Opinion – Traffic Forum – Traffic Easing Suggestions

David Barker made these traffic-easing suggestions during the Traffic Forum held by Councillors Lisa Kearns and Paul Sharman on April 1st.

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At the recent Traffic Forum, I suggested these four traffic-easing actions be implemented. There is absolutely no reason why the first three should not be implemented without delay. There is minimal cost involved.

Two of the suggestions (Lakeshore Road/Brant Street & Fairview Street/Plains Road E/QEW Off-Ramp) only require resetting the traffic signals.

The third (Fairview Street & Guelph Line) only requires the second left turn lane repainting.

The fourth (Northshore Boulevard QEW Niagara Bound  On-Ramp) does not require incurring any costs other than having a Halton Police officer close and open the ramp gate and maybe stay on station as a monitor. However, MTO agreement to the suggestion is required since all highway ramps are under its jurisdiction.

I have provided this material to Chris King, Manager of the Traffic Department and to his boss, Craig Kummer, Director of the Traffic Department. Mr. King said at the Forum he would take these suggestions under advisement and later provide a response. We’ll see if he does.

1 – Guelph Line and Fairview Street

Travelling south on Guelph Line, if one wishes to turn left onto Fairview Street (going east), there are two dedicated lanes that benefit from an advanced green signal.

However, if one is travelling north on Guelph Line and wishes to turn left onto Fairview Street (going west), there is only one dedicated turn lane available.

At weekends in particular, that northbound dedicated left turn lane onto Fairview Street (going west) gets backed up into other live lanes all the way back to Prospect Street.

And yet a second dedicated left turn lane is roughed in and only needs to be opened (painted) for use. Is there a reason this cannot be done immediately without delay?

2 – Lakeshore Road & Brant Street Junction

The junction of Lakeshore Road and Brant Street is the actual physical heart of downtown Burlington. It is one of the busiest pedestrian intersections in the whole of the city, if not the busiest! But it is a major bottleneck!

Southbound traffic on Brant Street really only has the options of turning left or right. Straight on is the hotel and Spencer Smith Park.

But turning left or right is very difficult to accomplish – even on a green light. Why? Because there are crosswalks right there where pedestrians have the right of way. When the traffic signal is green in favour of southbound vehicles on Brant Street, pedestrians crossing Lakeshore Road (north/south) block their turn. The same applies to southbound Brant Street vehicles looking to turn left (east) onto Lakeshore Road.

When the traffic signals are red for Brant Street traffic vehicles, most often cannot take advantage of “right on red” due to pedestrians crossing Brant Street.

Due to on-street parking south of Elgin Street, Brant Street is single-lane in each direction. The single lane traffic condition, combined with pedestrians, frustrates drivers wishing to turn onto Lakeshore Road, causing traffic to back up north.

When Spencer Smith Park has an event, congestion is just multiple times worse.

Additionally, when on-street patios are in place, the bottleneck becomes even more congested.

The solution:- this junction is made for a scramble solution. A scramble crossing has multiple benefits. It improves traffic flow substantially because the direction of vehicular traffic and pedestrians has a dedicated crossing time. That is a crossing time when each traffic direction and pedestrians are separated and segregated from the other users.

But maybe more importantly than that, a scramble crossing provides greater safety protection for pedestrians by completely separating and segregating pedestrians from vehicular traffic.

At event times such as music festivals or Ribfest, when hundreds of pedestrians are milling around the area trying to get to and from Spencer Smith Park, separating pedestrian traffic from vehicular traffic is a huge safety Improvement.

3 – Junction of Plains Road East, Fairview Street & QEW Off Ramp.

The layout of this junction and its traffic signal setup often leads to confusion as to which vehicle has the right of way. I specifically refer to times when light signals are green in favour of vehicles exiting both Plains Road East and QEW off-ramp

The QEW off-ramp has two left-turn lanes to join the three-lane westbound Fairview Street. Plain Road East has one right-turn lane onto the same three-lane Fairview Street. Many vehicles from the off-ramp immediately move right to enter the Ikea access road.

There is often visible confusion about who has the right of way when turning from Plains Road East or from the highway. The reality is they have a shared right-of-way. But that is what causes the confusion.

A solution would be to set the traffic signals so that they don’t both have green at the same time. Just like the signal settings at the junction of Guelph Line, North Service Road, and the QEW off-ramp.

4 -Transient Traffic Shortcutting Through Downtown

City staff’s approach to manage/reduce the volume of transient traffic seeking to avoid the congestion on the QEW from Appleby Line round to the Skyway Bridge by cutting through Burlington downtown is to employ shorter traffic signal timings for vehicles looking to turn south from highway off-ramps.

The results may be a slight reduction in traffic leaving the highway, looking for the shortcut. But it will in no way have any impact on the transient traffic which currently avoids the highway and uses the east-west arterial roads (Lakeshore Road, Rebecca Street/New Street, Dundas Street). That volume of traffic on arterial roads will increase further when the new Wyecroft bridge opens.

Midway through the summer of 2025, the MTO made a significant change in its modus operandi when major work on the Skyway Bridge was undertaken. Last summer, the MTO determined to close the Eastport Drive on-ramp to the QEW on the Burlington side of the Skyway Bridge. The result of this action was that vehicles looking to join the QEW towards Niagara were forced to take Eastport Drive all the way across the lift bridge to access the on-ramp to the highway on the other side of the Skyway Bridge. That is a long and slow diversion. A second result of this action was that any vehicles taking the North Shore Boulevard on-ramp found that they were unable to join the highway because they would normally do so through the Eastport Drive on-ramp. A third result was the most exciting. And that was there was no backup of traffic in downtown Burlington. Why? Because there was absolutely no ability to join the highway from North Shore Boulevard. Any drivers unaware of these closures when they found them were forced to drive back up to the Fairview Street on-ramps.

That construction work and how the MTO handled it acted as a pilot for an action that many residents have suggested for a while to eliminate the transient traffic in the downtown.

I could tell from the audience feedback at the Traffic Forum that to eliminate congestion in downtown caused by transient traffic, one has to close off access to the highway at North Shore Boulevard.

It is again suggested that the city gain an agreement with the MTO which allows the city to close the North Shore Boulevard on ramps during evening rush hours or when there’s a serious event on the bridge.

There is a precedent for this type of action. During evening rush hours and after major sporting events, the on-ramp from Lakeshore Boulevard at Jameson Road to the Gardiner Expressway is closed by the Toronto Police Service. Traffic is diverted along Lakeshore Boulevard to access the highway at South Kingsway.

At the very least, this solution should be implemented as a 12-month pilot project. During that time, its effects and benefits can be monitored. This would be a very low-cost analog solution. Costs to be incurred would be Halton Police Services’ time to close/open the on-ramp gates and to station a cruiser at the ramps.

Variable message signs on the highway and GPS navigation apps like Google Maps, Waze, and Apple Maps would provide drivers with real-time information about closures.