A jaywalker makes his way across Hastings St. in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside June 6, 2013. Pivot and the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) have obtained statistics that show startling discrepancies in the way the Vancouver Police Department is enforcing city bylaws. Statistics on the number of tickets issued for jaywalking and panhandling, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, show that over the last four years 76% of jaywalking and 31% of panhandling tickets were given out in the DTES. (John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail)John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
Drivers in the Greater Toronto area may find this one difficult to swallow – Vancouver is actually the most traffic-congested city in Canada according to TomTom, Ian Bailey reports.
In its fourth annual global traffic index, Vancouver ranks fifth among the most congested cities in the Americas, Toronto ninth. In order, the 10 most traffic-clogged cities are Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, Vancouver, San Francisco, Honolulu, Seattle, Toronto and San Jose.
Ottawa is 12th on the list, Montreal 13th and to no surprise for anyone driving the Deerfoot each day, Calgary is 18th. Quebec is 20th, Edmonton 30th.
TomTom measures travel times in peak hours against non-congested hours, as experienced by passenger vehicles. Delays per hour during the peak commute period amounts to 37 minutes in Vancouver, 35 minutes in Toronto.
Click here for the full city by city report.
TomTom, a GPS service, ranks overall congestion in more than 180 cities around the world, using anonymous travel time information from its customers to discern driving patterns by time of day, day of week, time of year and around special events. The Amsterdam-based company claims to have built the world's largest database of real-time traffic information.
Commuters around the world waste an average of eight working days annually, stuck in traffic.
TomTom also discovered that drivers trying to avoid congestion on the main arteries by using secondary roads as shortcuts, add 50 per cent more travel time to their commutes.
No Canadian cities are on the top-10 list, globally. In order, they are: Moscow, Istanbul, Rio, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Palmero, Warsaw, Rome, L.A., Dublin. Vancouver ranks 11th.
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