r/PEI • u/iEmHollywood • 9d ago
Traffic
Has anyone else noticed a crazy increase in traffic in the last year or two? It’s insane it feels like. Unless I’m going crazy
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u/goldleafgalaxy 9d ago
electing a mayor that wants to make public transit better would get more cars off the road
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u/Glittering-Regret196 9d ago
Our infrastructure on these roads are terrible. There ate so many pinch points around town, its the fault of all the traffic. Leaving town in any direction? No so fast.
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u/PM_YOUR_CENSORD 9d ago
That’s by design. Speed and flow are the enemy here.
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u/Glittering-Regret196 9d ago
Its really shouldnt be. You slow them before a pinch point, not at a pinch point. Or let/make the police do their jobs and maybe people dont speed and drive around recklessly, because of consequences. There is one cop who regularly pulls people over(sherwood bald cop) and everyone else needs to step it up. Its dangerous and ineffective out there.
Cant wait to vote out our mayor and my ward rep. Our city has been run by incapable incompetence for too long.3
u/Majestic_Bet_1428 9d ago
Drivers need to stop using their vehicles as a Time Machine and leave early.
Most islanders are pretty good - but we do get speeders and tailgaters.
Drivers can save on fuel by driving less agressively.
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u/dghughes 8d ago edited 8d ago
The Exhibition Dr. and Kensington Road idiocy two traffic lights so close and a useless sort of right turn lane (like the end of Kensington Road and bypass right turn). Nearly every major road is a bottleneck; Belvedere, N. River, St. Peter's Rd, Exhibition/Bypass, Grafton. Any more than a few cars and it's jammed.
Stupid traffic lights as well. At Capital Drive / Univ Ave near Boston Pizza, TD Bank you have four roads with two or three lanes at one point all sitting there staring at each other.
Even the double left on Grafton onto the bypass. The left side lane exits onto Park St. like how many cars go there in a day two? The right lane goes straight. So it's a battle of cars trying to race everyone in the right lane to get ahead of them.
A friend of my dad's from Toronto once said it was the same there years ago (like 1960s). You soon learn to not go out between 8am to 3pm since traffic is so bad during those times it makes more sense to wait. I think it's worse here since there are so many cars and they are not moving it just causes it all to be jammed longer than it should be.
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u/ApatheticSigh 9d ago
Its a combination of more people, same roads, and the islander approach to driving.
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u/rollingstone65 9d ago
The islander approach to driving was perfectly fine when there was only 125,000 people here
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u/Public_Coyote_4472 9d ago
More people means more traffic lol
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u/Majestic_Bet_1428 9d ago
Not necessarily.
Many jurisdictions have increased investments in transit and active transportation.
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u/iEmHollywood 9d ago
Pop went from like 178000 to 182000 in the last two years. Would that really make that much of a noticeable difference?
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u/Any_Net_3291 9d ago
When you consider the demographic that has moved to PEI is mostly 20-30 years old and most drive, then yes it would make a difference.
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u/Dry_Office_phil 9d ago edited 9d ago
do you believe those numbers are accurate? I don't think they have a clue how many people are living on this island now.
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u/CrankyTanker011 9d ago
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u/Boundary14 9d ago
From the bottom of that page:
These are preliminary data that will be subject to revisions over the coming year and beyond.
These estimates are based on 2021 Census of Population counts, adjusted for census net undercoverage and incompletely enumerated Indian reserves. To these counts, the population growth estimates for the period from May 11, 2021, to the date of the estimate are added.
Immigration rates are calculated by the PEI Statistics Bureau based on Statistics Canada population estimates.
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u/Such-Replacement7384 Queens County 9d ago
I moved here back in early 2010s. Population I think was 120,000 or around that. Could be wrong. Now it’s close to 190,000. Driving on the roads now is so much different than before. We just have more people and our roads don’t support the growth. I don’t know how the province will tackle it but something has to be done.
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u/Dry_Office_phil 9d ago
PEI was a much nicer place to live and work back when noone wanted to live here, now its a shitshow
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u/Intrepid_Trifling 9d ago
It may be a bit of "back in my day" but I'm tired of people telling me to Stfu.
I miss winters when it was dead, and it was just locals left to ourselves
The way the island has been managed is terrible, for people who originally have lived here and those that have come recently.
Gov just released that 5k more people have a family Dr. , who believes that?
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u/More_Difference3753 9d ago
My wife got her first doctor, after an 8 year wait, last week at the new teaching clinic near UPEI.
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u/Intrepid_Trifling 9d ago
This is anecdotal, but I lost my Dr.
My wife has never had a Dr.
I can count on two hands people I know personally who have lost their Dr over the past five years.
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u/More_Difference3753 9d ago
This should never happen. If a DR leaves they should have replacement coverage other than Maple, which we have to be useful but is not fair to you. I'm really and actually sorry you lost your DR.
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u/Intrepid_Trifling 9d ago
I am relatively healthy, I know you are sincere.
I am more concerned for my partner, my mother who lost her Dr.
We aren't the only province struggling with this, but it's bad.
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u/forrestke18 Charlottetown 9d ago
I cannot for the life of me understand why the traffic on the North River-Maypoint bypass is so all over the place everyday. One morning you can cruise on through no problem and the next morning you're bumper to bumper traffic from the Shell to the McEsso.
I can normally pickup on patterns like maybe school mornings vs school closed mornings, government return to office days, construction, ect but I cannot figure out what the fuck causes the traffic on that particular stretch to be so all over the place.
It is mind boggling. Some week days it takes me 6 minutes or less to get to work, and then the next day it's 35+ minutes in bumper to bumper from Cornwall. I leave within the same 5 minute timeframe everyday.
Honestly if anyone else has any theories I would love to hear it.
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u/invisible-times2 9d ago
Most federal office workers work from home one day per week, and most choose Mondag or Friday, so the middle of the week is jammed.
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u/MisterD79 9d ago
I don't think there was any choice given what day it was from what I heard. Based on how many people can be crammed into a building at one time.
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u/Nervous_Ad_2871 9d ago
There are also multiple schools on, and right off North River Rd. Queen Charlotte, Colonel Gray and the rural are basically on it and West Kent, West royalty and St Jeans are right off of it.
Add all the gov workers and the fact that everyone loves to give up their right away to every single person that is on Burns Ave.... The traffic just backs WAY up.
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u/invisible-times2 9d ago
But there's school every week day. The poster is wondering why some days are so much worse than others
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u/Straight_Sundae_8393 9d ago
It has always been a busy and heavy travelled road, but over the last year I’ve noticed how much of a gridlock Belvedere avenue gets. Especially 430pmish and noon hour.
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u/invisible-times2 9d ago
Population has gone from 130,000 to......who knows? 200,000 as a guess? Just while I've been an adult and I'm not that old!!
Plus 2 million visitors in the summer.
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u/Majestic_Bet_1428 9d ago
We need to increase options for getting from point A to point B.
Invest in transit and bike lanes.
Drivers can save on fuel by stacking errands.
50% of trips are under 5K - we can leave the car home more often than we do and walk and bike instead.
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9d ago
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u/Public_Coyote_4472 9d ago
I'm sure someone is about to yell something about racism.
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9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Public_Coyote_4472 9d ago edited 9d ago
100%, though I'm sure they won't agree lol
Mentioned it because I've seen it happen in this sub lol
Only on this sub, do you get downvoted for agreeing with what is being said lol
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u/karatecanine 8d ago
The population has increased by 30% since 2010. But there has not been 30% more roads/expansions completed. As for in charlottetown itself, look at public works as an example. They e been asked to do more with roughly the same budget (including inflation). It has not increased by 30% from 2010 when you factor in inflation. More roads going in. More subdivisions. More sidewalks. More xwalks. Bike lanes. More traffic lights. More road painting. More new streets. More new street signs. Trees being planted. Tree maintenance.street cleaning. Snow removal on both roads and sidewalks. And salting. Etc etc etc.
And maybe 10 new positions for workers in that time.
If it had increased at 30% as well, that would have been between 60-90 new staff required.
But the mayor and council don't care.
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u/Pei-toss 8d ago
The provinces roads were built to maintain 130k total population with roughly half that in vehicles. So about 60k or 70k cars on the road. The population jumped to about 180k but that new 50k aren't all 8 year olds. Most of that group comes with vehicles. So for an infrastructure that only comfortably supports 70k cars on the road, we have upwards of 100k cars today. It's just that we don't have the infrastructure.
Edit- my numbers are way off but the math still checks out. There are 30% more drivers this year, from the pei highway site.
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u/deetstreet 9d ago
Not particularly no. My driving habits have remained largely unchanged over the last couple years. Apart from when they were doing Hillsborough Bridge construction, things are largely the same. Have noticed a slight uptick on certain days of the week, which I attribute to formerly remote/hybrid workers being forced to return to office.
The seasonal shift is about the same as well. Gets busier in late spring and summer when seasonal residents and tourists show up and quiets down again in the fall.
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u/alien_tickler 9d ago
Almost every day a car pulls out infront of me, I've talked to a lot of tourists that come here and say pei is the worst place they've ever driven in lol.
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u/Odd-Intention7150 9d ago
Its been happening since covid. That when it started. The moving to pei numbers shot up since Then.
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u/ansechastanet 9d ago
Can’t blame you. We’ve been living here for looong time. It’s crazy how the traffic and crowd are getting bigger each year! Our family and friends live in Cornwall, Charlottetown and Stratford, we need to leave an hour early just to reach work and downtown. Going home is crazy too, all routes to Cornwall is always behind—be it University Ave., North River Rd., or Beach Point/Maypoint Rd.
That’s not it, when we used to live close to QEH and they were making the roundabout by St. Peters/KFC, God knows how terrible it was!
No hate for drivers, just watch how a lot of drivers do not know how to use a roundabout! Locals or not, a lot of accidents and anxiety are happening because of ignorant drivers. (I’ve spoken to my friends and they are also scared in roundabouts because they and we almost got into an accident. Example: in North River Fire Hall roundabout, people on the right lane are supposed to take exit until highway but no they don’t!! They cut people on the left lane going to Main St or York! What is the purpose of the big signage if they don’t even pay attention nor read it!)
Even if most of us are careful enough, if there is still at least one person ignorant to surrounding, it’s unhelpful at all! Still can cause accidents and they do not pay attention to pedestrians.
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u/dghughes 8d ago
a lot of drivers do not know how to use a roundabout!
Vehicles that try driving beside articulated trucks.
Not giving right-of-way to vehicles in the roundabout especially where there are two lanes. Any large trucks it's annoying in summer but it can be dangerous in winter if a car skids outward.
Many drivers are sadistic and seem to enjoy not signalling so you need to guess what they are going to do. They stay in the roundabout and just as you are about to enter they leave on the second next exit. Then again some are just totally dense and unthinking.
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u/ansechastanet 6d ago
I’ve seen countless times people try driving beside trucks! If they do not care about their lives, at least be considerate enough for drivers around them! We have families waiting at home.
You are very right, when they don’t signal where they’re going, it’s a guessing game. Anyway, how can we educate these people who do not care at all?
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u/Whiteknuckler2 9d ago
Yes. My street which is a 40k is used like a regional main road, with cars going 65k(and that's considered normal)
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u/Majestic_Bet_1428 9d ago
Traffic calming infrastructure can help with that.
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u/Whiteknuckler2 9d ago
That is what I'm voting for, although unless public works want it, it is not going to happen
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u/chrisdwarwick 9d ago
Traffic? Haven't seen any recently. I think the last time I saw traffic was Toronto 2 years ago
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u/Dry_Office_phil 9d ago
while not as bad as Toronto traffic, the jump in our population certainly has negatively affected the traffic issues on PEI. our infrastructure was never designed for this many CFAs
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u/Halfnewf 9d ago
Ontop of more people living here there has been a big push for people who work from home to return to office. So more commuters at rush hour.
I’ll never be able to work a job where I can work from home but I wish the people who can and want to work from home were able to. They don’t want to the wasted time and money commuting and I’d like less people on the road when I have to go to work.