle of a busy stroad with stops every half mile or less was an effective way to convince people to take transit.

[@bluegill5802]

I believe these videos reach people and will incite positive change. Keep it up, I really appreciate your work

[@j.n.sloane]

Dude! Excellent video and your sarcasm is brilliant! Thank you!!!!

[@AndreBeverly]

Imagine instead of widening the lanes they used a portion of that to space to put rails in the place.I have only been to Chicago once and when I saw the train in the middle of the highway I was wondering why they don't do that more.

[@UserName-ts3sp]

it’s a really good idea and more cities should do it. in my city they’re building these “smart lanes” for rush hour, and honestly it wouldn’t be a bad idea for rapid bus transit between downtown and the airport.

[@martylawson1638]

Afik, while a train down the middle of the highway is a great way to add capacity without building a new right-of-way, it ham-strings the stations. I.e how much land is within a 10min walk of the station when half of it is a 20-lane highway?

[@UserName-ts3sp]

@@martylawson1638 can build some kind of cap over it. 200-300 feet for one so it depends on what’s close to the freeway. if it bulldozed through a neighborhood it can easily work, less so for suburban sprawl

[@rjmcallister1888]

I've been on the 401 and the QEW between Toronto and Buffalo in afternoon drive. All the stories are true. Took well over four hours to get back to the US from Rogers Centre.

[@NebulonRanger]

Yeah, the 401, QEW and especially the Gardiner are absolutely atrocious. Went out to the IKEA in North York back when I lived at the edge of the old city limits, GPS directed me to take the Gardiner to Dixie. Listening was one of the biggest mistakes of my life LOL

[@supersnivy48]

Nice Synchro output sheet you got there, truly the traffic engineer’s bread and butter

[@josea7804]

As a Civil Engineer PE I 100% agree with your soapbox rant at the end.

[@donmc1950]

I remember driving on the 401 in the late 50s when it had less cars and less stress. Fast forward to today , when I go to Toronto I take the expensive toll road 407 which is like the 401 in the 1950's. Next time I go to Toronto I plan to take the Bus which is now cheaper than the 407 tolls and the cost of fuel. It will take one hour longer but I can read and use my wifi on the bus.

[@Strawberria]

I grew up in Rhode Island, where the area code is 401, so whenever channels like this would refer to it, I'd just kinda wonder why they were talking about Rhode Island. Also I had no idea Titanic Terrarium was talking about a Canadian highway! I love how decades later I'm still learning the meanings of Tragically Hip songs. None of this has anything to do with the content of the video, but still. I learned things today.

[@meltingtomato]

Finally, the Toronto episode!

[@livinlavidaloki2158]

Thanks for shedding light on this! Our 2 lane freeway is heading this direction and I am not happy

[@ethanshelton2261]

Great vid! I recently just went to a city planning commission meeting in my neighborhood and found the amount of NIMBYs there to be overwhelming and discouraging. While many of them seem passionate about the community. It feels as if they’re being led astray by developers in the area. Would you ever consider doing a video on local politics and it’s effects on walkable mixed use development?

[@pianoman47]

Great idea!

[@nicokelly6453]

That mention of Houston was so deserved. Source: my family drives the I-10 and Katy Freeway pretty regularly. At least there have been *some* steps made toward better public transit thanks to METRO, but living even a small ways out from downtown is a transportation nightmare, and so many people are still so ignorant of the major damage it's done to the city for not nearly enough gains to justify it yet another lane.

[@theold1.]

Yes more freeway videos, it's cathartic to hear someone diss them sarcastically for 15 minutes.

[@aprilmg7072]

"Let's hear it for human progress" the deadpan delivery made me laugh so hard.

[@jtsholtod.79]

Do you know who owns the majority (50.01%) of the 407 ETR? The Canada Pension Plan (more specifically its investment board). Which means its revenue goes to providing retirement income for Canadians. That's pretty savvy, but if you want to be even more shocked, just look up what the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan owns (and has owned in the past).

[@matthewgasparin7000]

CPP owns so much infrastructure, it’s crazy if you look deeper into it. It’s easily one of the largest retirement and wealth funds in the world.

[@alquinn8576]

they had a smallish investment in FTX lol

[@matthewgasparin7000]

@@alquinn8576 CPP had not invested in FTX. only the teachers pension did.

[@coby3357]

Watched this on Nebula but I had to come to KZbin just to comment on the pervasive sarcasm which adorns this video. A gloriously dismissive facetiousness that is so rich and viscous you could drizzle the pure disdain on a stack of pancakes... or crepes or whatever they eat in Canada. Thanks for this video. Keep up the good work, eh.

[@bobsykes]

Thanks for the book recommendation!

[@TravelsWithTony]

Mind numbing that anyone can think 50% more cars = less greenhouse gases! That said, are there any plans to add elevated trains along/in the middle of the 401?

[@Knackebrot]

Great video. Love the more broad view that doesn't just apply to the US, but is also applicable to car infrastructure projects around the world

[@tonywalters7298]

The only way to solve car congestion is to provide better alternatives to driving. And also why mixed traffic bus and tram lines are inefficient

[@clamato54]

Interested in not only their greenwashing but how exactly do they measure the economic benefits of a freeway, or has it ever been measured?

[@DSAhmed]

I love the sarcasm of this channel.

[@primeechoes8297]

Toronto is such a confusing place when it comes to transportation. While it easily has one of the most ambitious transit expansion plans in North America at the moment (multiple new LRTs, new TTC lines, and extensions, and GO Regional Express Rail), it also continues to aggressively widen highways throughout the region. Ultimately, I think it really comes down to a failure of planning the peripheral centres of the GTA, they are becoming dense and populated (as well as evolving into major employment centres in their own right), but are not being hooked into a transit system that allows non-Toronto-centric transportation between them. The greatest example of this is Mississauga, a city of approx 750,000, and it possesses the second largest employment centre in the country (Pearson Airport) but is mostly disconnected from the greater transit network. Only in the last 10 years has there actually been any effort to link the airport to Rapid Transit. The most efficient way to get there from the vast majority of places is to use the 401/403/407/QEW.

[@kevincui5282]

Wow, watching this video about Highway 401 brought back memories of living in the GTA. I remember every time driving on that freeway and feeling like I was part of this massive parking lot. It was definitely always stressful, but also kind of exhilarating in a way. I remember one of the first things my family would show our friends and family visiting Toronto was Highway 401, and they're almost always awestruck at how impressive it was. But now, I'm realizing that maybe that infrastructure isn't such a good thing after all. It's expensive, dangerous, and only perpetuates our reliance on cars.

[@ameenwalli-attaei6343]

I dream of replacing some 2-4 lanes of Highway 401 with a transit way for all the existing + more regional buses to all use and we would have a bunch of regional bus routes that bypass traffic and provide one seat rides from city to city.

[@TimHodges]

Toronto was setup so that there is basically only the 401 to travel west to east. The smaller planned expressways were cancelled. The city is designed so that if you want to get across town in a car you are funneled into the 401, DVP, 427, and the Gardiner.

[@IanLaffey]

You should visit Montreal and do a video on how awesome it is. You'd love it.

[@TheRandCrews]

The city planning is so different compared to anything else in Canada too practically almost a 15 min city if you live downtown, neighborhoods close or bordering it

[@rauli386]

Well it is not like people do not drive like crazy in Montréal, plus Montréal has also freways near dowtown

[@kelseyduerksen6404]

@@rauli386 There will be crazy drivers in any city. As far as highways near downtown - yes there is the Met and Décarie but you can't really just remove them since Montréal is an island. And there are no viable bypasses anyways.

[@connorspiech309]

Montreal is just Chicago with a couple more metro lines and slightly better healthcare

[@IanLaffey]

@@connorspiech309 😬😬😬

[@JosephAnnino76]

The widest and most congested roads are often the ones that need to carry both local and through traffic. Thunk the New Jersey Turnpike. An effort to accommodate both leads to worsening local conditions via sprawl. A lot is said about getting cars off the road, but a lot of the traffic on roads like this is trucks and commercial. Urbanist alternatives for commercial traffic is not something you hear a lot about, but it disproportionately contributes to pollution and congestion.

[@ronaldsnelgrove7921]

When I saw the title of this video I was reallllllllly hoping the 401 would make an appearance. Huzzah!

[@pauloussoren3989]

The second day (a Monday) that the 401 expansion west from the 407 interchange opened, I heard about on the traffic report: "The 401 express lanes west of the 407, that just opened yesterday, are moving slowly." I got a good laugh from that.

[@jbrook4526]

I drive on the 401 for work 3 days a week… worst part of my week (especially between Milton and Mississauga). The kicker is that my office is near a go train station, and I live near a go train station, but they aren’t on the same line, I’d need to go into Toronto and double back to Mississauga. It would be awesome to have a reasonable alternative than driving along this nerve wracking awful highway.

[@TheTroyc1982]

oh you can just take the GO Buses which exist to link the different lines.

[@jbrook4526]

@@TheTroyc1982 Thanks, but the bus doesn't stop at the stations, and the extra travel to walking and taking city bus adds almost another hour to total travel time... also the bus gets stuck in traffic just like my car.

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

First! Okay seriously it’s kinda shocking how much money is wasted widening roads, surely some economist should realise it’s less expensive to subsidise a loss making train than keep doing this? Especially since it doesn’t actually seem to help. It’s always great to see new videos from you and this is gonna be a good one, I can tell from the amount of parking lots in the intro.

[@doolittlegeorge]

Actually it's not as both Cities mentioned here Orlando and Denver in the latter case especially so very much have public transportation surface rail options all that made money in the case of Denver *LONG* before Car Culture suddenly arrived.

[@KyrieFortune]

Economists have realized it long ago... unfortunately, economists don't control the Department of Transport, sock puppets for the automobile and oil industry do.

[@fredashay]

Studies have shown that adding more lanes actually increases traffic and makes conditions worse. Trains are good, but to get people out of their cars and into trains, the trains have to be at least as convenient and comfortable as a car. Frequency needs to be 5 minutes or less between trains, trains and stations need to be heated and air conditioned, seats need to be comfy.

[@user-hv6wb5gk8p]

@@fredashay 5 minutes or less seems excessive. In medium density areas even something like a bus can serve a route by running one every 15 minutes, especially if bike infrastructure is decent.

[@awwmanboi9791]

​@@fredashay That's literally how the rest of the developed world build their railways?

[@standardannonymousguy]

Difficult topic to cover. Great work on the subject. Thank you for showing some of the serious societal consequences of massive highways and also of urban sprawl. More videos on the economic insolvency of suburbs please?

[@danielalva6704]

I love the few seconds spent putting Dallas on hyper-blast. 🔥 🙌🏼 🖤

[@RookieRider93]

Random Dallas-bashing. Love it! It gets far less hate/references that it deserves 😅