Technology matters. A lot. Technological advancement, specifically, matters a lot. Indeed, my last column here at TVO Today explicitly lauded not only technology, but also pilot projects to test new applications for emerging technologies before we then decide (or decline) to roll them out at scale.
Still, though. Sometimes, the old-fashioned seems to work.
More specifically: men and women in reflective vests, wielding whistles and flinging shame. That’s a powerful combination.
The city of Toronto is, as readers will know, notoriously gridlocked. The city’s population and the regional population have grown to far surpass what was foreseen when the road network was built, particularly downtown. Transit expansion has lagged, and people have been avoiding the TTC, first due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, out of concerns for their safety after a rash of violent incidents. Walking works for some; biking works for others. But for most of Toronto’s growing population, their best option is to get into their cars and become part of the region’s traffic woes.
To help tackle this problem, which has real economic and quality-of-life consequences, Toronto is rolling out a pilot project with new artificial-intelligence technologies. In coordination with Rogers, the city will first install cameras at critical intersections. After several months of data gathering, the data will be analyzed, and then, finally, technology will be installed at those intersections that will allow AI to adjust the traffic signals at that intersection to help ease gridlock and congestion in real time. And not just for cars. Pedestrians and cyclists will also be part of what the AI watches for and will be included in the determination of when to alter the signals to get people moving on their way.
It’s a fine idea and builds on an apparently successful pilot project on the campus of the University of British Columbia. So, sure. Let’s give it a whirl and see what happens.
But you know what we know works, as referenced above? Reflective vests, whistles, and angry gestures.
Traffic wardens, in other words. The wardens are either city staff or special constables attached to the Toronto police, and if you spend much time downtown, you’ve probably seen them. Indeed, the city has been spending more on them, putting more wardens out on the streets to fight the worsening gridlock. They don’t have assigned intersections; they go to where they are expected to be needed that day. But it’s not hard to figure out which ones are going to be the problem, especially after you’ve been stuck in them 300 or 400 times.
I saw some in action just last week. It was glorious. I was racing home from an appointment, warily watching the clock because I had a family commitment that night, and my route home (in the back of a cab) unavoidably had to cut through downtown’s traffic nightmare, including some construction snarls. It was a genuinely open question whether I was going to make it home on time.
But, in fact, I sailed through downtown. It was a breeze — because of traffic wardens. They were stationed at several key intersections along the way and got me through the downtown core, jammed as it was with traffic and construction sites, in mere minutes. Once we were on Jarvis, it was relatively clear, and I made it home to midtown in basically normal time. The family event was saved.
Traffic wardens are, of course, about the lowest possible tech solution to a problem. No disrespect intended to the wardens, who are among God’s children, possessed of the divine spark, full of hopes and dreams, etc. But they’re just normal people with bright clothes and a whistle. That’s really all it takes to combat the problem. Because the problem, typically, is us. Humans. The rest of God’s children. Most of the traffic woes in Toronto are the result of stupid, selfish decisions, as people frustrated by the traffic force themselves into intersections and then get stuck there, blocking the entire intersection for everyone until they can finally clear out. It turns out that having someone who can point at that driver and yell at them to stop is a shockingly effective way to handle the issue of congestion.
To be clear, stupid and selfish people aren’t the only problem. Bad planning contributes. There seems to be almost an active, deliberate effort to shut down Toronto’s roads by strategically placing never-ending construction projects at critical points. And we are, as noted, way behind on transit.
But selfish stupidity is still a major factor. Consider King Street. A major east-to-west artery through downtown, the street is, in theory, a corridor largely reserved for transit. Drivers routinely use King Street anyway, and when that happens, it can take streetcars over an hour to run the downtown portion of the route. But when wardens are deployed and keep King Street open to transit, the streetcar travel time drops to 20 minutes.
And that’s just with people with vests. The annual budget for the traffic-warden program is a few million bucks. In a strange way, it might be the best bang for the buck the city gets on any program spend. What else can show such instant positive results in terms of dollars spent?
Don’t take any of the above as a criticism of the new AI pilot project. If it works as well on Toronto’s streets as it apparently did at UBC, hey, great. Let’s roll it out widely. There’s nothing wrong with experimenting. And lord knows we should be making better use of the automated technologies we already have. I’d put a red-light camera at every damned intersection if I could.
So by all means, let’s lean on technology. Better living through electronics and all that. Sure. But in the meantime, let’s celebrate the enduring utility of the simple. Traffic wardens aren’t fancy. But, by gosh, they work.
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Toronto was coordinating on this pilot project with Rogers, Telus, and Bell. In fact, it is coordinating only with Rogers. TVO Today regrets the error.
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