[innsertnamehere]

I was reading a London Free Press article this morning discussing the City of London’s traffic congestion ranking. In addition to posting the article, I will post the source - TomTom’s Traffic Ranking Index. This index uses GPS data to determine the most congested cities globally (based on the approximate time taken to travel 10 km). The most recent ranking is from 2023 data.

When you set the filter to North America, from a city-centre perspective, London is ranked as the 12th most congested city in North America, and the 5th most congested metro area in North America. Canadian cities are disproportionately represented at the top of the North American metro list, occupying 8 of the top 10 spots.

Additional data from the City, presented in the article, shows that Wonderland/Oxford, Commissioners/Wellington, Oxford/Highbury, Southdale/Wellington, and Fanshawe Park/Richmond are the most congested intersections in the city, ranging from around 65,000 to 73,000 AADT. I think this obviously continues to show that there is an incredible need for the completion of the full BRT system, in addition to further extensions and/or spurs. I still think they should have gone for a full LRT system instead, but that ship sailed long ago.

london's fatal mistake was to not build an urban expressway system to take traffic off of local roads. Cross-city traffic needs to battle it across the city on local streets which just drives up congestion and makes for a much more unpleasant local environment and makes it more challenging to build anything but mega-arterials focused on car movement.

The experience driving in London compared to other comparable southwestern Ontario cities like Hamilton and Kitchener is night and day - and it's because Hamilton and Kitchener have expressway systems to take car traffic off of local streets.

 

[jje1000]

london's fatal mistake was to not build an urban expressway system to take traffic off of local roads. Cross-city traffic needs to battle it across the city on local streets which just drives up congestion and makes for a much more unpleasant local environment and makes it more challenging to build anything but mega-arterials focused on car movement.

The experience driving in London compared to other comparable southwestern Ontario cities like Hamilton and Kitchener is night and day - and it's because Hamilton and Kitchener have expressway systems to take car traffic off of local streets.

I think it's interesting that not building urban expressways and still switching to personal vehicular transport modes and suburbanization results in the worst of both worlds.

My experience is that London roads somehow feel beefed-up to compensate, and are less pleasant to walk on.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I think it's interesting that not building urban expressways and still switching to personal vehicular transport modes and suburbanization results in the worst of both worlds.

My experience is that London roads somehow feel beefed-up to compensate, and are less pleasant to walk on.

Yup. It's the opposite of the Netherlands which actually has a large number of urban expressways through it's cities to shift car traffic away from areas with pedestrians. It ends up working better for everyone.

 

[micheal_can]

I think it's interesting that not building urban expressways and still switching to personal vehicular transport modes and suburbanization results in the worst of both worlds.

My experience is that London roads somehow feel beefed-up to compensate, and are less pleasant to walk on.

Outside the core, they are horrible to walk on, but are not too bad to bike along.

 

[Haljackey]

London's roads are not beefed up at all however. There are no 6 lane arterials, and many 4 lane roads lack a centre turn lane, causing a lot of backup in the left lane when someone is trying to turn left. Only 3 intersections have partial double-left turns as well, and many many more are needed. One dedicated left turn lane for buses does exist however.

...There is a super short 6 lane stretch on Wellington by Victoria Hospital, but this is being changed to 4 lanes + 2 BRT lanes.

When I see people like Not Just Bikes making fun of London for it's stroads, we're really not a good example to use. Sure there are some 'stroady' stretches but they're pretty small/tight compared to where you see elsewhere. Our neighbours Windsor and Waterloo Region both have expressways, 6 lane roads, and some spots where the centre turn lane is wide enough to handle a car in each direction. Ex here's Dougal Ave in Windsor:

A major road. Compare that to Wharncliffe Road in London:

---

Both have the same suburban commercial plazas and stuff on each side, and I'm sure the two handle similar traffic volumes too.

 

[micheal_can]

London's roads are not beefed up at all however. There are no 6 lane arterials, and many 4 lane roads lack a centre turn lane, causing a lot of backup in the left lane when someone is trying to turn left. Only 3 intersections have partial double-left turns as well, and many many more are needed. One dedicated left turn lane for buses does exist however.

...There is a super short 6 lane stretch on Wellington by Victoria Hospital, but this is being changed to 4 lanes + 2 BRT lanes.

When I see people like Not Just Bikes making fun of London for it's stroads, we're really not a good example to use. Sure there are some 'stroady' stretches but they're pretty small/tight compared to where you see elsewhere. Our neighbours Windsor and Waterloo Region both have expressways, 6 lane roads, and some spots where the centre turn lane is wide enough to handle a car in each direction. Ex here's Dougal Ave in Windsor:

A major road. Compare that to Wharncliffe Road in London:

---

Both have the same suburban commercial plazas and stuff on each side, and I'm sure the two handle similar traffic volumes too.

Warncliffe is a bad example as parts of it were 2 lanes up to a decade or so ago.

Wonderland or Oxford are great examples of stroads.

 

[Haljackey]

Warncliffe is a bad example as parts of it were 2 lanes up to a decade or so ago.

Wonderland or Oxford are great examples of stroads.

There's still a part of Wharncliffe that is 1 lane NB under a old CN bridge. It is a huge bottleneck for cars and transit. There were plans to fix this decades ago, but an old lady refused to sell her home for expropriation and lots of local NIMBYs campaigned with her to try and save it. Her house is still there but she's been forced out now finally.... but with Covid, supply issues, inflation, lack of workers, etc there's no funding in London's 4 year budget to complete the project (costs have soared vs the original 2015-2017 target). It might get underway in 2028 at the absolute earliest, but could be delayed until the 2030s due to cost and other priorities.

Wonderland is the only 'good' road going north to south in London. So ya I will give you that that it is more 'stroady' than others but it kinda needs to be to handle cross-town traffic due to a lack of a freeway in town. There was a plan to 6 lane a good chunk of it a few years back but it was cancelled due to London declaring a climate emergency. There are a lot of buses that use it, and it's only going to grow so I am a proponent of 6 laning it still but that new lane would be for buses only. That would make it flow better for cars anyway, and if dual lefts and more dedicated right turn lanes were installed it could operate fine with 2 lanes each way for the foreseeable future.

Likewise, Oxford is a decently good east-west route through town but there are tight 4 lane spots without a centre turn lane that backs up traffic just like the example of Wharncliffe I showed above. I also support widening this for bus lanes similar to my arguement for Wonderland, but since this routes closer to downtown there are a lot of spots that cannot be widened without significant expectoration, and a lot of these could be historical buildings that would be fought by NIMBYs for preservation.
-One of Oxford's stoady segments is being BRT'd between Highbury and Fanshawe College. That project begins next year IIRC.

 

[Haljackey]

London has released a mobility master plan to see what the city's streets could like by 2050. The transit plan includes taking the cancelled Wonderland widening project and repurposing it for bus lanes. Central Oxford also gets dedicated bus lanes (that may involve a lot of expropriation in some areas). The cancelled north leg BRT is back from the dead using Wharncliffe and Western roads instead of Richmond which was decisively defeated.

Map:

More info:

Mobility Master Plan

A website with details about engagement opportunities for London Ontario's Mobility Master Plan.

getinvolved.london.ca

Mobility Master Plan | City of London

Help shape the future of mobility and transportation in London.

london.ca

 

[ericmacm]

I’m glad that they are planning for BRT on Wonderland now. It’s the only alternative that really makes sense given how busy it is. Also glad to see the return of the North/West BRT legs and the addition of BRT running all the way through Oxford from Oxford/Wonderland to Fanshawe.