Toronto’s chief congestion officer says World Cup traffic hasn’t been so bad
During last week’s opening game, traffic levels around Toronto Stadium decreased by 25 per cent
With hundreds of thousands of tourists in town for the World Cup, many feared that the traffic would become significantly worse than usual—and it’s already pretty bad.
But speaking to reporters today, Toronto’s chief congestion officer, Andrew Posluns, said the city’s strategy to limit congestion has worked, with vehicular traffic actually declining by 25 per cent in the vicinity of Toronto Stadium during last week’s tournament-opening game, a sign that Torontonians followed requests to leave their cars at home.
Related: A dozen of the best places to eat and drink near Toronto Stadium
“Overall, we’re very pleased with how the network has performed,” Posluns said. “Traffic has been manageable, and we’ve seen lots of numbers of people using transit, cycling and walking.”
He said the number of pedestrians near the stadium increased by 130 per cent, and the number of cyclists increased by 65 per cent.
“We’re seeing evidence that people did take into account our messaging around planning ahead,” he added. “We actually have more people coming into the city, we have thousands of people attending the stadium, we have thousands of people coming to Fan Festival, as well as going to events around the city. The fact that we’ve been able to keep traffic moving at a relatively similar speed and experience to what we had previously is a testament to people planning ahead and switching modes a little in order to make sure they get to where they need to go.”
It’s not often we have a reason to be impressed about traffic in this city. We’ll take it!
Related: “Glorious sunshine, beautiful sight lines”: How fans enjoyed Canada’s first home World Cup match
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
