Kun-Won Park

Traffic

 

Every day Torontonians and Willowdale residents are facing difficulties on the road and are spending long hours commuting to work and back home. Here are a few solutions to reduce the gridlock.

 

1. Civic Action; Major reason why we are having gridlock in the morning and afternoon is that thousands of people are going and coming home at the same time. The city can encourage people and companies to be more flexible in work schedules in Toronto to avoid traffic period and promote this civic action.

 

• I propose Torontonians and Willowdale take up the BMW Civic Action challenge. BMW stands for Bicycle, Metro, and Walk. This Civic Action can create multiple positive chain reactions to the community.

• If you ride your bicycle to work and shop at local markets, it will reduce greenhouse gases and also help reduce gridlock.

• Use Metro/Public transit often to help public transit to improve its services and reduce gridlock.

• Walk more and shop locally to help promote small businesses and make yourself healthy. This is an improvement to modern transportation system. People are not exercising enough as they age and that can cause various diseases such as heart disease, obesity and diabetes.

 

2. Adapting Smart traffic light system starting from major intersections.

 

3. Build overpass south east entrance of Yonge 401.

 

4. $1 toll charge from 905 area: The traffic from north of Steeles is further pressurized by the population of Richmond Hill and Thornhill which is about 300,000 people. Now, 1/5 of that population is about 60,000 cars coming from 905 area. I will execute a toll charge of $1 per day and reinvest that money into better transit systems so that the 905 people can leave the car at home and utilize a more connected transit system.