Traffic Congestion In The GTA

Traffic congestion in the GTA has become a more pressing issue over the years. The increase of suburban culture has aided to the growth of traffic congestion. For the average person, cars have become increasingly affordable instead of being a luxury item as it was in the past. This increase in affordability has spiked traffic congestion; as a result more cars are on the roads and major highways en route to the core of Toronto. In addition the increase of housing unit across and in the GTA that lead to narrow roads has also become a major factor in traffic congestion. Therefore, This essay will explore the impact of suburban culture and how it has affected traffic both across and within the GTA.

Defining Suburban Culture

Suburban culture is

Similar to the demographics in Brampton, Mississauga is also defined as suburbia due to its large amount of density housing and cars owned per every working person in a household. In the suburban city of Mississauga there are 228,000 housing units, out of that number of unit 180,000 of them are detached or semi detached houses (Statistics Canada 2011) that is more than 70% of housing. This high percentage of both detached and semi detached houses puts a strain on the roads this is because low-density housing decreases road size. In addition the city of Mississauga also has a very prominent traffic congestion problem this is due to the amount of people that drive their cars to work on a regular basis. In Mississauga 72% of the employed population commute to work by car. Out of the people who commute to work by car 65% commute locally 25 km or less AND 35% commute out of city (Statistics Canada 2011). This large amount of commuters by car increases traffic congestion both locally within the region and out of region in nearby already congested cities such as the core of downtown

For the past 50 years as this problem worsened the government insisted on establishing new traffic infrastructures as a solution, but the solution for traffic congestion is not to build more roads, or wider roads because additional roads will only result in additional automobiles. Also building structures such as houses will only decrease road sizes of neighborhood roads. The solution to decrease traffic congestion is to upgrade and better our public transit system. A recent study by the TTC shows that the reason why commuters in Toronto and the GTA would sit in traffic over taking public transit is because they believe that the public transit system in the core of downtown and across the GTA is very poor. This notion of beliefs that commuters have of the GTA’s public transit system is true. In Toronto our underground subway system is not very complex at and does not allow flexibility for commuters who have work within the city that is not along the subway line. Also across the GTA in cities such as Brampton and Mississauga the public transit system is undependable due to busses scheduled to arrive every half an hour and more (Brampton, 2015), with this unreliable public transit system in the suburbs many households are forced to use their cars to work which evidentially will lead to traffic congestion on the roads.