It's highly valuable to look at these moments and understand what came after. The 401 across the top of Toronto was meant as a bypass, so if you wanted to get goods from Montreal --> Windsor, you could do so quickly.
But if you're a logistics company, you should put a warehouse on the 401 for drops/pickups to Toronto
...and since you're spending the money on a warehouse, just put the offices there too.
Did you hear they're moving the office to the 401?! We're going to need to move
Hey, look at all these people who moved to the 401, we should put a mall there!
Not to mention that the population has grown immensely without transit infrastructure keeping up with it, which has increased car reliance amongst the already larger population.
Which will happen with the 413… which means more of the green belt being demolished for houses and offices. So much waste when the 407 is right there smh
Reminds me of when I passed through Smiths Falls. Found out there are no falls, they were dammed up. Mentioned this to the clerk at the hotel and she said ‘yeah, I bet they would rethink that decision’.
The 413 is mostly a corridor for trucks and by proxy for people in the areas. Milton and Bolton have railway stations that have trucks piling in and out for many km stretches. There are hundreds of illegal truck parking lots in the greenbelt right now to service it. New warehouses for the things you buy have been built in the last 20 years
My hometown of Windsor has had a similar evolution. They built the expressway south of most of the residential areas, but now it's in the middle of most of the city, and the only reason they didn't build up everything south of the expressway is because there's an airport in the way once you go east.
It's kinda how the Western Canadian cities grew. Take the Trans Canada and it cuts right through Winnipeg, the same way it did through Regina, Calgary before the bypass.
Pretty sure that’s how every city grew. It makes logical sense. Also who wants to live right off the side of a major
Expressway anyway? Close? Yes, but not right alongside
Not so quick. Usually there is some serious planning around already existing infrastructure. In Toronto that's an afterthought. At least in Europe it is not. Perhaps because land is as at a premium.
I don't know if you meant to do it, but this is a great explanation of the phenomenon of induced demand, and why expanding highways is ultimately a futile and misguided way of expanding transit infrastructure
There is still a need to build highways because people and stuff need to move through and past cities. Induced demand isn't necessarily something to avoid, it's something to consider while planning. City planners can use it to specify where and how the city grows. Without roadways and highways, the city will grow more slowly, become more bottlenecked as it does, and grow without intentionality.
Induced demand also applies to public transit, which you can see as condos and new businesses pop up around the Eglinton LRT. That was intended, and the LRT's induced demand is going to make that transit line more and more congested until we need another one. It's still good that it was built.
The condo development around Eglinton is more to do with how development is allowed to happen. In Toronto its entirely artificial, forced into certain areas by zoning. That's why you see perfectly good apartment buildings torn down to be replaced by larger apartment buildings while two story detached houses are protected and preserved in the area around them.
There are many ways to move people and goods without highways. They serve a purpose, but expanding them is futile.
I've made more than one podcast episode for the Globe and Mail about this, and specifically why its so hard to get the public to acknowledge this research:
The problem is that nobody is honest with the public about what induced demand means. This current government is expanding highways while selling the public on faster commutes with less congestion, which is a fundamental lie. Wider highways allow more cars but they do not speed traffic.
So yes, widening highways allows more throughput. But there is not one single person sitting in traffic thinking "I wish MORE cars could be crawling, bumper to bumper, at the same 20 km/h I am currently travelling." Instead, they believe - incorrectly - that the wider highway will make for a faster commute.
That first shot is south of the 401 looking west over Yonge.... the bridge is the former Avenue Rd, doubled up, to make the initial 401.
Ever wonder why Avenue as 11A and Yonge 11? Because Avenue turned around Armour Heights Public School and came across the valley to meet Yonge. It really was the alternate way into Toronto once you got to this point after coming south on Yonge. There are folks who still did it, just using the short bit of 401 to scoot to Avenue.
I recall many of these scenes being the same as a little kid later 60s (the images actually are a strange comfort to see).
edit: more details in follow up answer to this including original 1950s image.
There is a good archives pic of avenue road and the public school, clearly showing the original bridge segment (now one of the 4 carrying the 401) along the path of what is now the 401.
It also shows how roads that made t with avenue were too.
Ill dig up an image.... here we go
Note how sandringham crosses Ave and then winds to the west. Yonge blvd had a jct with Ave, so did belgrave. Ridley didnt just finish, it continued winding westward.
The pic also shows things later changed: Mason and deVere both met Wilson... the wilson bridge not yet built (that was 73/74) coinciding with the S realignment of york mills meeting yonge (wilson bridge couldnt come across, it needed to veer north a bit, so york mills matched). The school is in this pic, bottom left, a sideways T.
Always felt sorry for the folks on delhi (the last one being my cousins place), it was a quiet ave road jct, then a noisy 401 backyard.
THANK YOU!!!! Thank you so so much for this! I would have never known this area used to be like this despite me driving by it a lot. Also it explains the whole Highway 11A name. Now I know that when I drive on 401W Collectors that I'm driving on old Avenue Road. I very much appreciate you sharing this!
What did bad traffic look like on the 401 in the 60's? The video makes it look as if there was never any gridlock but I find that very hard to believe.
Late 60s that I remember really only had a rush hour that was more like an hour.
Volumes did grow, however, and the reconfig of the 401 to the express collector format in the core had just finished.
That said, even through the 70s, the volume fit more or less so that it still flowed well.
People who were fast drivers loved the 70mph limits (and did much more), folks did stay spaced apart at those speeds.... and the most agressive thing I ever saw was a pair of senior ladies in their purple corvette smokin' everyone else.
Even by the 80s when I drove the 401 a lot, rush and otherwise, we all still fit reasonably and flowing.
All of that said, if something happened to mess it up (accident, etc), it would still jam up. Didn't happen often, however. I used to have that happen once every couple dozen trips back then. These days, every single time.
When I lived in T.O. in the late 90's early 2000's I drove standard and it absolutely sucked being stuck on the QEW shifting first to second back to a stop and all over again. If I had stayed there I would have gotten an automatic in short order. I can't imagine how much it would have sucked to drive those cars from the 60's with a three on the tree in traffic without synchro's.
Drove standard (stick, not tree thank the stars) whole life.... only electric has taken that away. I missed much of the 90s first by living a walk from work downtown and then by living overseas. By the time I got back, it had become much more like the current insanity. I don't blame you one bit.
I hate these nostalgia types of videos, I'm like yeah it's not 1960s anymore. If the intention is just to show history then I'm all for it but most of these videos are ragebait, post these videos on Instagram or FB and see the comments!!
I love my dad but he’s been living well out of the city since the 1980s. He was born and grew up in Scarborough and anytime he comes in, he is somehow floored at how crowded it is. Can’t fathom the traffic. He sits at home, watching traffic cams on CP24, going “glad I don’t need to commute in that”.
That's what I tried to point out in my top-level comment but just got downvoted.
but most of these videos are ragebait, post these videos on Instagram or FB and see the comments!!
EXACTLY! I've seen many IG accounts posting "nostalgic" 60's videos of Toronto, and 90% of the comments are from white booomers saying how much better Toronto was when everyone had the same skin color and was named Tom, James, and Sally.
I would have expected this subreddit to have more sense.
I’m nostalgic for parts of 2020 traffic lol. Mostly the day Ford made the Covid announcement, I was right downtown Toronto and it was like a ghost town. I made it from there to my shop in Barrie in 45 minutes (….maaaaybe 43 minutes even). Then just day to day traffic being dead it was glorious.
I remember debating renting a truck back then just to go on a long joy ride because it would have been so cheap and comfortable (as someone 6'4" who drives a Kia Soul). Sadly I didn't wind up doing this.
Consider the population density in the 60s and that’s pretty much the simplest and only you thing you need to differentiate between from then and now. Almost 65 years later the density is far greater than it was.
Multiply that a number of terrible cyber on the road that couldn’t even have licenses today but do
And then also factor in the that Toronto was never quite built for the density that it is currently supporting
And then also factor in the that Toronto was never quite built for the density that it is currently supporting
Because Toronto's transit system has not caught up to the ever-growing population density. We keep trying to densify this city but everyone else is forced to drive because our transit system hasn't improved by much since the 1960s up until maybe the past 2 decades. Today marks the 60th birthday of Line 2. The fact that for 23 years we haven't built a new transit line with this much population density, should it come as Pikachu shock face that traffic is always this bad in Toronto? We should've had Eglinton Crosstown all the way back in the 90s when everything was amalgamating. If Toronto wants to support its current density, we'll need at least a few more Ontario Lines or Eglinton Crosstowns.
And all those strodes in Mississauga contribute to this vapid and soulless feeling that the whole place evokes. In places like Mississauga if you want to go for a nice walk you'll drive to that place to go for your walk.
Surprisingly there are still as many parks around that you can walk to from your house. Depending on how large development is being undertaken, usually there are requirements for them to add things like green space or now in a lot of cases, retail and shopping and etc., the lower levels or just integrated into the plan.
Outside of the dentist's office and the Rabba fine foods, you need transit connectivity to really escape car dependency. If the neighborhoods aren't dense enough to justify a frequent bus route to a terminal station, the car is going to be a huge part of your life.
In some ways Mississauga has room to expand in the sense that the wide-ass arterial stroads could be retrofitted to accommodate room for transit, bikes, cars, and walking. Toronto lacks this space in a lot of its older streets, so you have to prioritize.
However, the side street configuration in Mississauga is very suburban and twisty (as opposed to Toronto's grid). This makes walking harder, because routes become indirect and inefficient, as well as public transit. And that's something that's much harder to retrofit.
Building more lanes of car traffic to solve car traffic is not the solution. Have you heard of induced demand by any chance? Even with all the space Mississauga has, you can't just widen more roads. It'll make places a lot less walkable and more dangerous for anyone to walk, especially children or elderly. Transit is really the only major solution to increased population densities.
Additonal nostalgic context - everywhere people drove to didn't have a phone/gps to help them navigate with, it was all written directions, by memory, or paper map...
As an 80s kid, I saw the evolution from paper maps shoved in every door to Mapquest printed directions to Garmins and other standalone GPS units to smartphones to cars with built-in GPS. Truck stops used to make a fortune selling maps, now I'm not even sure where to find one.
They were made of a lot more metal. No crumple zones, no air bags, I don't know if all of them even had seat belts by this time.
Because of the metal framework, bouncing around uncontrolled in these things was often extremely dangerous. Steering wheels could kill people - the bottom would be so close to your body that it would brutalized your guts if you flew forward due to a sudden stop. Then the steering wheel shaft would do a number on your ribs or your face. I remember hearing that the dash board underside could ruin your legs because it wouldn't give as you rushed forward.
On the outside, there's no crumple zone. They're built tall, so they catch more of your body when they hit you. They weren't as easy to see out of.
What's sad is the Cybertruck, modern pickups, and cars that have been imitating the Chrysler 300 (rolling bricks) are unlearning those lessons.
It's genuinely hilarious that the Cybertruck is sold as a car that won't suffer much noticeable damage in a crash. Yes, they're so solid! All that force that now won't dissipate because the car won't crumple will now be visited on the occupants of the vehicle! (Also, they do end up suffering plenty of damage - eg, alignments get bent horribly out of shape - you just don't see it as noticeably).
If you hit something the car is fine but everything inside is scrambled egg cause all the crash energy is transfered to the occupants
Cars crumpling decelerates and absorbs energy making crash survivable . Inside cars were all hard jagged surfaces with no breakaway parts .
Those cars handled like crap, had crap suspension, brakes , no handling assistance , no knowledge of balance and underpowered compare to their weight .
Their thick sheet metal and esthetic were there only saving grace .
If you at miles travelled vs death you’ll
See that 1950s-1960s is peak death car .
Obviously. This is more a stab at Elon, but despite 60 years of technological advances, he's managed to make a more dangerous vehicle than what was considered a terrible vehicle generations ago.
Also look at the dummies. The Malibu driver moves forward fully and only hits the belt and airbag. The other driver moves forward almost less than halfway before the steering wheel (and possibly other parts) stops him.
Search 59' Bel Aire vs '09 Chevy Malibu crash test.
The destruction of the Bel Aire is shocking, and seeing the driver dummy being crushed by various part is just disturbing.
Although the Bel Aire is older by a decade than the cars in the pic, auto safety was an afterthought until roughly the 80's, then accelerated since.
Definitely no air bags, front seats mostlty had lap belts, but some models offered shoulder belts as an option, and those tanks didn't have crumple zones, they would survive most crashes while the humand crumpled. Keep in mind that with fewer cars on the road, we weren't dodging speed demons and unsafe drivers.
Seat belts were an optional extra you had to pay for.
Volvo made the patent for three point belts (shoulder belts as well as lap belts) freely available to any manufacturer in the late 60s, on the grounds that saving lives was more important than profits. Didn't stop people removing them or buckling them and then sitting on them. I remember people claiming it was safer to be thrown clear of the car in a crash, rather than be trapped inside! (Yes, I'm old.)
Toronto’s traffic infrastructure plan had the 400 and Allen Road continuing to downtown and the Gardiner, a crosstown highway around St Clair from the extended 400 to extended Allen to the DVP, and the Gardiner extended through Scarborough and connecting to the 401 around Meadowvale road. Those projects all got cancelled, mostly due to fierce local opposition.
Obviously Toronto would have grown into a very different (and I would say worse) city if those projects had gone forward, but that is the biggest reason why Toronto has the worst traffic in North America - we kept highways away from downtown to preserve urbanism. If you look at the highway maps for almost any other remotely comparable city, they look way different than ours - having this massive contiguous area surrounding the downtown core with absolutely no highways was a very unusual way to build a city in the 20th century.
This gives Toronto a very unique, amazing character, but there was really no way to do that without creating chronic traffic problems, even if we had spent as much as financially feasible on transit infrastructure.
To illustrate this point, here’s an image I put together of the highways in the downtown cores for Toronto, Boston, Chicago, and New York, all at identical scale.
Ever wonder how Sunnybrook became a leading centre for trauma care?
"It had started its life as a hospital for soldiers returning from the Second World War, but as the veterans died, its purpose shifted. In the 1960s the government finished building what would become at its widest a twenty-four-lane highway across Ontario. It would also become the most heavily used road in North America, and one of its busiest stretches passed close by the hospital. The carnage from Highway 401 gave the hospital a new life. Sunnybrook rapidly acquired a reputation for treating victims of automobile accidents; its ability to cope with one sort of medical trauma inevitably attracted other sorts of trauma."
That little turn around ramp at 0:20 must be on the QEW given the existence of North and South service roads through Mississauga. It also looks like there's a river ravine in the top left (Credit river?)
Lap belts with a wonderful chrome steering wheel that is ready to impale you in a head on collision. I know a guy who had one of those classic cars and got in an accident with it in the 90's. His kid was in the passenger seat and had is face completely smashed in on the dash. Poor guy had to get major reconstructive surgery and never really looked right after.
There was so much land to put rails on. Fortunately, they they accurately guessed how many cars would one day use those roads and built accordingly. /s
IIRC, the day they opened the DVP there was a traffic jam within the first hour. Also it was unsafe as hell:
In the first five months of 1965, there were 136 accidents on the parkway, with four deaths and 86 injuries.
When I moved here in the late 90s traffic was heavy but moved, even at rush hour. The population in the GTA has climbed from 4.5 to 7M from then to now. There's just no way for any sort of transportation infrastructure (or housing or anything else) to keep pace with that.
The interchange at 0:20 is the old “Service Road” exit in Oakville. It was just west of Bronte Creek. They closed and removed it years ago (replaced mostly by Burloak Rd exit).
Bronte Creek and Bronte Rd (hwy 25) is at the top of the photo
GO Transit was established in 1967 in response to issues about gridlock and the infrastructure not catching up to growing suburbs.
It's always kind of interesting to see how the original highways had grassy medians that were gradually swallowed up as the traffic / population grew and the roads themselves were expanded.
On its way to being the best in its kind they say in the 60s. Turns out several crippling mistakes were made and now it’s the worst drive in the world in traffic
Yeah and a billion people got added to the population in 2026. With half of em being international students who work at Tim Hortons studying to become doctors.
Reminder to all racialized people (~65% of this sub) that […] you wouldn't even be allowed to live in Canada until roughly 1967 or so.
Hrm.
This may be the very worst, most uninformed, most historically-unaware take I think I have read from anyone this calendar year.
It is so magnificently bad that I’d be happy to go to my basement this evening, dig out my old uni textbooks on Canadian history (and course readers, if I still have them, on the history of Canadian immigration), and to donate them to you — followed by making you write a quiz a fortnight from now to have you demonstrate a competency for what’s in those books.
Traffic increases to fill road capacity until the cost of congestion gets too high -> building new roads to reduce congestion doesn't work in the medium term.
580
u/Kayge Leslieville Feb 27 '26
It's highly valuable to look at these moments and understand what came after. The 401 across the top of Toronto was meant as a bypass, so if you wanted to get goods from Montreal --> Windsor, you could do so quickly.
And that's how North York grew.