City transportation staff have finally acknowledged how bad traffic congestion has become in Willowdale. Their recent report confirmed that the intersections along Sheppard Avenue at Leslie Street, Yonge Street and Bayview Avenue are amongst the worst in the city. I have been voicing my concerns with respect to this problem for a long time.

The transportation analysis required to support new develop-ments, however, indicates that there is more capacity available and that 40 per cent of new residents will not use their cars to go to work as they will walk, bike or use public transit. 

Though these intersections and roads are at or above capacity, the reports claim that the impact of the development is minor, that the new residents will be able to get out into traffic and that the development should be approved.

Those in the area know that this is not true. Our quiet residential streets are filled with transient traffic  speeding past our homes trying to find a way around this mess. City staff are suggesting that changes to timing signals, co-ordinating traffic lights and tweaks here and there might make a little improvement. The reality is the provincially mandated intensification, which requires Toronto to permit all these new condominium buildings, is diminishing our quality of life.

Toronto needs a world-class subway system to support the influx of over a million new residents to the Toronto area. Maybe our transportation experts should acknowledge this and should stop supporting more and more intensification until a subway system is built to serve these new homes.