Last week, something very unusual happened in my little world. I arrived at my destination 20 minutes early — by car. I apologized profusely to the nice man who was going to cut my son's hair.

"Who knew? I budgeted a half an hour and it only took us 10 minutes. I even made a wrong turn."

Generally I don't complain much about traffic because I work out of the basement of my Toronto home. Travel time is 20 seconds — 10 if I take the stairs two at a time. Still, when I head downtown, sanity takes a back seat to my wheel clenching, inventive swearing and overall tension level. The traffic lights are never in sync, traffic gets bunged up at poorly planned left turn lanes, there's an advanced green one way and not the other, if there's an accident it takes forever to clear it away. Even on a no-accident day, drivers get more cardio waving their fists at each other than at the gym.

We don't hate each other — we're just being driven nuts by heavy traffic — on the highways and the streets. In fact, traffic is a significant problem in many North American cities these days. Too many people are driving too many cars on too few roads.

(Yes, of course, walking, biking when the roads aren't covered in snow, and public transit are all alternatives. But we still live in a world where many people own cars and like to drive them to their destinations.)

Comedian Drew Carey has used the issue in a mini-documentary called Gridlock to launch his new website. Carey talks about places like Australia and Paris with their tunnels and looks at express lanes on toll roads in American cities as possible solutions. Then he interviews the winner of a radio station's 'Most Congested Commute Contest,' Josh Lipking, who spends three hours a day driving to and from work which is 16 miles away from his home. Carey's solution to Lipking's woes is to fly him to work in a helicopter. Time spent — nine minutes.

Who hasn't dreamed of floating above the traffic on a particularly nasty day?

Traffic that moves isn't just someone's pipe dream — it actually could happen. The problem is there's such a love/hate thing going on around cars and drivers that governments need to decide what they want. If they don't want us driving cars, then just ban them. But if it's all right to drive, could we please drive them, rather than simply sitting in them attempting to amuse ourselves in between stoplights. The United States where the car is king seems to be ahead of us on this one.

Jim Baxter, president of the U.S. National Motorists Association, says the troubles started 30 years ago. "During the late '70s and early '80s, there was a movement to make travel in urban areas as inconvenient as possible. It was motivated by fuel conservation and was an attempt to convince people to leave their cars at home and use mass transit. Traffic signals and controls were used to obstruct traffic rather than expedite it."

(When Baxter first told me this, I figured it was just another conspiracy theory, up there with those around the moon landing and President Kennedy's assassination, but then I started to see things his way. How many times have I sat in the left turn lane at my least favourite intersection wondering why there can't be an advanced green? After all, the traffic coming towards me has an advanced signal. Has a planner or a city official never driven this route?)

Baxter says these traffic initiatives caused a lot of unintended problems. By frustrating drivers on the main roads, they diverted traffic through residential neighbourhoods, which led to traffic calming devices, like speed bumps and four-way stops. However, he believes many traffic woes could easily be fixed.

"Planners could get rid of unnecessary four-way stops as well as synchronize and coordinate traffic signals." Baxter says. "Some cities that have done that have seen remarkable improvements in reduction in travel time, accidents, fuel consumption and emissions."

The U.S. Institute of Transportation Engineers releases a National Traffic Signal Report Card every year rating cities on how smoothly traffic flows as a result of properly timed signals. This year, the U.S. received a D overall, but cities like Austin received an A.

I think the other thing that could make a difference for drivers is carpooling. In fact, there's a movement now to get people to organize carpooling online in two large Canadian cities, Vancouver and Toronto. (http://www.carpooltool.com/en/my/ matches people in other Canadian centres.)

Ryan Lanyon, project director for Smart Commute, which tries to reduce traffic congestion by looking at alternatives to cars, like bikes, walking and telework is also promoting carpooling in a big way. Carpool Zone, launched in 2005 allows people to create a profile with their preferences, non-smoker etc. and the site provides matches.

"The system estimates the cost of the trip, but it's up to the commuters if money changes hands," Lanyon says.

Last year, Lanyon's group conducted a survey and discovered that 17% of commuters knew about the service, which of course means that 83% didn't, so I'm telling you now. (I wager that if they tweaked the service slightly and made it a carpool/dating site they could solve not only the traffic problems, but improve a lot of people's love lives as well.)

For trips between cities, www.allostop.com offers inter-city carpooling but only in Quebec. In its wisdom, the Ontario Highway Transport Board stopped the service from operating in Ontario in 2000. Because money changed hands, Allostop was judged to be a public transportation service and competing unfairly with bus companies. (Your tax dollars hard at work.) Allostop argued it was simply matching drivers with passengers and taking a small fee.

As I write this, an e-mail just arrived in my inbox, amongst the Viagra ads, from Volkswagen Canada, heralding its new Road Joy campaign, informing drivers that if they are nice they can win a car. Instead, why doesn't Volkswagen simply fix that left turn signal I was complaining about and sync the traffic lights on that major route I take downtown? I promise I'll smile at other drivers although they might not see my grin because my car will be moving, as will theirs, and there will be little chance for us to notice if we are smiling or waving our fists at each other — the latter which we have all been doing for much too long.

Letters

Georgie, it's not just the big cities with traffic issues. I live in a very small city and the problems are aggravating beyond words.

What I don't understand about North America is the blind reliance on traffic lights. Having driven through the U.K., I realize that a wonderful solution to many transit problems is the round-about. It won't fit all intersections because you do need space to establish one, but the U.K. is a pretty congestested place so it should help a good percentage of problem areas here in North America.

In the thousands of miles I drove through the U.K., I can truly recall only a half-dozen traffice lights, with most of them being in tight little intersections in between buildings. Whenever they possibly could be, a round-about was used. Traffic keeps moving.... constantly. It was a very, very rare occurrence to have to actually stop driving.

It's just a matter of getting used to a new type of traffic flow. But best of all, if there's no stop and start to traffic, I wonder what will happen to those idiots who insist on putting on make-up or doing their hair while waiting for a green light.

– Deborah | Newfoundland

All you get by making car-driving easier in the city is more cars, immediately undermining whatever (usually minor) improvements were initially gained. The only way to make things better in cities is to get out of your cars and use public transit.

Of course first, you'll have to vote for people who will develop an adequate public transit system.

–Chris Green | Toronto

Having read your column I came across this very disturbing sentence: "...that governments need to decide what they want."

I was thinking that it would be better if WE told government, our servants, what WE wanted, and they could then act on it. C'mon whadda ya say? How about "the people" act and parliament, legislature, city hall enact.

– Gareth | Toronto

The fact remains that one has cause to wonder why a person who works at home, within a major city, and sometimes has work-related meetings in the core of the same city, should want or need a car.

Or why a person who has been "working in broadcasting since 1976" should have to drive her son, who must be a teenager at least (even if she was a late mum), to his hair appointment. Can't the son take a subway, tram or bus?

I do agree with her about allo-stop - I used to take it a great deal, between Montréal and Ottawa/Gatineau. The Ontario ban meant they even shut down service to Gatineau, as they feared drivers would take the faster Ontario routes. The drivers didn't take people as a "business" - they wre almost all commuters trying to save gas money, and some actually did want to decrease their environmental footprint.

Its loss was a cruel blow, and the web-based alternatives that have popped up to replace it aren't as safe for drivers and passengers.

– Maria Gatti | Montréal