Traffic Q&A

With the Victoria Day long weekend upon us, 680News will be starting its cottage country traffic reports.

680News traffic specialist Russ Holden answered your questions about traffic, your commute and our coverage. 

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QUESTION
From: Christopher Lai
Some cities actually provide live feed of the traffic cameras online, why wouldn’t Toronto’s cameras do the same?

ANSWER
Toronto Transportation provides screen shot pictures from their cameras on the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner updated roughly every ten minutes. Similarly the Ministry of Transportation does the same for the 401 and parts of the 400, 403 and 404. You can Google these easily.

QUESTION
From: Don Welch
What happened to the second plane? 680 used to have 1 person on the traffic desk and 2 planes in the air. With more and more traffic on the roads, why is there only 1 plane? Will the second plane ever return? Thanks.

ANSWER
As more and more cameras became available to us we were able to cover more routes more economically, however the airborne coverage remains the most detailed and provides alternates for our listeners. The second airplane returning is not currently under consideration.

QUESTION
From: Julie
Coverage of traffic conditions on the 427, especially north of the 401 is horrible. Is this because you can’t fly near the airport? Can’t cameras be added to cover the 427??

ANSWER
Yes to your first question. That area is in the departure and arrival corridors for Pearson airport. For your second question the additional cameras required to cover this area would come from the Ministry of Transportation. It is a complicated and costly process and involves a government agency. I would certainly welcome those cameras as well.

QUESTION
From: Aaron Lutes
Hi Russ,
Huge Fan and love your work.

I live in Barrie and do a fair bit of traveling and you guys handle things so well with the complex issue of commuting.

I don’t have a question as much as a point that needs to be aired with urbanites about rural living – especially when running on diversion routes – about volunteer firefighters and green flashing lights.

I am not a firefighter or emergency services person, but grew up in Utopia (west of Barrie) and have seen on several occasions as people dive off the 400 to skirt accidents and on these tight 2 lane hilly roads and NOT yield to the green flashing lights of volunteer responders. It is a shame because the accidents only seem to rise with cottage country traffic and if anyone is involved in an accident the odds are good that it will be one of these responders who will save lives.

Please preach the word this summer, all summer, for those when diverting to respect the green lights and pull over to let them safely arrive on scene to save lives.

I suspect people just don’t know because it is not a part of urban living (volunteer firefighter/green flashing lights) and rarely see this.

Many thanks, safe travels and tight lines for the fishing this weekend!

ANSWER
Thanks for your timely comments. Yes motorists need to treat these vehicles with flashing green lights as they would any other emergency vehicle and give them the ability to get to a problem as quickly as possible. As with many traffic related items driver education is the key. Thanks for the reminder for cottage country commuters.

QUESTION
From: Patti Neely
My question is about the Durham Region and the lack of accurate traffic reports. I travel from Pickering to Bowmanville every day and am regularly stuck in traffic that is not reported. I understand that there
is a lot of area to cover as far as the GTA’s roads, however what the normal traffic report says is “backed up from Liverpool over to beyond Salem.” The reality is that the traffic can be backed up (slow to stop) either to past Lakeridge and then again through Brock Street and Thickson, and sometimes it is a slow crawl from Liverpool all the way into Stevenson.

Same with the morning commute, the reports don’t start until Morningside, however we are continually backed up from Thickson through to Lakeridge. Then again, some commutes are wide open, although this is happening less and less often. It would be nice to know what is actually happening, and I
was wondering if it would be possible to actually do a fly over to the east of Brock Road every once in a while?  Having no MTO traffic cams past Westney Road, Durham Region (which is purportedly part of the GTA) is pretty much left to guess which routes to take.

ANSWER
As you said, the traffic cameras go east to Harwood (with a long shot to Salem). Beyond that it is difficult to get a totally accurate picture without being over the scene in the airplane. When we are aware of a problem we will head out to cover it if possible. However the further away we are from the city (Oshawa is 60 km east of 401/Yonge) it compromises  our overall coverage of the core routes. We rely on our traffic spotters to assist us in covering areas outside the central GTA. Hope this helps.