It's my great pleasure to be here with you this morning at this conference on gridlock. The focus is a very important one not only for those living and doing business here in Toronto, but also for people in large urban centres across this country. The issue of gridlock is top of mind for urban residents.
Gridlock is on many people's minds.
Urbanization Urbanization is a phenomenon that is changing the world as we know it and Canada is no exception. While it is true that Canada is a vast country, many people do not realize that we are even more urbanized than the United States. Urbanization and Transportation Urbanization development has transformed our country and our economy over the last few decades and the resulting traffic growth has outpaced the capacity of our transportation systems to accommodate the changes. There is now one vehicle on the road for every 1.7 Canadians twice the level of 40 years ago. Highway 401 is competing with Interstate 5 in California for the title of the busiest highway in the world.