Throwing Good Money After Bad Car Infrastructure - Wonderland Road

i grew up in a car infested city called london london ontario canada today i want to talk about a road widening project that was proposed there a few years ago because it's an interesting case of what could be a turning point in car dependency this is wonderland road specifically at the corner of oxford and wonderland i spent a lot of my childhood coming to this place because this is where all the shops were in fact the day i got my driver's license when i was 16 years old the very first trip i took was to this building which used to be a wendy's it's now a bubble tea shop yum looking back it's really pathetic that a trip to buy a hamburger was such an amazing journey for a 16 year old but when you grow up in suburbia you're pretty much stranded until you can drive so any amount of independent mobility is incredible wonderland is a typical five lane strode two driving lanes in each direction with a center turning lane and lined with commercial properties and side streets a strode is a street that's designed more like a highway and if you want to know more you'll have to watch my previous video about it wonderland road is a major north-south arterial for the city that according to recent counts carries over 45 000 vehicles a day this was considered to be a problem so the city was preparing to undertake its largest infrastructure project in history to take eight kilometers of this five-lane strode and widen it to a seven-lane strode this project was unveiled with a cute little logo of discover wonderland which kind of makes me want to barf because it's literally just one step closer to paving the earth the most recent cost estimate for this project was over 212 million dollars that's an already absurdly high number for a city the size of fake london but as strong towns has shown us when it comes to car dependent infrastructure the real cost is in the lifetime of maintenance not the capital costs this is what wonderland road looks like during rush hour that's a lot of cars and with typical average vehicle occupancy levels in london that 45 000 vehicles equates to like about 45 000 people just a bit south of oxford street no not that oxford street is this section of wonderland it's 30 meters wide including the sidewalks here you can see a sea of asphalt part of which forms a painted bicycle gutter for anybody brave enough to ride next to high-speed motor traffic these people have the right idea by being on the sidewalk riding a bike on this strode is suicide there are very few trees or any greenery at all except grass i'm currently baking in the sun while standing in the clear zone the area next to the road that's kept clear of obstacles in case a high-speed car runs off the road it really sucks to stand here here you can see houses off to the left most of which have been turned into businesses because nobody wants to live along a five lane strode and finally this strode is very difficult and dangerous to cross i know because i was stupid enough to try it in general wonderland road is hostile to anybody who isn't in a car which is typical for a north american city now compare that to this street in amsterdam this street is also 30 meters wide each side of the street has a comfortable two and a half meter sidewalk a two meter protected bicycle path street parking a lane for cars and a dedicated bus and tram lane that can also be used by taxis and emergency vehicles there are these nice big street trees and there are still people living here too because people do like being on a street like this even if you're not in a car despite being 30 meters wide this street is trivially easy to cross there are raised crossings for pedestrians and there are pedestrian islands so people walking only ever need to look in one direction at a time while crossing this woman is casually crossing with a cup of coffee in her hand while i had to sprint across wonderland road to avoid dying and the side streets have continuous sidewalks making them very safe for people walking and cycling it's also good to remember that this street didn't always look like this for example it looked like this in the 1970s these changes were made on purpose to make the street better could you imagine if they had decided to widen this to six lanes instead so this street is pleasant attractive safe and productive but it actually moves more people too this is a graphic from the transit street design guide published by nacto the national association of city transportation officials in the united states it shows the carrying capacity of a single lane of traffic of different types now you might say that the high end of these estimates could be optimistic but even if you take the lowest numbers for transit and cycling versus the most optimistic for driving this street carries almost three times as many people as wonderland road while also being better in every way but productive and attractive streets aside the fundamental problem with a road widening like this is that it won't actually solve congestion it is well known that in a growing city any new road capacity will be consumed by induced demand so the largest infrastructure project in the city's history would result in over a decade of construction followed by a year or two of improved traffic flow and then the city will be in exactly the same situation as before but with an even bigger maintenance liability and a lower quality of life for just about everyone especially those who aren't in a car this is the trap of car dependency car infrastructure is an endless money pit and it's not sustainable financially or environmentally so you might be thinking this all seems pretty typical for a north american car dependent hellscape like fake london so why is this even worth mentioning well the remarkable part is what happened last month london city staff issued a report that analyzed all upcoming transportation projects through a quote climate lens and this report says all the right things widening of this corridor will have significant impacts to the environment and climate change associated with increased greenhouse gas emissions whitening to solely accommodate general traffic leads to induced travel demand with additional trips no mode shift incentive and a return to congestion widening to six lanes would have a negative impact on the streetscape and impact connectivity and accessibility across the corridor six lanes you've gotta be kidding me okay i made up that last one but the really amazing part is that london city council agreed they voted 9-5 to agree with staff recommendations to cancel the road widening project and to consider the traffic congestion problem as part of their wider mobility master plan this is the best news to come out of london ontario since the guy who runs not just bikes but while this is a very welcome change and hopefully a sign of better things to come from my much maligned hometown there's still a chance that this project could rise again just with a little bit of greenwashing while north american traffic engineers may talk a lot about complete streets the actual outcome is far too often a complete strode sure it's six lanes of car traffic with no dedicated transit right away but look there are bike paths in the clear zone and apparently a hydro pole too this is a plan so terrible that even the artist's interpretation looks like crap and then there's arguments like this one one london politician who was in favor of the plan was quoted as saying cars pollute the most when they're idling so by not widening we're simply increasing congestion and idling now this is nonsense of course because getting even a small fraction of people out of their cars and onto other modes of travel would more than offset any impact of idling due to congestion i do love it though when suburbanites suddenly care an awful lot about the environment as long as the solution is to let them drive everywhere and as fast as they want and finally there's the issue of transit there is no doubt that public transit is the most efficient way to move large volumes of people by far but not all transit projects are equal wonderland road has a bus route that runs the entire length of the area that was due to be widened but since the buses get stuck in the same traffic as the cars nobody will ever take the bus if they can afford to drive the fundamental problem is that most of london is sprawling car center developments of primarily single-family homes this kind of environment makes it almost impossible to build high quality transit accessible by enough people to make it worthwhile transit should be used as a catalyst to build great places not as a band-aid on top of car dependent infrastructure the city needs to build high-quality transit with its own right-of-way and then encourage the development of mixed-use walkable neighborhoods around those transit lines i'd really like to see london take this cancelled road widening project as an opportunity to change for the better but i'm not very optimistic the city had a bus rapid transit plan which itself was a downgraded lrt plan but they've recently chopped off two lines including the western one that would have intersected with wonderland the strode that apparently had such crippling traffic that they were about to spend over 200 million dollars on it the decisions london has made around their rapid transit project shows that there's still a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of transit in a city it's not just to move the people who live there today but for the people who will live along the transit network in the future induced demand isn't just about cars it works for transit too but climate emergencies and mobility master plans aside london needs to ask itself one important question why did it ever think it needed six lane strodes for a city of only four hundred thousand people and how can a city of this size not have any rapid transit of any kind what development patterns led to this problem in the first place and what needs to change so that this never happens again because if they don't resolve this fundamental issue they'll be constantly throwing good money after bad car infrastructure i'd like to thank my supporters on patreon who pay me to travel through the looking glass if you'd like to support the channel and get access to bonus videos visit patreon.com not just bikes [Music] you

Channel: Not Just Bikes

Views: 805,373

Keywords: urban planning, london, ontario, road widening, shift london, wonderland road, london ontario, london brt, london ontario brt, london ontario lrt, amsterdam, public transit, car infrastructure, wonderland road widening

Id: Ds-v2-qyCc8

Length: 11min 7sec (667 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 25 2021