blog post #3 How could Canada’s infrastructure be developed to lessen traffic – What are the factors causing the issue?

Hello! After breaking down my question in the last post, I decided that firstly I will figure out what’s wrong and what’s causing the problem. That is what I will be discussing in this first round of research. Even though in the future I will be focusing mostly on Vancouver since that’s where I am from. For this post, I will be looking all throughout Canada to find the most information on the issue.

Large Canadian cities face terrible traffic. A multinational geolocation firm, TomTom ranks the traffic throughout the whole world. In North America the top five cites with the most traffic in 2024 are ((1)):

1. Mexico City – Mexico
2. New York – USA
3. Puebla – Mexico
4. Guadalajara – Mexico
5. Vancouver – Canada

The first 4 make sense since they are all in the top 20 cites with the biggest population in north America, Mexico City and New York are first and second on that list as well. However, Vancouver should be there! Vancouver is number 59th population wise in North America. This shows how bad the problem really is. if Vancouver a city with a population of 706,012 is on the same level of traffic with cities that have populations of couple millions there a big problem. it also shows that the average working person losses 86 hours in traffic every year. That’s 3 and a half days!!! Three and a half days spent doing nothing. (2))

This ranking also had Tornoto, Halifax, Winnipeg, Montreal, and London as number 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13.

So… What causes all this? There are many factors that add up to make this problem: Construction, undeveloped public transportation, dependence on cars, Incidents and accidents, the urban core and more.

Construction

in some Canadian cities, like in Toronto it was found that construction is one of the leading contributors of traffic. Last summer it was said the 24% of Toronto’s roads were temporally closed during peak construction season. All those closed roads caused travel time to be more than double. (1) Construction can heavily affect traffic flow. Lane reductions or closures caused by equipment and construction work increase congestion which diverts drivers onto different routes, causing traffic in areas that before were unaffected. (2)

incidents and accidents

Most common causes of car accidents in Canada are; bad road conditions, bad weather, other environmental factors like poor visibility caused by rain or fog, Pedestrians, Animal/wildlife crashes especially deer or moose, Intersection collisions, Aggressive driving, Construction sites, driving under the influence of drugs, lane changing, Tailgating, and Poor Road design. (3) All these things can cause accidents which affect traffic and increase congestion.

the urban core – suburbs to urban centers

Many Canadians live in suburban areas but work in urban centers, like my parent and most likely me in the future. A big portion of traffic comes from this, big groups of people driving to and from work leads to significant traffic during peak hours (4), like I mention before it takes my mom 2 hours to drive home what should be a 30–40-minute drive. Part of this issues is that many people live far from their workplace and the other is our dependance on cars.

dependence on cars

People in North American compared to other places in the world use their cars way more. “In 2010, Americans drove for 85 percent of their daily trips, compared to car trip shares of 50 to 65 percent in Europe. Longer trip distances only partially explain the difference. Roughly 30 percent of daily trips are shorter than a mile on either side of the Atlantic. But of those under one-mile trips, Americans drove almost 70 percent of the time, while Europeans made 70 percent of their short trips by bicycle, foot, or public transportation.”(5) The percentages in this quote for a Bloomberg article explains perfectly our dependence on cars in Norther America. Even for short distances Canadians and American tend to use their cars as mode of travel instead of by foot or transit. When it comes to transport, we generally have three options public, private, and active, most people here prefer the private option since driving has many personal benefits (6). Its more comfortable, more reliable, you get more freedom on where to go and not to mention roads themself are made for cars. Our tendency to use cars is a big reason there is so much traffic here.

undeveloped public transportation

All the previous causes I listed would be fixed or at least helped if public transportation was improved. There would be less cars on the road meaning less traffic and less drivers mean less accidents on the road again meaning less traffic. It’s a way more efficient use of space since there would be more people taking up less space. However here in BC instead of continuing to develop public transit they are planning to cut half of all the bus routes, 30 percent of the SkyTrain lines and many other public transport services. More than half a million people will no longer be living within walking distance of a transit line, (7) including me :(. This is a huge problem since it will force many people who use public transport to drive, adding to the commuters from the suburbs and adding to the already terrible traffic. They predict that congestion will worsening by at least 20%. (7)

As I’ve outlined in this post Canada’s infrastructure needs a little work. Next blog I will be looking into what other cities around the world do to keep their traffic at bay. Spoilers its trains…mostly.

sources:

1. CBC/Radio Canada. (2025, April 9). Construction is the key culprit behind Toronto traffic, city says. here’s what it plans to do about it | CBC news. CBCnews. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-traffic-management-plan-1.7503837
2. Editorial, L. H. (2025, January 25). The impact of road construction on traffic patterns and safety – law hub. The Insurance Universe. https://lawhub.blog/impact-of-road-construction-on-traffic/
3. Hahn, V. D. (n.d.). Common causes of car accidents in Ontario and Canada. RateLab.ca. https://www.ratelab.ca/common-causes-for-car-accidents/
4. Dependence on cars in urban neighbourhoods. Canadian Social Trends: Dependence on cars in urban neighbourhoods. (2007, December 11). https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-008-x/2008001/article/10503-eng.htm
5. Buehler, R. (2014, February 4). 9 Reasons the U.S. Ended Up So Much More Car-Dependent Than Europe. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-04/9-reasons-the-u-s-ended-up-so-much-more-car-dependent-than-europe
6. answerinprogress. (2023, June 16). why america is addicted to cars. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3yXSD2O95E&t=464s
7. Half of transit services cut without new funding model. Home. (2024, July 25). https://www.translink.ca/news/2024/july/half%20of%20transit%20services%20cut%20without%20new%20funding%20model
   
   

statistics and data/rankings ((

1. TomTom. (2025, April 3). Traffic index ranking: Tomtom traffic index. Traffic Index ranking | TomTom Traffic Index. https://www.tomtom.com/traffic-index/ranking/?country=MX%2CUS%2CCA
2. Wikimedia Foundation. (2025, March 25). List of North American cities by population. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_cities_by_population