Adding bus lane to the Gardiner

This last lane closure on the Gardiner Expressway marks the official start of a three-year rehabilitation project, April 11

With the Gardiner Expressway bottlenecked to two car lanes in each direction for several years due to construction, now is the right time to add a dedicated bus lane each way to boost the highway’s capacity and bust congestion.

Obviously, this construction is going to have a congestion impact. Car trips will take longer because there will be more cars trying to use the highway than there is room for. The third lane leading to and from the construction bottleneck is wasted space that will not move any more cars than the two-lane bottleneck allows. The fact is the number of cars the highway can move, its capacity, is set by the two-lane construction bottleneck.

However, a dedicated bus lane would let transit buses get to the front of the queue before merging into traffic for a few blocks at the construction site. This means the bus will be the fastest, most reliable way to travel along the Gardiner, a winwin for transit riders and drivers. Many drivers who experience the construction congestion will decide it is better for them to leave their car at home and get on the much-faster bus. Others who still must drive won’t lose anything to the added bus lane.

After all, the highway capacity is limited to two lanes because of construction, whether the third lane is for buses or not but faster and reliable bus trips will mean fewer cars on the road, easing congestion for them. Without a bus lane, transit will be struck in the same traffic as cars, meaning it will never be faster to take the bus than to drive. A bus lane makes it a nobrainer: It’s faster to take the bus.

Kevin Rupasinghe, Scarborough