I thought we already talked about this, but here we are—still watching paint dry on Highway 7 during rush hour (both morning and evening)! Remember when we thought the pandemic would magically fix traffic because everyone would work from home? Yeah, that aged well. The stretch between Warden and McCowan has somehow gotten even worse, turning what should be a simple drive into an impromptu meditation session—minus the Zen.

We’ve got this shiny new Cornell Bus Terminal sitting there like a fancy restaurant with no food service (I really love this station – all shiny and new). Granted, development around the hospital is coming along nicely. Now, if only we could make it feel less “disconnected” for pedestrians in the area. I’m sure someone is working on this?

VIVA Pink and Unionville GO

In central Markham, the removal of VIVA Pink feels like someone took away our favourite coffee shop and replaced it with a “coming soon” sign that’s been there for years. And don’t even get me started on the VIVA Purple route playing hide-and-seek with Unionville GO Station. (Seriously, why isn’t Unionville GO more of a transit hub?) It’s like a hamburger without mustard—deeply personal, but I don’t understand how anyone eats one without it.

We’re literally asking people to choose between sitting in soul-crushing traffic or playing a real-life version of transit hopscotch. At this rate, I’m half-expecting to see people showing up to work on horseback—at least that would be entertaining to watch in traffic.

We Can Do Better!

Look, I don’t want to have to pull up Google Images and show everyone pictures of amazing transit systems from around the world (I’m looking at you, East Asia). We have the ingredients for a great transit system: dedicated bus lanes that mysteriously vanish east of Old Kennedy (right before the train tracks), a beautiful new terminal at Cornell (that’s somehow hard to get to), and enough traffic to make a sloth feel fast.

Could someone kindly assist in connecting these dots? I can find no patterns! Pull up ArcGIS or QGIS, and let’s take a look at the data—I’m sure it would tell us something!

Rant over. Now, back to traffic.