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00:00have you got Canada's worst commute it is two hours for me to get home this is
00:14the traffic trying to get on to the Trans Canada highway it is so frustrating
00:19to see a green light that you can't go through we head south where they're
00:23paying to avoid the pain drivers have suddenly become supporters of congestion
00:28pricing because people value their time more than some of the opponents rushing
00:31them and we're putting options to the test who's ready for a race which of us
00:39will get to work fastest this is your marketplace
00:46we're hitting the highway and quickly going nowhere from Victoria to Halifax
00:53we're coast-to-coast and bumper-to-bumper trying to figure out who's got it worst
01:00I live in Pickering and I have the worst commute behind me you can see the Trans
01:07Canada one highway it is always jammed up in the morning which causes a huge amount
01:13of traffic here a marketplace call out asks who has Canada's worst commute and more than a thousand
01:23of you say me my name is Jayden I live in Southwest Edmonton my name is Cindy Hunter I live in Camp
01:31of East Ontario we've got the facts and the fury I have to go through the construction that's on
01:37white mud or I have to go through the construction that's on the Henday and by the end of this journey
01:42we'll have the losing-est winner in all the land the worst commute has got to be in Edmonton
01:51Baher Abdulhai thinks he has the solution Baher hello hop in he's a professor of civil engineering at
02:00the University of Toronto I can't guarantee you it'll be fast but I can guarantee you I'll get
02:05you home I guarantee you it's not gonna be fair we're gonna talk traffic and test it at the same time
02:12okay so Baher we're gonna test out how long it takes us to get to the highway to take you out of
02:18town it's about a three kilometer trip how long do you think this is gonna take us oh well if we're
02:24lucky it will take 40 minutes lucky 40 minutes yeah our inspiration is a photo from 1903 motorists line up
02:35at the Ontario legislature to push for an increase in the speed limit back a hundred years ago the
02:41speed limit was about 16 kilometers an hour now the speed limit of this route is 40 kilometers an hour
02:48and you think we're lucky if we can best 100 years ago speed that would be very very good we'll see
02:58what's changed and what should meantime we're about to take a trip with Michaela Helliwell of Pickering
03:05Ontario hi I'm Chris hey Chris nice to meet you nice to meet you glad you could come out let me show you
03:11around okay let's see it to find out what makes her ride the most miserable and do you find that they're
03:17all kind of vibrant in color Michaela is surrounded by beauty as she restores antique stained glass windows
03:24there's a renaissance for them now a lot more people are hanging on to them it's the only reason
03:29she puts up with such an ugly commute home all right ready to go let's go let's do this I make this trip
03:37I've been making it for eight years eight years even and it has been getting worse okay let me look
03:42at your route here as you're driving okay Michaela's drive along highway 401 is roughly 85 kilometers each
03:49way from Pickering to Milton and back again in free flow it's about 50 minutes one way but not tonight
03:57or most nights so there's an accident just past Mississauga there's another accident just a little
04:05further down the Allen another accident there when you see all of these stretches of red close to your
04:13mind I am very frustrated they're their accidents they did not need to happen dinners at 6 p.m every
04:22night and I would make it home to dinner if it wasn't for other people doing stupid things our traffic
04:27expert Beher says we need to give people better options rail lines instead of roads look at this
04:35streetcar and how many people on it now imagine that you take these people out of the streetcar and put
04:40each one of them in a car we cannot have that many cars on the road so what you want to do is
04:46essentially carpooling a hundred people or more on a streetcar it doesn't get any better than that
04:53if the goal is to get people out of their cars how do you think it's gonna go I don't know how
05:03it's gonna go I'm curious to see we decide to test out options available right now who's ready for a race
05:10welcome to the first ever marketplace cross city race my fellow hosts are along for the ride it's
05:24pretty simple we're just gonna go from point A to point B and see who gets there fastest Point A is
05:31Humber Bay Park in Toronto's West End our finish is about 10 kilometers away at the CBC Broadcast
05:39Center downtown so here are your assignments Asha you will be our baseline you will be our driver so
05:48we know this means you could be 20 minutes you could be an hour it depends on what you find out
05:54there Rosa you are a brave soldier on this cold morning you will be our biker I'm ready David I
06:01know that you typically like to canoe but you're gonna ditch the paddle today for a little power all
06:06right and you are gonna be whisked along the waterfront on a zodiac I like I like this and
06:12yours truly I will be taking transit we have a couple options and we will see if I am fact I'm taking the
06:19better way all right everybody are you ready let's do it the time right now is 8 30 ready set go all
06:28right all right I gotta go too hey no running no running I'm just walking fast
06:34we're just backing out now looks like a beautiful day David immediately heads for open water which is
06:44strangely not used much for commuting in Toronto the rest of us get off to a slower start so we made it
06:54to the transit stop and we did it before Rosa got to her bike and before Asha pulled out of the parking
07:00lot but we wait I'm on the bike man I'm going see you losers I'm gonna win I'm gonna win we'll check in
07:12just a little later because we're back with our expert and congestion is in full effect it is so
07:20frustrating to see a green light that you can't go through I must admit we're attempting to travel
07:26three kilometers and faster than they did 120 years ago the fun part is what's kind of fun part you
07:34think this is fun are you having fun I didn't start a cast takeaway yes I don't know about that that's why
07:40I I don't drive period through the miracle of time-lapse we're arriving at our target the on-ramp
07:48to Toronto's Gardner Expressway all right here here we are it's now been 33 minutes we were going just
07:58about five kilometers an hour compared that to the 16 kilometers per hour we aspired for 120 years ago
08:10there's plenty of congestion right across Canada and we're about to reveal where the gridlock is greatest
08:18Victor Couture runs a transport research lab he's been tracking thousands of ways we get to work
08:25Victor hello I'm Chris nice to meet you you have some data for me it's his data that's helping us crown
08:32Canada's top 10 worst commutes all right so let's look at this top 10 starting with number 10. This is a
08:41long commute going through one of the most populated area in Canada so it's always going to be congested he's
08:47one of the most important things about Mississauga to North York it takes about 27 minutes longer in rush
08:52hour than when traffic is free flowing similar story with number nine Toronto to Scarborough you're going
08:59to exits that create bottlenecks because many lanes lead into fewer lanes number eight is in Montreal
09:08Laval to Boucherville Montreal is an island meaning you get in and out of it through bridges number seven
09:16also in Montreal so not only we have bottleneck through two different bridges but we have major
09:22construction and then when we look at number six what stands out about this Montreal route these
09:29interchanges they're designed for safety so they slow down traffic often on purpose
09:37will Toronto's Gardner Expressway be in the top five worst commutes
09:43there's certainly too many cars and too little road space rush hour used to be an hour and here we are
09:50outside of rush hour and there's already all this traffic when we try to push more traffic than what
09:55the capacity of the road takes the capacity itself breaks down because as you see people fight for space
10:03so you're saying that if i want to get home faster i should do what slow down that doesn't make any sense
10:11for people it does with some ai thrown in says beher and shows us what he means with a little roadside
10:19demo this resembles the cars that we see here and this funnel is pretty much that freeway and then what
10:28people do during rush hour i want to go home it's been a long day so i do this yeah we are limited by
10:35the capacity of this bottleneck right now the better option is if i slowly pour traffic into the network
10:43what you see that nobody is getting stuck my hand is calibrated to do this and beat the first one
10:49but in a real freeway we want the control system to learn to pick up that pace this is where artificial
10:57intelligence comes in so your hand there deciding how quickly the rice goes in would be like a red
11:04light system allowing people to slowly enter the highway you're right on
11:10there's one more thing needed according to beher congestion pricing after the break
11:16we're in new york to see how it's working there instead of spending an hour stuck in traffic
11:21they're saving 20 minutes and people really appreciate that and asking why not here why is your
11:27government dead set against it we're on the hunt for canada's worst commute and looking for ways to end
11:43scenes like this feel this yeah we just came to a complete stop standstill all right so you have
11:51a stretch now hands off the wheel brutal michaela heliwell is not even halfway home and we've been
11:57driving for close to an hour yeah we had like a little bit of speed i think i might have gotten over 40.
12:04yeah now you're what 16 17 yeah yeah we're also testing out options with my colleagues all i can tell
12:12you is the cm tower keeps getting closer and rosa where are you my dear first of all i'm realizing
12:19i'm in terrible shape but otherwise no traffic where i am to see who can cross toronto fastest during the
12:29morning rush we're not that far wow okay but now i've slowed right down so we'd be going at about the
12:36same speed as uh you know maybe you on your bike right we're about 20 minutes in all right so here we
12:46are we are at our first transfer and we'll hop out here and hop on our next street car how's the drive
12:55going i'm at ontario place oh yeah you're doing really well there i know asha no way yeah yeah
13:04when you're already at ontario place i said that oh no did i step up definitely gonna win
13:13i tell you when that when that construction was on last week you would never have made it that quickly
13:19yeah yeah i just think i'm great and i took the better way the better way quote unquote
13:28as it stands the car is king in most cities and getting people out of them is a challenge
13:35450 000 cars travel on this highway every day yeah our expert behair says it's time to start charging
13:43drivers a fee during peak hours to encourage other ways to get around i think congestion pricing is
13:50not a matter of if it's a matter of when it's inevitable it has to come
13:59the latest city to buy in is new york
14:04where they've had congestion pricing since the start of the year hey my friend hi how are you i'm good how
14:10how are you thank you a congestion relief zone has been set up in lower manhattan
14:17vehicles that enter get charged a toll how much depends on the type of vehicle and the time of day
14:23with a maximum of nine dollars for most jano lieber heads up new york's public transit system
14:31hello jano chris good thank you for having us in your city with you welcome to we're hoping to learn
14:36from you he also runs the city's congestion pricing program popular opinion has shifted and among the
14:43highest supporters of congestion pricing are the drivers so here we are at the exit to the brooklyn
14:51battery tunnel now called the ul carrie tunnel drivers have suddenly become supporters of congestion
14:57pricing because instead of spending an hour stuck in traffic they're saving 20 minutes or more and people
15:04really appreciate that people value their time more than some of the opponents recognize at this tunnel
15:10alone commutes are 16 faster during morning rush hour and it's also less air pollution which is
15:17demonstrably the case there are less traffic accidents so fewer pedestrians and cyclists are getting hit
15:23now because there's less road rage and less traffic
15:26and here's another big benefit we're sort of overdue to fix a lot of stuff this is a hundred
15:35plus year old system the money they make off congestion pricing goes directly into funding new york city's
15:42transit system now we're getting on the the manhattan bound side an extra 500 million dollars a year
15:50how is the revenue from congestion pricing helping transit we're going to keep increasing the number
15:57of stations that have elevators we're redoing all the signals and we're doing very basic stuff like
16:04we're buying new cars buying a lot of new subway cars and more people are now using transit in new york
16:10yet back here congestion pricing is a no-go we head to ontario's legislature to ask
16:17transport minister pravmeet zarkaria why i want to talk about congestion pricing why is your
16:23government dead set against it it's something that we just absolutely fundamentally disagree with
16:28we actually introduced legislation to prevent this from happening and not allowing any municipality
16:33to look at a way to toll a road in this province right but experts have been very clear that
16:39congestion pricing works do you disagree we just do not believe in charging individuals to toll them to
16:45get into a city or get to work every single day there's never been a government that has committed
16:49this much money to public transit highways and just public transportation infrastructure
16:55ever and yet it's every day that people are stuck in traffic and it's only getting worse
17:01so what would you say to folks well look i i understand that frustration every single day i travel
17:07into the city what should take me probably 35 40 minutes takes me almost an hour and a half but that's
17:12what motivates me to ensure that we are getting these projects off the ground all right well i hope
17:16it works because there's a lot of people that are riding on it thank you very much thank you very much
17:23coming up we're about to wrap up our race i'm off the boat what and i am still waiting for this
17:31second street car to get moving i'm stuck in traffic and the worst commute countdown after the break
17:42we're all stuck in and stuck with our cross city race is also coming to a close
18:13oh no you're gonna get stuck behind the red light oh no how terrible oh no with a little smack talk
18:23david pulls in front five oh no and four david's counting down no say it ain't so david
18:32oh david wins the race asha arrives 10 minutes later because of parking i made it i'm number two i'm
18:43number two and rosa rolls in 10 minutes after that
18:49number three oh so sad but not bad the only thing i'm counting down is the number of stops three more
18:57stops we're getting close a walk of shame and a last place showing in my own race 80 minutes after
19:07it began wow slow clap slow clap hey if you're gonna lose lose big right so i guess what we're learning
19:16today is that the transit options at least in this city are just not there yet so i'm hearing you are the
19:22worst did you just crown me where's my crown buddy the actual crowning starts now victor couture's data
19:31takes us west okay so number five shaughnessy to ququitlam what stands out with this route you have
19:38this really bad commute throughout the entire vancouver area basically the number four worst route in canada
19:45also in vancouver so here we have the similar problem we saw in montreal we're crossing bridges
19:51the third worst route in canada is right here in toronto well here you're starting very deep in the
19:58suburbs going all the way through downtown toronto through a highly densely populated area number two
20:06what stands out about this toronto route let me look so there's a gardener you go to this difficult
20:13commute here you're are you laughing at the commuters all the most congested highways in toronto that's
20:21a really that's why it's the number two worst route in the country victor are you ready to reveal number
20:27one i am ready the number one worst commute in our country right here west of toronto to the downtown
20:35what makes this one so bad so there you have it the two main reasons why all of these commutes are slow
20:42are compounded here you have a major construction project in the gardener and you have interchanges
20:48many exit roads that create bottlenecks so it's hell on wheel for these commuters with results revealed
20:56we head to a gas station on our winning route we've looked at routes across the country to find
21:02canada's worst commute yeah and we found it from my house to work in the way congratulations it's the
21:10worst commute in the country buddy i'm not surprised i'm not it's very bad it's very long how you feel
21:17about the same as i did before because it's not going to change when i get out there come on we have
21:22a crown for you thank you it's an honor it's a privilege to experience that on a daily basis here is
21:28your crown oh thank you so much thank you i've worn one before congratulations worst commute but even if
21:36your commute didn't earn a crown the moral of this story the worst commute is the one you're on
21:47emergency care is in crisis it's been eight hours 12 hours we're tracking wait times across the country
21:55who's the longest right now looks like about 36 hours patients desperate for help it makes me feel like
22:02your system is broken how often then are you seeing a patient and thinking i should have seen you hours
22:08ago oh every shift for some the consequences of a stressed system are deadly we trusted the system
22:15to take care of our son and that is a trust that is forever gone next week on your marketplace
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