63 hours “lost” to traffic
Traffic congestion lost regular commuters 63 hours this year – but, not to be too prissy about it, if you’re in traffic congestion, you’re part of the congestion.
On X, Sergio Da Silva quipped “It’s must be all the bike paths on the Décarie.”
Blork 22:14 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
Even if you’re on a bus?
W 22:32 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
Other cities are much bigger, have worse public transportation, have fewer bike paths, and yet they have less congestion than we do. So, what are we, who are “part of the congestion” as you say, doing wrong that other cities aren’t?
Kate 22:32 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
Blork: Especially if you’re on a bus. Have you seen the size of those things?
Kate 22:35 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
W, the item says it’s badly designed roads – there’s some details in the item I linked. I don’t drive so I can’t speak of it personally, but I’ve heard people complain about Decarie Circle and other aspects that are mentioned in the piece.
Nicholas 23:13 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
Oh, INRIX! They will get data every which way: buy it from any cell phone app you’ve given permission to. Also they have a deal with Ford: any Ford vehicle built since 2017 will report where it is, and how fast it’s going, every 5 seconds while the engine is on. They say it’s opt-in, so I once asked one of their execs doing a talk on this if the opt-in is just when you first turn the car on you click agree to the 27 page user agreement, and she said she wasn’t sure but would get back to me (she never did). Anyway, INRIX is probably tracking you right now.
Anyway, “badly designed roads” is code for “not enough lanes”. We need to double up the Met and Decarie, build a north south highway east of the Mountain, and widen anything that ever has traffic even for one minute a day. That’ll create free flowing traffic, which will absolutely not induce any new demand, and all our traffic problems will be solved. As that classic Onion headline says, “Report: 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others”.
jeather 23:38 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
We do have badly designed roads but for a moment I took the rest of your comment seriously until I read far enough and thought wait, that’s not how it works.
I’ve been trying to explain induced demand to people who want to open Cavendish (which I am actually in favour of) but no one believes me.
jeather 23:41 on 2025-12-05 Permalink
I am stuck in/part of traffic, yes, because despite all that where I work takes 50% longer via public transit in the morning and more than twice as long in the evening, and if anything goes wrong I miss the “rush hour” only bus and have a very long walk. I sometimes get a pass for a month, but mostly miss working near a metro stop.
dhomas 05:07 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
Hey you! Yeah, you. The guy sitting alone in his Ford F150 complaining about traffic on your commute down from Blainville. You are not IN traffic; you ARE traffic.
Let’s describe what traffic (congestion) is. It’s when there are more cars on the road than there is capacity to move them efficiently. So, what happens if we add more roads? More roads means more cars. More cars means, you guessed it! more traffic!
The solution to traffic is not more roads. It’s giving people alternatives to driving.
We need to improve transit options and encourage people to use them (sometimes this encouragement is at the expense of discouraging people from driving, like by adding tolls to the bridges).
We need to NOT tear up bike paths. If cyclists don’t feel safe commuting by bike, where will they end up? Likely in a car. Remember what we said about more cars? (Hint: it means more traffic)
There is one thing that I think needs to be done to road infrastructure that might improve traffic. We need a proper ring road for travellers passing through. I see it every day. There is an endless barrage of 18-wheelers going down the 25 to the south shore, despite the immense delays caused by the tunnel repair. They do it because there is no other option. But it’s not only there. There are tons of them on the Met as well. We do need to get stuff delivered into the city, but a lot of these trucks must be passing through Montreal to get to other destinations because it’s almost impossible not to pass through Montreal. If you look at Google maps, you can see that there are other highways that ALMOST let you avoid getting on the island as your going from east-west, but not quite. Look at the 640 and the 30 as prime examples.
Kate 10:59 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
I don’t watch TV, but I do play a five-letter game on the La Presse app. To start the game you have to screen a 15‑second commercial.
At least three quarters of these little commercials are for cars, mostly shot on empty highways, or in wild locations. The big sell is freedom – you’re alone in your vehicle and going as fast as you like with nothing in the way. That kind of visual has been used to flog cars for years, so the idea must be implanted in many drivers’ minds, even if reality means being stuck in the Decarie Circle for half an hour with a child wailing in the back seat.
So in a sense, buying into this scam is one of the causes of traffic congestion.
(I have a bigger beef with some of these ads, mostly from Honda, which is that they often show the car coming right at the camera. As a pedestrian it’s my biggest fear, the sight of a vehicle coming straight at me at high speed. But it must be proven to sell cars.)
Chris 12:12 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
jeather, maybe you can explain it to your friends this way: we’ve been adding roads like mad for the last century and yet somehow it hasn’t solved traffic.
Joey 12:51 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
I’m guessing part of the reason why Montrealers spend more time in traffic than residents of Toronto and Vancouver is that we have snow, slush and ice on the roadway for 1/3+ of the year and they don’t.
Kevin 17:54 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
Some roads ARE badly designed. Decarie and Jean-Talon is a mess of a chokepoint because of train tracks, a highway exit, and people trying to turn east. But fixing requires agreement and creativity from three jurisdictions. Which is why nothing will ever be built at Blue Bonnets.
W 18:14 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
@kate I know it’s badly designed roads, but you were underlining how people in congestion cause congestion, and that was irrelevant.
Kate 18:34 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
I disagree. There’s no point in complaining when you’re in a vehicle on a congested road that the road is congested.
But we can agree to disagree.
jeather 18:46 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
Complaining doesn’t have to have a point, we can do it for the joy of it.
Ian 22:59 on 2025-12-06 Permalink
If your neighbourhood becomes suddenly popular and gentrifies to the point that your rent is unaffordable, as a renter, are you part of the probelm? Maybe so, but yeah, you do have the right to complain, and maybe even point out that better urban planning could have avoided gentrification and is necessary to fix it.
Much like traffic congestion.