Completely preventable traffic jams

C

cbranje

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It's already difficult enough living and driving in the city of Toronto without having to deal with utter incompetence. I think most of the congestion problems in the city could be easily corrected with a little forethought. After spending nearly an hour on the Gardiner traveling from the Jarvis exit to Lakeshore I came upon this. I was so enraged that I had to take pictures.

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Although the sun makes it a little bit hard to see this traffic is backed up all the way along Lakeshore down the Gardiner, at least several kilometers, at least as far back as the CN Tower which you can see in this photo.

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In this image you'll see the source of this rush-hour traffic jam. Two lanes of a three lane major arterial road are blocked for seemingly no reason at all. The far right lane seems to be just a nice parking spot for that loader, while there doesn't seem to be any reason at all for the middle lane to be closed aside for giving a little breathing room to the loader. notice that the time this photo was taken, around 5 PM there was no actual construction work being done. Why can't the crews move this equipment literally 20 feet down around the corner on to the side road that's there

This is absolutely unacceptable. Why are we allowing these construction contractors to store their gear in the most valuable real estate in the city (the middle of the damn road) whilst at the same time inconveniencing literally thousands of people. This is not an isolated incident in the city of Toronto as I see this happening all the time. They are always closing lanes on Jarvis right at the Gardiner entrance.

What do we have to do in order to get these construction crews to use their brains and be considerate of their fellow citizens who are just trying to get home to their families in a timely manner.
 
Why not see if the protesters from the occupy Toronto could help and protest something they might be able to change, instead of costing the tax payers more money. We could have them protest infront of the company responsable for this crap.

I totally understand your frustration with these dumb *****.

Good job taking the pictures, you should send them to the Sun or the Star and see if they will print or even talk about this. Good luck

Sorry for the spelling.
 
Amazing how everybody knows better than the people who actually do this stuff for a living.
 
the keys were probably in it if you cared that much hahahaha

traffic sucks and is caused by stupidity 60% of the time... which is 100% of the time
 
I agree with the OP! I see it all the time. Nice work with the pics, I think you should send it to the local papers. Hell, The Sun will cover just about anything so why not this.

You know what infuriates me, the clowns that clean the bus stops during rush hour. You're telling me you need to block a lane of traffic to clean a bus stop with a bucket and squeegee? You can't park close by and walk your gear over to the bus stop? This is too much effort?
 
Let advertisers know - they are cleaning bus shelters because it's in advertising contract (ads must be visible)... so next time you see this, write to whoever is advertising on that shelter - tell them what you think of their ad and how it's "maintained" which is why you now hate their brand... They care more than city does, anyway...
 
JZ67 said:
I agree with the OP! I see it all the time. Nice work with the pics, I think you should send it to the local papers. Hell, The Sun will cover just about anything so why not this.

You know what infuriates me, the clowns that clean the bus stops during rush hour. You're telling me you need to block a lane of traffic to clean a bus stop with a bucket and squeegee? You can't park close by and walk your gear over to the bus stop? This is too much effort?
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No cuz his boss will probably give him **** for taking too long to do the job.

The construction company probably has little fault in it. I bet parking one of those on a street requires permits, signs and paperwork. All this is more money that no one is willing to spend. The guy driving it can't make such calls. Bring it up with the pencil pushers at city hall.

RetroGrouch said:
Union policies.
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Awesome, corporate conditioning is working quite well on you. Blame everything on unions, terrorists and hippies.
 
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RetroGrouch said:
So you don't think it's plausible that it's union policy to provide a certain amount of buffer zone between workers and traffic? Even if it's unnecessary overkill in the interest of worker safety?
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if the workers were actually there, then it makes good sense to have a safety buffer, but come quitting time the last thing anybodys thinking about is moving all the pylons back a couple of feet... it would just make more work to do in the morning
 
RetroGrouch said:
So you don't think it's plausible that it's union policy to provide a certain amount of buffer zone between workers and traffic? Even if it's unnecessary overkill in the interest of worker safety?
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It's OHSA regulation. Nothing to do with union. Considering how terrible drivers are, and the fact that workers do get killed on roads, the buffer zones are there with good reason. The fact that the loader and cones are there when there are no workers present has to do with someone paying to set up and pack up the work site every day.
 
Personally, I hate the Westbound stretch between Brock Street & Salem Rd. There's a small bend in the road, and for some idiotic reason, people fear their car may understeer and end up taking this corner at a breakneck 100km/h. It's obvious because the highway clears up after that bend, and people return to driving 120-130km/h, even though the number of lanes remain the same.
 
daught said:
It's OHSA regulation. Nothing to do with union. Considering how terrible drivers are, and the fact that workers do get killed on roads, the buffer zones are there with good reason. The fact that the loader and cones are there when there are no workers present has to do with SOMEONE PAYING to set up and pack up the work site every day.
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There were no workers present at the time.

The city should ABSOLUTELY pay for this. Think of the literally $1000s ($10,000's???) in gas wasted by thousands of idling motorists. Not to mention to lost time. Oh and the emissions if you care about hippy stuff like that. Moving that gear would take, MAYBE 30 minutes for two workers?

Sorry there is no defense here, its stupidity, laziness and/or both.
 
Your 1st pic shows a patch in the pavement. Is that what the construction was for? If not can you tell what they are in the midst of doing?
 
It looks like they were refinishing the surface. It looks like most of the work was done. The middle lane has those metal covers they use, not sure why that perfectly drivable lane was closed. I looked under the loader as well. Pavement was gone, but there wasn't a giant hole or anything, but again, those metal covers could have made it driveable at least for the afternoon rush.
 
If they had just finished putting down some fresh pavement they don't want cars driving on it right away.
 
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