Council approves plan for ‘congestion czar’ to oversee Toronto traffic, gridlock issues

The Gardiner Expressway is seen on Wednesday, June 28, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Lahodynskyj

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow wants to appoint a “congestion czar” to help tackle the issue of traffic and gridlock in the city.

At Wednesday’s council meeting, Chow tabled a motion asking the city manager to “establish a position of a congestion lead, or ‘czar,’ to focus on creative, cross-divisional solutions to tackling congestion and pre-emptively identifying challenges and recommending solutions to get Toronto moving.”

Chow’s motion passed at Wednesday’s council meeting with an amendment from Bradford that asked city staff to come back with a report on July 10 about what the czar position will look like and entail.

The motion comes after a Toronto city staff report determined construction is the biggest driver of bumper-to-bumper congestion in the city.

That report noted that Toronto is the busiest city in North America for construction and, at its peak last summer, travel times more than doubled due to the temporary closure of 24 per cent of all roads.

“The city is growing fast, which is a good thing, and we want to have more construction, but it needs to be done a lot faster,” Chow said at city hall on Wednesday.

“Having a lead a person in charge means that person will take the responsibility [of congestion], and all bucks will stop at that person.”

Toronto City Council adopted a three-year congestion management plan last fall that included things like hiring 75 more traffic agents to fan out at the city’s busiest intersections, better coordination and control of construction activities in the right-of-way, and a new framework for special event approvals to minimize impacts on traffic.

Earlier this year, a report from the Toronto Region Board of Trade (TRBOT) said all active and planned construction zones for 2025 will occupy 550 kilometres of roadway—roughly 10 per cent of all Toronto streets.

Chow said the idea behind the proposed congestion czar is to bring all the concerns surrounding congestion to one place, instead of having different departments making different decisions when it comes to approving projects that could impact traffic.

“I’ve been calling for this for more than two years,” Beaches-East York Coun. Brad Bradford told reporters on Wednesday.

“While I appreciate that the mayor is moving this today, it’s in keeping with the theme here in Toronto that is very much hurry up and wait for the city to get serious about congestion.”

Bradford challenged Chow during council over the motion, and said Torontonians he speaks to think it should be the mayor who takes on the czar position. He also asked if she would consider putting the task of appointing the new role with her office instead of with the city manager.

“There are other priorities,” Chow told reporters at city hall. “I cannot be the mayor, and the city manager, and department head, and commissioner, and police chief.”

Other councillors raised other concerns, including how the city will determine the success of the proposed czar.

“I don’t know how that person’s success will be measured,” said Etobicoke Centre Coun. Stephen Holyday.

“I don’t know if council is setting them up to fail. I don’t know what the conversation is going to look like a year from now if we appoint a czar. Will council be happy with the results? Will that person get fired if congestion continues to rise?”

Holyday pointed to the TRBOT report, saying he doesn’t feel like council is doing a good job of seizing on some of the ideas it suggested to alleviate congestion.

“I don’t think that the mayor can transfer responsibility of a political issue to a public servant. I just don’t think it’s that simple to create a czar and hand it off.”