Practice time on HOV lanes a godsend before Games
Like many GTA-area drivers, I was puffed-up angry that organizers of the Pan Am Games, the Ontario government and anybody else associated with the promotion had decided to establish separate HOV lanes on the highways around here two weeks before the Games began.
“During the Games, I could maybe understand. But two weeks in advance?” said one motorist, who might have been me.
Today I admit I was wrong. The idea was pure genius and the person who first suggested it should get a bonus.
Several asides here: although everything in the world these days has to go to a committee, which eventually claims ownership (it was a suggestion made by so-and-so’s “team”), all the great ideas really come from a single, solitary, person who never gets full credit. This time, he or she should.
And when I say a bonus, I mean a bonus on top of the bonus they will undoubtedly collect when the Games are over because everybody, it seems, gets a bonus these days, just for doing their job. But I digress. Traffic is like water. It flows along and then, one day, there’s a problem and instantly there’s chaos. The water — and the traffic — backs up and creates a mess. Eventually, it finds a way around the obstacle and then it flows freely again.
That’s what happened three weeks ago now (two weeks ago last Monday, to be precise). All of a sudden, on June 29, the HOV lanes went into effect and traffic into the city on the Queen Elizabeth Way was backed up to Oakville.
That’s an exaggeration, but you get my drift.
And it was hell for two or three days that first week until drivers figured out what was happening (this road only has two lanes now, instead of three) and adjusted. Fewer cut in and out of traffic, and more drivers were polite in letting others into line from “on” ramps, and so-on. Except for the odd little speed bump, the traffic started to move again, albeit slowly.
As a result of two weeks of practice, getting around this past Monday, which was the first commuting day of the Games, was No Big Deal. In fact, the Star conducted a test in which staffers biked, rode on motorcycles, took the TTC and the GO, and drove (they asked me to drive, natch) to see if there would be any negative effects and there were none. In my case, my commute by car took me 10 minutes less.
There’s another variable to consider, of course. It’s the middle of July and many people are on vacation, which means the traffic’s lighter anyway.
But the fact that we had two weeks to get used to those infernal HOV lanes was a great help, and my hat’s off to the person who first said, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we . . . ?”
And the rest is history. I received several letters this week regarding the Fourth Annual Bicycle Issue, as well as letters we published on the subject in this section last Saturday.
First, as was pointed out by several people, I must apologize for publishing a photo on the cover of the section last week of a father teaching his children how to ride bicycles.
In the picture, the children weren’t wearing helmets. It is the law in Ontario that everyone under 18 has to wear a helmet while riding a bike and we should have been more careful in selecting the photograph. Won’t happen again.
And more people wrote to push for permission to ride on sidewalks. Not in crowded downtowns, of course, but outside of city cores and in suburban areas where sidewalks are not exactly busy. Courtesy, of course, would be key.
It’s not an original idea but I think it’s something worth considering. Norris McDonald is editor of Toronto Star Wheels. Reach him at: