To those of you who haven't travelled to Canada, Ontario's highway 401 is the longest highway/freeway in the province. Essentially millions of cars travel on that stretch of highway everyday, and it's only getting busier. Expansions of residential areas in all three corners of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) are causing rush hour delays like no tomorrow. Milton was once a nice escape from the big city. It is now essentially a part of Mississauga now. There will eventually be no farmland sitting between Toronto and Newmarket. People are moving to Bowmanville and commuting to Toronto everyday because they cannot afford anything closer - a one hour drive with light traffic.
I've been living in Toronto for what seems like forever (seven years is enough). I grew up in the small city of London, about a two to two and a half hour drive west from Toronto. I found my first job after university in Mississauga at a manufacturer that makes a very niche product for the power industry. Leaving my girlfriend back in London and starting a long distance relationship, I made the effort in 2010 to commute every Friday night and Monday morning from Toronto to London and back to see her. Back in 2010, traffic at the Trafalgar exit wasn't too bad...
Until suburbs and the new Toronto Premium Outlets popped up. The six lane highway (three one way, three the other way) was no longer capable of handling such an amount of traffic. This is already on top of the outrageous traffic jam happening on a daily basis on the Mississauga corridor of the 401. Then came Milton's viral growth of developments. Now the Highway 25 exit is blocked with cars.
More and more people are now commuting from the Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph area, causing that stretch of 401 to become congested too.
For too long, this stretch of highway has been forgotten. Land leasers have allowed buildings to be built essentially right up to the shoulder of the highway, preventing some areas of adequate expansion.
Now they're finally starting to add more lanes; three more each way. Commuters will have to endure the long, boring stretch of highway with consistent construction delays that go to no end in sight. When will the time come when certain companies realize they don't need to have headquarters in Toronto and people can work in their local towns or from home VPN?
I mentioned that I made the commute from Toronto to London in about 2 to 2.5 hours back in 2010. Now, in 2017, if I leave at the same time, it now takes me more than 4 hours. This is insane! Have people gone mad?