Torontonians are spending almost as much time stuck in traffic as they were before the pandemic, even with fewer cars on the road.Torontonians are spending almost as much time stuck in traffic as they were before the pandemic, even with fewer cars on the road.

Data from the city that shows Toronto is almost as clogged as before, even with 20 per cent fewer cars on the road.

By Lex HarveyTransportation Reporter

Tue., Oct. 4, 20222 min. read

Article was updated 4 hrs ago

After years of quieter streets, traffic jams have returned to Toronto.

Thanks to lagging public transit ridership and disruptive construction downtown, congestion is nearing 2019 levels and shows no signs of abating.

Torontonians are spending almost as much time stuck in traffic as they were before the pandemic, and with more and more people returning to the office and planned Ontario Line construction through the end of the decade, the city is bound to get even more jammed.

Last week, I spent four hours stuck in Toronto’s gridlock and noticed a smattering of orange pylons, lane closures, “Construction Ahead” signs and diversions had brought traffic to a standstill and made streets harder to navigate.

My findings are backed up by data from the city that shows Toronto is almost as clogged as before, even with 20 per cent fewer cars on the road.

Here are three charts that show where Toronto’s traffic is at right now and how it has changed over the course of the pandemic:

When Ontario was plunged into lockdown on March 17, congestion immediately fizzled as cars disappeared from the streets. Anyone driving between 8 and 9 a.m. in the weeks following would have found themselves able to navigate downtown with nary a holdup.

Over the past couple of years, congestion has ebbed and flowed with COVID-19 restrictions and seasons, with trips taking longer during back-to-school periods and traffic easing during lockdowns.

But in the third week of this September, morning congestion hit pre-pandemic levels, according to data from the city. The average car trip during Toronto’s morning rush hour took 61 per cent longer than it would have without traffic. That’s the same as the average for the year before COVID-19.

Toronto’s streets are more clogged in the evening than in the morning, yet evening rush hour congestion still isn’t as bad as it was before the pandemic.

During the week of Sept. 12 to 18, the average trip between 5 and 6 p.m. took 63 per cent longer than it would have without traffic — a couple points above morning levels. That means a 30-minute trip without traffic took about 49 minutes.

But that’s still handily behind the average for the year before the pandemic, when travel times at evening rush hour took 76 per cent longer due to congestion.

Toronto’s traffic jams are nearing pre-pandemic levels even with fewer cards on the road. During the week of Sept. 12 to 18, car traffic volume downtown was 80 per cent of what it was before COVID-19.

That’s even five per cent less than the final four months of 2021, when people were starting to resume normal patterns before the highly contagious Omicron variant shut things down again.

While limitations in the city’s data make it impossible to precisely compare between car traffic volume and average travel times, the numbers suggest that something about Toronto’s streets is causing fewer cars to get more jammed more easily.

Lex Harvey is a Toronto-based transportation reporter for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @lexharvs

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