More traffic agents needed to deal with congestion outside Union Station Bus Terminal: officials

As the City of Toronto hikes fines to deal with intersection blocking, there are indications the traffic agent program could be expanded to better deal with other congested areas like outside the Union Station Bus Terminal.

During a news conference in downtown Toronto Monday morning, municipal officials announced fines for “blocking the box” (a marked intersection) have been raised to $450 (up from $85), or $500 if the offence happens in a designated community safety zone (up from $120).

As the new fines were announced, officials said a report on dealing with traffic congestion will be released on Friday before it’s considered at the City’s infrastructure and environment committee a week later.

“Anecdotally, it’s terrible,” Matti Siemiatycki, the director of the University of Toronto’s Infrastructure Institute, said when asked how the Toronto’s traffic compares to other major cities.

“We have visitors saying it’s terrible. We have movie stars saying it’s terrible. We have musicians saying it’s terrible. We have Toronto residents saying it’s terrible.”

Siemiatycki said there’s a growing body of private-sector data validating what many feel.

“They’re showing that our congestion is some of the worst in the world and you feel it day to day. We are just being strangled by gridlock,” he said.

In August, CityNews took a closer look at one of the areas downtown where congestion is causing a broader impact.

There have been growing delays at the multi-million-dollar Union Station Bus Terminal, which is located on Lake Shore Boulevard West between Yonge and Bay streets.

“The station is close to the Gardiner, which should be a positive for regional transportation, (and) that is strategically what you want to do, but the [highway] is just under so much pressure right now with construction and with all of the traffic and goods movement,” Siemiatycki said.

“Then you overlay on top of that construction in and around the downtown core, it’s just making everything, all of the movements … challenging.”

A statement previously issued by the media relations office for Metrolinx, the provincial government agency that oversees GO Transit and UP Express, said staff are “continuously working to mitigate delays caused by traffic congestion and construction.” It went on to say staff have asked for assistance from the City of Toronto’s transportation services division while confirming several routes are continuing to see delays.

“We regularly and proactively request the deployment of traffic agents or paid-duty officers to key intersections to help manage traffic flow and minimize delays for GO Transit Bus operations and other bus carriers that serve Union Station Bus Terminal,” the statement said.

Commuters like Justin Fan described how traffic backups resulted in delays of up to 45 minutes for GO Transit buses to enter the terminal after exiting the Gardiner Expressway nearby.

Leaving the terminal to get onto the Gardiner Expressway (roughly 400 metres west at York Street) can be lengthy at times. During our visit in August, it took a bus en route to Niagara Falls close to 25 minutes to go a block-and-a-half.

After hearing about Fan’s experience, CityNews went to Stouffville GO station on a mid-August weekday afternoon to catch a 71 Stouffville bus en route to the Union Station Bus Terminal to see the problem first-hand.

The bus moved through York Region swiftly and on schedule. While the bus was caught in traffic near Highway 401 on small parts of Highway 404 and the Don Valley Parkway (DVP), the bus was able to pass cars on HOV lane segments dedicated to GO Transit buses north of Eglinton Avenue East.

As the bus approached the southern end of the DVP, it diverted onto Don Roadway, Lake Shore Boulevard and Queens Quay East. After hitting a slow down near Yonge Street and 13 minutes after exiting the DVP, the bus pulled over a short distance away from the terminal on Bay Street near Harbour Street. The driver asked passengers to leave the bus, telling many while exiting it would have taken around 45 minutes to get into the terminal due to traffic congestion.

CityNews took the same evening rush-hour trip toward the end of last week. The bus went to the terminal, but stopped near Yonge Street to let passengers off since cars and other vehicles ahead barely moved.

City of Toronto staff previously touted congestion mitigation measures, such as better traffic signal timing and the use of traffic agents.

While on the bus trips, CityNews didn’t see traffic agents on Lake Shore Boulevard at Yonge or Bay streets. At both intersections, particularly at Bay Street, there were repeated instances of “box blocking.”

During Monday’s news conference, Toronto Police Service acting Supt. Matt Moyer said it sparks safety concerns.

“I’ve had a lot of our officers talk to me about the conversations that they’ve had with drivers and pedestrians and some of the inherent dangers in coming with blocking the box,” he said.

“People will actually walk out around the car in the intersection. people will take their bike around the intersection. We don’t want them to do that.”

CityNews asked Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow what her response is to the concerns and what can she and city council do to address the matter.

“We’re hiring more traffic agent(s),” she said before calling City staff to the podium.

Roger Browne, the City of Toronto’s director of traffic management, said staff believe the area around the Union Station Bus Terminal “to be a very critical and important location” for moving residents and visitors.

“We have been putting traffic agents there at Lakeshore and Bay. It is a bit of a resource issue though. Currently, we have a number of locations across the city that are really, really high demand for the traffic agents, and we simply don’t have enough right now to be there consistently,” he said.

“We do have plans, and we’re going to be speaking to this in the upcoming report, where we are going to be significantly increasing the force of traffic agents. So in the future, there will be enough traffic agents that we can provide dedicated resources to support that location.”

Meanwhile, Siemiatycki said the deployment of traffic agents is a good short-term measure. However, he said additional investments in public transit over and above existing projects like the Ontario Line must happen too.

Siemiatycki said further expanding GO Transit would be a good start.

“Making sure it’s two-way GO (train service) and also leveraging the GO bus network, but making sure that those have dedicated lanes on the different highways so that that is actually a more efficient way. It’s not a longer trip, but it’s a more efficient way of getting around,” he said.

“Maybe thinking about intermediate terminals within the city if [buses] can’t come all the way into the city itself, maybe some of the drop-offs are along the UP Express.

“Some of this is about car travel and commuters, but a lot of it is also goods movement. We have a lot of goods coming in and out. This is an economic engine and we need to make sure that that can move seamlessly through the region as well.”