Tory Takes on Traffic

One of several of my unpublished stories written for the Toronto Observer. Written April 1st.

John Tory plans to create Big Data Innovation Team to find solutions to traffic congestion in Toronto.

Last week Tory announced his plan to use travel data to better understand people's travel habits to combat congestion in the city. Tory's announcement comes after Dutch navigation company Tom Tom released it's annual traffic index which revealed that Toronto has the second highest rate of congestion in the country.

Using the travel data Tory wants to understand "how, where and when people travel" to improve travel by all means of transportation. The city's Transportation Services department created "Big Data Innovation Team" and will spend months developing strategies to "improve travel by all modes." The team will work with McMaster University and the TTC improve to analyze past travel patterns and improve streetcar service.

Tom Tom's survey revealed that traffic congestion in Toronto has been steadily on the rise and is likely to get worse. The report showed that congestion in Toronto increased from 27 per cent in 2013 to 32 per cent in 2014. Toronto has the second highest traffic-congestion percentage in Canada after Vancouver, which has an overall level of 35 per cent.

Tom Tom's survey also revealed that traffic congestion causes 84 hours in delays for the average TTC rider, five hours more than the national average. According to the survey, there is the a 23 minute delay per day for a 30 minute commute.

Toronto Observer asked commuters about their experiences with traffic:
"It's annoying not knowing when the delays are. How can anyone plan for that?" Radihka commented.

"It sucks" Owen said.

"The worst thing about TTC delays is the fact that travelling in a city that heavily relies on public transit, becomes really inconvenient," Samantha said.

"Being a person who is not so great with time management, delays can often make me late to things," Aashna said.

"End result of 30 years of failed urban planning," said Winston.

"The worst part is not knowing how long it will take to get somewhere because you have to think about the time of day and factor traffic,"  Anthony said.

Parking Problems in Toronto

It was recently announced that the City of Toronto and the Toronto Police issued less parking/traffic tickets in 2014 than they had in 2013. When the original findings came out in December, it was estimated that the City would lose out on roughly $30 million in revenue. Motorists were issued roughly 132,000 less tickets than they had the year before; five per cent less than previous years. The amount of tickets given out each year has decreased steadily since 2008. However the reduction in tickets did not equate to a reduction in revenue like first believed.

With traffic ticket revenue down by $30M, finger pointing (at Toronto Police Service) starts http://t.co/hsxY7ebLM6 pic.twitter.com/2mkzsAMghl
— National Post (@nationalpost) December 6, 2014

According to a report by Metro News Toronto, the City has been earned more money from less tickets. How much more you ask? $15.1 million more, Total ticket revenue last year jumped to $104,954,929 from $89,838,566. The City has increased the fines on parking violations and created a fixed-fine system that prevents people from negotiating for  a reduced penalty which has lead to the increase in the cities revenue. The City believes that having higher fines will increase the likelihood of people complying with the parking laws.

Toronto issued fewer parking tickets in 2014 but new rules led to $15.1 million more in fines http://t.co/dfXDwovGUY pic.twitter.com/18xZy1WqLJ
— Metro Toronto (@metrotoronto) April 8, 2015

Sure, the tax dollars are great because it gives the city more money to spend on services but wouldn't you rather have that money in your pocket? Also, you would probably spend less money parking legally than you would in fines, so why not do that? Maybe because you don't know where you would do that or maybe you don't know how much it would cost to do that.

That's where I come in. I have created a chart that outlines the set fines for certain violations as well as where these violations have occurred so people can know where they need to be careful and show them how much it'll cost them for breaking the rules.



This link will let you see a summary of the data.

I have also listed a map that shows all the municipal parking lots in the city and a link that shows how much each parking lot's hourly charge is.