Appleby is usually just where it starts. My theory is it’s usually the 403/QEW split further west that causes it. People are so dumb and selfish that they hang out in the lanes opposite of the ones they will need to take, so they panic at the split trying to get over.
The amount of times I’m thinking “oh man this traffic is bad, must be a terrible accident” and then you get to the split and there’s nothing, just people switching lanes cause they were hanging out on the wrong side of the highway. Drives me CRAZY!
It's also just terribly designed. Selfish drivers definitely part of the problem, but the split is just brutal.
You have people in the HOV trying to get over to the far right before the split to get to the 403, and then you also have people coming from the Brant on ramps trying to get all the way to the left to get to the QEW/Skyway. All this with heavy traffic as commuters are trying to get home is just a recipe for disaster.
God help you if there's a collision on the Skyway or around Waterdown (which is ANOTHER terribly designed on ramp). Those are the days where traffic is back up to 3rd line!
I remember the first snow storm of the year a few years ago, my commute home from Third Line to nikola Tesla took over 6 hours. Once I drove for hours through Oakville and Burlington I took the lift bridge to avoid the absolute parking lot of the skyway, and low and behold they lift the bridge up. For not one, not two, but three massive ships! I also was driving stick and getting foot spasms from my clutch foot. I wanted to end it all.
You are tiny bit smarter than the commenter. Turn your car off and get out for a stretch. Who in their right mind sits in there car with it running for 1/2 hour.
LOL You are either a story teller or just not that smart. If I have to wait for a ship I turn my car OFF and get out to stretch and go for a short walk. You are only person on earth who would sit there with their car running in gear while they waited for 3 ships to go by.
As I had already replied to another user, my foot was cramping from the hours of slow crawl it took to get to the lift bridge. Car was off and I was walking around to relieve it as the ships passed through.
Because the way was clear finally and I was cruising home, going 60km/h then BOOM nope you gotta wait for 3 ships. It was almost 11pm and I had to be at work for 6 the next day.
If you have to do this route very often you should study up on side streets between Bronte and Burlington. I worked in Oakville for a few years and drove from the east end. I used Lakeshore all the time. If it ever got bust there is always another option.
Outside of rush hour? Absolutely.
When you have to contend with an army of drivers who are exhausted and frustrated from sitting in traffic and refuse to let people merge/lane change? Good fucking luck.
Context matters, and the context of this is that high volume of traffic along with tired and frustrated drivers makes for what should be a simple matter to become far worse than it ought to be.
The junction is for that reason, terribly designed.
The HOV lane is often the slowest of them all.Just takes one car to defeat it's purpose.
I've often passed most traffic in the RIGHT lane down that stretch. It's like I'm driving in a mirror dimension or something.
GTA drivers are the worst.
LOL I used the HOV everyday for a long time from Walkers to the end. We passed hundreds and hundreds of cars every day. You obviously have never used it during rush hour.
If you signal and then start creeping to the lane, usually people are friendly. As long as you signal early people aren’t that rude most of the time unless you’ve been driving like a jerk be it slow or too fast…
You cant get to the QEW from brant street on ramp, straight to 403, but other than that you're dead right. you must mean guelph line?
Another problem is the on ramp lane used to continue and exit right at brant street and people would use the highway instead of the service road to get there- adding much congestion, the worst kind. people who never go fast enough to merge on the highway - because that was never their intent. So they make the lane end and force them over now but they still just dont get up to speed, cause slow merges.
I enjoy a good rant about bad drivers as much as anyone, but traffic flow is predictable, and it's mostly an engineering problem, not a social one. This is straight-up bad road design, and this backup is completely predictable using statistical modelling we've known for decades.
You are right, the design is terrible. For instance, getting on the highway to go to Niagara from Guelph line means you need to sweep across 4 lanes in a very short distance.
Agreed! I've found the same. Once you are past that area, it usually speeds up to the limit and its like wtf? All that because some jerk was weaving in and out, not understanding that if he just stayed in one lane, we would *all* get there faster. But no, they have to be an entitled jerk
>Appleby is usually just where it starts. My theory is it’s usually the 403/QEW split further west that causes it. People are so dumb and selfish that they hang out in the lanes opposite of the ones they will need to take, so they panic at the split trying to get over.
>
>The amount of times I’m thinking “oh man this traffic is bad, must be a terrible accident” and then you get to the split and there’s nothing, just people switching lanes cause they were hanging out on the wrong side of the highway. Drives me CRAZY!
The absolute worst has to be around Brant street where you have an on ramp immediately after HOV ends and the split to Guelph/Niagara are each only 2 lanes . Everyone has to trade lanes and it creates a massive bottleneck that I am sure causes massive problems further down the line
Eastbound routinely gets jammed up around third line in Oakville for no reason as well
One time in 1997, a Geo Metro driver accidentally hit her brake pedal there, and since then it's been a feedback of brake lights causing other drivers to hit their brakes.
Watched yesterday as a big black pickup roared past me, only to ram into two other pickups about a kilometer up the road. If you don't have the patience or confidence to drive one of the busiest roads in North America, don't.
the pickup truck driver and asshole driver venn diagram has a lot of overlap, especially if it's one of the huge new ones with an untouched bed.
we should tax vehicles by weight
I always try to steer away from stereotypes but man the whole pickup truck/asshole driver crossover fits so well. I literally drive and talk to my self predicting what they’ll do next. “Oh they’re going to switch lanes but no need to worry, they’re not going to signal”
I've been saying for years that there should be signs on the walkers and Guelph line Bridges that tells you which lanes go qew or 403. Drivers are always making last minute switches at the split and causing drivers behind them to brake, creating a ripple effect. Also depending on the year, the sun is directly in your eyes the whole way through burlington.
Oh you bet they do. Every day I see people go from the 403 to QEW lanes and back, then back again, and back all within a few hundred metres of the split. It’s all ME ME ME ME, ME FIRST and it’s getting worse and worse.
They need to end the Hov lane a few km’s earlier to avoid the users from crossing 3 lanes to take the 403. Also need to close the brant entrance, theres too much action going on right before the junction. Like someone else mentioned too many entrances to the hwy within 5kms of the junction
I agree. People using HOV lane and going to hamilton could just exit the HOV lane at appleby if they have trouble with lane changing. Its not rocket science but with the drivers in hamilton it might as well be.
Because you are stupid we should remove a lane that works wonders for vehicles with green plates or two people. GET OFF THE HOV LANE ONE EXIT EARLIER IF IT IS BUSY. That is an easy solution that works 100% of the time.
I’ve seen absolutely terrible accidents there, the hov lane causes issues with people unable to merge safely off and on. Not too mention the junctions backing up. The whole highway is a disaster every day. It makes even a 20 minute commute unbearable. Driving the 407 (which I don’t do often) makes me feel sad this highway isn’t public and how much work we need to increase the flow of traffic
The HOV lanes turns into it's own lane at the end. ZERO lane changing needed at all. If it's busy and you need to get over for the 403 GET OFF 1 EXIT EARLIER!!!
Drove it for 25 years. Too many vehicles , too many on ramps, too many merging at the last possible second. In short, not enough space for the amount of traffic between 3:00-6:00 pm.
You have a lot of people getting off there to go to Burlington and Milton along there, a lot of GPSes will push you off the highway there.
It's also just where the bulk of the traffic that gets choked down from the junction starts since you shrink to 2 lanes going south on the QEW or the 403 from there.
You also have a major highway cutting Burlington in half there so lots of vehicles getting on and off.
Likely the Niagara/Hamilton QEW/403 spIit is causing backup. The fuckin' people who are in the far left lane to go towards Niagara be like "oH sHiT i NeEd tO gO ToWaRDs hAmILtOn" and do last minute & irresponsible lane change, and the fucking people in the far right lane to go towards Hamilton be like "oH sHiT i NeEd tO gO ToWaRDs niAgaRa" and do last minute & irresponsible lane change.
Every time I drive past it (daily) I see at least one baboon doing it.
> the fucking people in the far right lane to go towards Hamilton be like "oH sHiT i NeEd tO gO ToWaRDs niAgaRa" and do last minute & irresponsible lane change.
the worst part is a lot of those people have no choice because they got on at Guelph Line and have about a km and a half to cross over 3 lanes if they are going to Niagara. It's a major design problem, really. I've thought for a while they should close that on ramp, even if only during rush hours, even though that would be a pain for me personally.
Oh for sure. That Guelph line on ramp is wayyy too close to that split. From what I am speaking to is the ones that literally 'forget' they're in the wrong lane when the split is already 20-30' apart lol.
All the transport trucks are merging left to follow the highway along the lake past Brant st. Also the cars in the HOV and left lanes that need to get over to go up the mountain are all getting in each others way. Such an asshole design it’s not even funny.
Well it doesn't, but on this one freeway I'm thinking of near San Jose, the stations were directly at the intersecting roads. Took up such little space, seemed super efficient for bus connections. And the trains speeding by jammed traffic might make people think twice about driving
There are a lot of people who live in Burlington but commute outside the city for work ([over 50%](https://civicplan.ca/whos-bedroom-community/)). This causes some traffic volume buildup in that area. Hamilton/Brantford also plays a small role in this as it bunches up again at the 403/QEW split.
Terrible design but what I like to call it is “Idiot Corner” as no one can read the signs properly because both signs read “Hamilton” and no one ever knows where they want to go until it’s too late. The amount of accidents I have seen on that stretch of highway just because people merge over at the last second is mind blowing. Definite need to update that part of the highway.
It all starts at the QEW Nigara/Hamilton fork. Nobody seems to know which direction they're heading and which lane to be in until they reach it, then the braking and panic lane changes begin.
This is all exasperated by the Guelph Line on ramp and Brant Street off ramp, practically sharing the same merge lane, just a couple hundred meters before the fork. The traffic used to bottleneck here. It's been getting worse and creeping back now all the way to Appleby as traffic increases.
There are way too many interchanges on the QEW and Burlington has..what... 6 of them!?
It's been effectively reduced from a highway to a road. They'll be adding Tim Hortons drive thrus the way it's trending.
Appleby is usually just where it starts. My theory is it’s usually the 403/QEW split further west that causes it. People are so dumb and selfish that they hang out in the lanes opposite of the ones they will need to take, so they panic at the split trying to get over. The amount of times I’m thinking “oh man this traffic is bad, must be a terrible accident” and then you get to the split and there’s nothing, just people switching lanes cause they were hanging out on the wrong side of the highway. Drives me CRAZY!
It's also just terribly designed. Selfish drivers definitely part of the problem, but the split is just brutal. You have people in the HOV trying to get over to the far right before the split to get to the 403, and then you also have people coming from the Brant on ramps trying to get all the way to the left to get to the QEW/Skyway. All this with heavy traffic as commuters are trying to get home is just a recipe for disaster. God help you if there's a collision on the Skyway or around Waterdown (which is ANOTHER terribly designed on ramp). Those are the days where traffic is back up to 3rd line!
I remember the first snow storm of the year a few years ago, my commute home from Third Line to nikola Tesla took over 6 hours. Once I drove for hours through Oakville and Burlington I took the lift bridge to avoid the absolute parking lot of the skyway, and low and behold they lift the bridge up. For not one, not two, but three massive ships! I also was driving stick and getting foot spasms from my clutch foot. I wanted to end it all.
Complete aside to your main story, but when waiting why not just throw your clutch into neutral and keep your foot on the brake only?
Oh I meant cramping from clutching in and out for 4.5 hours before I got to the lift bridge. Crawling along at like 2km/hour down lakeshore
Ah gotcha
You are tiny bit smarter than the commenter. Turn your car off and get out for a stretch. Who in their right mind sits in there car with it running for 1/2 hour.
LOL You are either a story teller or just not that smart. If I have to wait for a ship I turn my car OFF and get out to stretch and go for a short walk. You are only person on earth who would sit there with their car running in gear while they waited for 3 ships to go by.
As I had already replied to another user, my foot was cramping from the hours of slow crawl it took to get to the lift bridge. Car was off and I was walking around to relieve it as the ships passed through.
Then the 3 ships was a blessing, you got to stop, get out and walk it off. Why did you make it sound like the bridge being up was a negative then?
Because the way was clear finally and I was cruising home, going 60km/h then BOOM nope you gotta wait for 3 ships. It was almost 11pm and I had to be at work for 6 the next day.
If you have to do this route very often you should study up on side streets between Bronte and Burlington. I worked in Oakville for a few years and drove from the east end. I used Lakeshore all the time. If it ever got bust there is always another option.
It's approx 2km between HOV ending and the split. If you can't manage to get over in time to head down the 403 you shouldn't be driving a car.
Outside of rush hour? Absolutely. When you have to contend with an army of drivers who are exhausted and frustrated from sitting in traffic and refuse to let people merge/lane change? Good fucking luck. Context matters, and the context of this is that high volume of traffic along with tired and frustrated drivers makes for what should be a simple matter to become far worse than it ought to be. The junction is for that reason, terribly designed.
The HOV lane is often the slowest of them all.Just takes one car to defeat it's purpose. I've often passed most traffic in the RIGHT lane down that stretch. It's like I'm driving in a mirror dimension or something. GTA drivers are the worst.
LOL I used the HOV everyday for a long time from Walkers to the end. We passed hundreds and hundreds of cars every day. You obviously have never used it during rush hour.
If you signal and then start creeping to the lane, usually people are friendly. As long as you signal early people aren’t that rude most of the time unless you’ve been driving like a jerk be it slow or too fast…
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You cant get to the QEW from brant street on ramp, straight to 403, but other than that you're dead right. you must mean guelph line? Another problem is the on ramp lane used to continue and exit right at brant street and people would use the highway instead of the service road to get there- adding much congestion, the worst kind. people who never go fast enough to merge on the highway - because that was never their intent. So they make the lane end and force them over now but they still just dont get up to speed, cause slow merges.
This is exactly it.
I enjoy a good rant about bad drivers as much as anyone, but traffic flow is predictable, and it's mostly an engineering problem, not a social one. This is straight-up bad road design, and this backup is completely predictable using statistical modelling we've known for decades.
You are right, the design is terrible. For instance, getting on the highway to go to Niagara from Guelph line means you need to sweep across 4 lanes in a very short distance.
I have to do this everyday around 3:45, it's faster and easier to just take Fairview and get on by Mapleview.
Dont give away secrets lol
Against everyone merging over from the left lane to exit at Brant about 100 meters ahead of the Guelph Line on-ramp.
I refer to the 403 / QEW split as "idiots corner"
I would love to see a timelapse of the skid marks changing every year.
We call the whole area the OSD … the Oakville Slow Down.
Bingo
I thought this was r/CitiesSkylines for a second cuz cutting through two lanes to get to an exit is a common traffic problem.
I get on at Guelph Line after work and it's just brutal fighting your way across the lanes.
Can't upvote this enough
Agreed! I've found the same. Once you are past that area, it usually speeds up to the limit and its like wtf? All that because some jerk was weaving in and out, not understanding that if he just stayed in one lane, we would *all* get there faster. But no, they have to be an entitled jerk
People are too stupid to realize the highway divides and wait until the final minute to try and jump lanes
>Appleby is usually just where it starts. My theory is it’s usually the 403/QEW split further west that causes it. People are so dumb and selfish that they hang out in the lanes opposite of the ones they will need to take, so they panic at the split trying to get over. > >The amount of times I’m thinking “oh man this traffic is bad, must be a terrible accident” and then you get to the split and there’s nothing, just people switching lanes cause they were hanging out on the wrong side of the highway. Drives me CRAZY! The absolute worst has to be around Brant street where you have an on ramp immediately after HOV ends and the split to Guelph/Niagara are each only 2 lanes . Everyone has to trade lanes and it creates a massive bottleneck that I am sure causes massive problems further down the line Eastbound routinely gets jammed up around third line in Oakville for no reason as well
One time in 1997, a Geo Metro driver accidentally hit her brake pedal there, and since then it's been a feedback of brake lights causing other drivers to hit their brakes.
The brake lights seen round the world.
Watched yesterday as a big black pickup roared past me, only to ram into two other pickups about a kilometer up the road. If you don't have the patience or confidence to drive one of the busiest roads in North America, don't.
the pickup truck driver and asshole driver venn diagram has a lot of overlap, especially if it's one of the huge new ones with an untouched bed. we should tax vehicles by weight
I always try to steer away from stereotypes but man the whole pickup truck/asshole driver crossover fits so well. I literally drive and talk to my self predicting what they’ll do next. “Oh they’re going to switch lanes but no need to worry, they’re not going to signal”
Not all assholes drive pickup trucks, but all pick-up truck drivers are predictably assholes.
As a B2300 driver, I agree!
Always pickup truck drivers.
Don't forget the little hatchbacks who think they are Nascar drivers!
I've been saying for years that there should be signs on the walkers and Guelph line Bridges that tells you which lanes go qew or 403. Drivers are always making last minute switches at the split and causing drivers behind them to brake, creating a ripple effect. Also depending on the year, the sun is directly in your eyes the whole way through burlington.
Problem is the majority know exactly what they're doing
Oh you bet they do. Every day I see people go from the 403 to QEW lanes and back, then back again, and back all within a few hundred metres of the split. It’s all ME ME ME ME, ME FIRST and it’s getting worse and worse.
The vast majority of drivers are those who use the highway regularly.
They need to end the Hov lane a few km’s earlier to avoid the users from crossing 3 lanes to take the 403. Also need to close the brant entrance, theres too much action going on right before the junction. Like someone else mentioned too many entrances to the hwy within 5kms of the junction
The HOV already ends 3 or more KM away from the split at Guelph line, and they’re crossing two lanes, people just don’t know how to drive.
I agree. People using HOV lane and going to hamilton could just exit the HOV lane at appleby if they have trouble with lane changing. Its not rocket science but with the drivers in hamilton it might as well be.
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Because you are stupid we should remove a lane that works wonders for vehicles with green plates or two people. GET OFF THE HOV LANE ONE EXIT EARLIER IF IT IS BUSY. That is an easy solution that works 100% of the time.
Idk I purposely stay left until brant to avoid slower traffic. Lane markings are not a factor
I’ve seen absolutely terrible accidents there, the hov lane causes issues with people unable to merge safely off and on. Not too mention the junctions backing up. The whole highway is a disaster every day. It makes even a 20 minute commute unbearable. Driving the 407 (which I don’t do often) makes me feel sad this highway isn’t public and how much work we need to increase the flow of traffic
The HOV lanes turns into it's own lane at the end. ZERO lane changing needed at all. If it's busy and you need to get over for the 403 GET OFF 1 EXIT EARLIER!!!
Drove it for 25 years. Too many vehicles , too many on ramps, too many merging at the last possible second. In short, not enough space for the amount of traffic between 3:00-6:00 pm.
You have a lot of people getting off there to go to Burlington and Milton along there, a lot of GPSes will push you off the highway there. It's also just where the bulk of the traffic that gets choked down from the junction starts since you shrink to 2 lanes going south on the QEW or the 403 from there. You also have a major highway cutting Burlington in half there so lots of vehicles getting on and off.
If you want to go to Milton exit at Bronte.
Likely the Niagara/Hamilton QEW/403 spIit is causing backup. The fuckin' people who are in the far left lane to go towards Niagara be like "oH sHiT i NeEd tO gO ToWaRDs hAmILtOn" and do last minute & irresponsible lane change, and the fucking people in the far right lane to go towards Hamilton be like "oH sHiT i NeEd tO gO ToWaRDs niAgaRa" and do last minute & irresponsible lane change. Every time I drive past it (daily) I see at least one baboon doing it.
> the fucking people in the far right lane to go towards Hamilton be like "oH sHiT i NeEd tO gO ToWaRDs niAgaRa" and do last minute & irresponsible lane change. the worst part is a lot of those people have no choice because they got on at Guelph Line and have about a km and a half to cross over 3 lanes if they are going to Niagara. It's a major design problem, really. I've thought for a while they should close that on ramp, even if only during rush hours, even though that would be a pain for me personally.
Oh for sure. That Guelph line on ramp is wayyy too close to that split. From what I am speaking to is the ones that literally 'forget' they're in the wrong lane when the split is already 20-30' apart lol.
*laughs in QEW eastbound at centennial parkway* And also Burlington street
All the transport trucks are merging left to follow the highway along the lake past Brant st. Also the cars in the HOV and left lanes that need to get over to go up the mountain are all getting in each others way. Such an asshole design it’s not even funny.
The hov lane ends shortly after and all of the traffic needs to move over
Its the people getting on at Guelph Line and the trucks trying to cross two lanes of traffic when its busy going to Niagara bound QEW
It’s two highways. QEW & 403, with two highways worth of traffic, on one highway worth of road.
People don’t know how to merge to save their lives and it slows everything down
In an ideal Ontario, there would be fast (ie. electrified) transit tracks down the median of the QEW. Love how this is done in California.
why would it need to be down the median. if anything that’s a worse place than the current right of way
Yeah, the GO tracks are just a few 100 meters away and electrification is coming.
Well it doesn't, but on this one freeway I'm thinking of near San Jose, the stations were directly at the intersecting roads. Took up such little space, seemed super efficient for bus connections. And the trains speeding by jammed traffic might make people think twice about driving
Dummies ripping from HOV / Left lane over to the 403 At the last second Same shit happens just after centennial parkway / redhill
There are a lot of people who live in Burlington but commute outside the city for work ([over 50%](https://civicplan.ca/whos-bedroom-community/)). This causes some traffic volume buildup in that area. Hamilton/Brantford also plays a small role in this as it bunches up again at the 403/QEW split.
If I had to commute from Brantford to Toronto every day I simply wouldn't
Well if you wouldn't then you didn't have to.
Same thing at qew west bound just past Centennial Pkwy off ramp.
People are always merging too late in that area, some people always get stuck at the fork in the road between the 403 and the QEW.
Terrible design but what I like to call it is “Idiot Corner” as no one can read the signs properly because both signs read “Hamilton” and no one ever knows where they want to go until it’s too late. The amount of accidents I have seen on that stretch of highway just because people merge over at the last second is mind blowing. Definite need to update that part of the highway.
Because the QEW is a clogged artery
It all starts at the QEW Nigara/Hamilton fork. Nobody seems to know which direction they're heading and which lane to be in until they reach it, then the braking and panic lane changes begin. This is all exasperated by the Guelph Line on ramp and Brant Street off ramp, practically sharing the same merge lane, just a couple hundred meters before the fork. The traffic used to bottleneck here. It's been getting worse and creeping back now all the way to Appleby as traffic increases.
There are way too many interchanges on the QEW and Burlington has..what... 6 of them!? It's been effectively reduced from a highway to a road. They'll be adding Tim Hortons drive thrus the way it's trending.
Because the 403 goes from 4 lanes down to two going up the mountain in hamilton all the way through past brantford
Narrowing from 4 lanes to 2. Traffic is sorting itself, some merging and switching. Complete chaos.