Montreal is number four!

By Kevin Woodhouse, October 31st, 2012

As any motorist can attest to, it takes at least 20 minutes longer than ever to get around the city on any given day, Sundays are no longer exempt, and more time needs to be allotted if you are trying to negotiate the roads during rush hour.
And now there is empirical evidence to back up that claim as recent stats released by GPS company Tom Tom called the North American Congestion Index.  The  last time the study was done, Montreal came in at 12th but now we are the fourth most congested city in North America beaten out only by LA, Vancouver and San Francisco. We are one percent higher in traffic congestion than Toronto.  Yes, we are now more likely to wait in traffic, albeit marginally, than our expat friends down the 401.
And while waiting behind orange cones can be infuriating, the only consolation to take is that perhaps the reason we are all idling more and getting to our destinations on time less is that at least, after years of neglect, local, provincial and federal departments have been providing much needed funds to fix aging infrastructure.  Perhaps one day, the road work along the Met near the St. Laurent exit, after what seems like at least 10 years of detours, will finally get finished or Highway 30 will one day see the light of truck traffic that will be diverted away from the city centre.
Either way, with a little hope and perhaps some severe fines for late work, the myriad of construction projects, a new one being along Highway 40 near St. Charles that will be around until fall 2014, will be done in a timely fashion and one day we will be able to tell our grandchildren about the bad old days of driving in the city.
Now if only we could beat Toronto in terms of private investment for construction.  I had been strutting around telling my expat friends about the many number of cranes seen around the new super hospital until I made a recent trip to Toronto.  I stopped counting after two dozen but there are new condos and apartments going up in every square inch of available space.  All of it private money going towards furnishing residences for new Torontonians who are obviously arriving in droves as the city seems barely able to keep up.
And yet we have more traffic than them?  That just hardly seems fair but the last thing we need to have any Toronto envy.  Although having our province make money through private investment and not taking more out of taxpayers' wallets would be a great start.n