Anyone planning to vacation in Toronto and hoping to drive while they're there, may want to think twice. Toronto has been named among the 50 most traffic-congested cities in the world.Many Toronto drivers tune in the traffic reports they can get every ten minutes. They've become as accustomed to getting those updates as they have to negotiating the congestion every day.
It seems to be getting worse, either from the increase in the population and the traffic associated with it or from the increase in construction on city streets.
A company that specializes in navigation and mapping products says traffic congestion in most major Canadian cities is getting worse. According to Tom Tom's fifth annual traffic index, the average commuter lost 84 hours last year while delayed in traffic in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. It shows congestion in those cities grew by seven percent.
Vancouver is the most congested city in Canada and, for the first time, Toronto has cracked the world's top 50, coming at 47th.
Some experts predict that within the next ten years, another million people will have moved to Toronto, and the city and surrounding urban area will bloom to seven million. Drivers will get just a hint of that nightmarish scenario this summer when a quarter of a million people visit the city for the Pan Am Games.
Some officials have said traffic needs to be reduced by about 20 percent, but few are offering any solutions, either short-term on in the long run.
