Big Smoke. There are lots of roads in Big Smoke. There are lots of sprawl in Bi Smoke. There is the king of roads in Big Smoke, they are called expressways, in Ontario, the 400 series highways. They are I suppose called that because they have at least two lanes in either direction. Which I guess was from the time all roads only had one. Now most roads have two. Anyways as times changed the 400series changed too. Now they have more lanes of traffic. The 401 has three lanes in the express and three lanes in the collector lanes making for a minimum of 12 lanes of traffic, but sometimes as much as 16 lanes. It is considered the busiest road way in all of North America and even past midnight there are hundreds of cars zipping along these lanes. But I feel safer on this road than one other road. The 401 the traffic is generally fast about 100 kph the people do not change lanes as frequently and generally because they expect the occasional traffic jam they are calmer. People outside of the city are terrified of the 401. In the north, they are prepared for the 401 by driving the 400.
The 400 is the most terrifying road in Canada hands clenched to the wheel. And that is because it is often filled with commuters from Little Big Smoke to points just north of Big Smoke, who have dawdled a little too long at the coffee shop and are now late for work, thus feel compelled to travel in excess of 140 kph bumper to bumper all the way, they do not know how to deal with traffic jams and accidents that they cause and it is three lanes all the way to just north of Big Smoke. Where it gets worse. It widens. It crosses other big roads. Three times the people join into the rush with the lattes that they got but are now late for work. All heading for the 401, where they expect to get bogged down in traffic jams, but want to get ahead of some of it by speeding faster. Non city people are a mess by the time they reach the 401 and cannot see the difference, mostly because it is just degrees different, but the city is magnitudes different than home. Most give up on the outskirts vowing never to go further.
Which is fine, because really, WE don't want them there anyways. The drive everywhere and complain about the traffic and the lack of parking. There is enough of those types that live in the city anyways without adding more to the mix. Really to inner city is best seen from a few select modes of transport, walking, cycling and all the ones in between, roller blades and skate bounds et al.
There are malls where you can park and take the transit to go to locations where you can walk and feel relaxed while doing it. Note the problem is that you have to get up and get to the car again when you are done. This post was written on my iPad on said transit.
Now there is 400, 401, 404, 407 the toll road, 427, the Gardner expressway, the Don Valley Parkway and the Queen Elizabeth Way, all in Big Smoke. There is the Allen too, but it is short and was snipped in the bud by an activist, luckily. The Gardner is slowly being reduced, as it was an elevated highway and those should never have been built, ever. Mostly these highways were built so that people did not have to live in the city that they worked; they move huge numbers of cars into the city through many different routes. They are the problem.
Once upon a time there was a city called San Francisco, it is a fictional town that does not really exist, just like Hollywood. San Francisco was nest to another fictional city call Oakland. There was a very large two tiered highway between the two towns and it was very packed everyday. And the people knew that this highway was very important because they monitored all the roads in the two cities. In 1996 the was a horrible earthquake and the two tiered highway collapsed killing many people including a man who was trapped in his car under the concrete for many days and was subject to many news reports. The people of the city decided not to rebuild the death trap highway because in retrospect building it in the first place was a dumb idea. A year later the people looked at the traffic in the two cities and found that ninety percent of all the traffic that was on e silly two tiered highway had disappeared. People looked at their horrible commute each day and decided that it would be simpler to move closer to where they work than make the trip everyday.
If the people who live in Little Big Smoke and on the outskirts of Big Smoke just moved into Big Smoke and bought their lattes and coffees in shops beside their work, ninety percent of the aggravation on the roads would disappear and we could have roads called 400 series with only four lanes. And there would be no 407, 404, 427, Gardner expressway, and the Don Valley Parkway would not be the Don Valley Parking-lot that it is today. AND there would be less city and everything.
Rant Rant Rant
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