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Everyone has a downtown traffic horror story, and Barbara Wilkes's latest began with her attempt to pick up an tired friend who was finishing a 10K run at Fort York last Sunday.

The journey, fumes the North Toronto financial consultant and part-time Ryerson instructor, degenerated into a slow-motion odyssey as she slammed into a pair of detours near Queen's Park, then several more road-works-related traffic snarls further south. To top it all off, she adds, "the area around the CNE was a total nightmare" due to condo construction. So when Ms. Wilkes tuned into news stories this week about city council proposals to restrict right turns on red lights, reduce lanes on Jarvis and eliminate the Richmond-Adelaide one-way pair, she - like thousands of fed-up Torontonians - found herself asking if the City of Toronto has declared war on the car. "There seem to be a lot of proposals for changes where they haven't done their homework. To me, it's like taking a paint brush and throwing it at a wall to see where it sticks."

Nor are these changes the only apparently anti-car moves. The city is pressing ahead with the plan to tear down the eastern Gardiner. It has hiked street parking fines and installed traffic calming in numerous neighbourhoods. New bike lanes and a Paris-style bike-sharing service are also in the works - developments that excite cycling advocates but depend on reducing lane space for cars and trucks.

What's more, a proposal coming to the planning committee next month will allow downtown developers to reduce by 10 the number of onsite parking spots if they allow spaces for rental vehicles supplied by car-sharing companies.

"Are we are trying to reduce traffic downtown?" says Councillor Adrian Heaps (Ward 35, Scarborough Southwest), who chairs the Toronto Cycling Committee. "Without a doubt. But it's not vindictive."

In recent years, Mayor David Miller and his council supporters have pushed to adopt cutting-edge climate change policies meant to reduce emissions, boost transit and promote healthy alternatives to the car, including cycling and walking. Many large cities with busy cores are looking at similar measures (see sidebar).

"The changes are long overdue," remarks Yvonne Bambrick, executive director of the Toronto Cyclists' Union and a founder of Kensington Market's car-free Sundays. "The city is playing catch-up."

But the city might be getting ahead of itself. Yet for others, this week's developments felt like salt in an open wound. "I'm very concerned about the north-south capacity [into the core]," notes Don Valley West councillor Cliff Jenkins, who says he has "a real problem" with the right-turn measure - proposed as a pilot project at ten undisclosed locations.

"Give me a break," grumbles Catherine Swift, who heads the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses. She says such changes only serve to accelerate the exodus of jobs from the city. "There's no planning." The nub of the problem is that downtown Toronto, which isn't expanding geographically, has become a victim of its own success. "Putting in place measures that divert traffic depends on a transit system that works," Ms. Wilkes points out. While the city, using various policy techniques, tries to discourage people from driving downtown, transit service into and around the core - the other half of the equation - hasn't kept pace with demand, notes civil engineering professor Eric Miller, director of the University of Toronto's Cities Centre. "The growth has finally caught up with our capacity. We have far less margin any more on the transit side."

There's no doubt Torontonians use transit, now in record numbers. A few years ago, Ms. Wilkes and her husband sold their second car because they weren't using it. When she's lugging materials to clients or to teach, she drives. But she also takes the subway downtown regularly.

Yet the southbound platform at York Mills is so crowded in the morning that she often has to let two or three trains go by before boarding. Even transit supporters admit the system is over-taxed. "The efficiency may be there but it's coming at the cost of convenience," says Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina), who is pushing to transform Richmond and Adelaide into two-way streets west of University. "There are intangibles being lost and they don't get caught on an accountant's balance sheet."

Funding shortfalls have prevented the Toronto Transit Commission from expanding platforms or increasing service on the subway lines.

Earlier this year, city council endorsed the idea of a "downtown relief line" (DRL) - a second subway U-route running south from Danforth and Pape, cutting across Front and then returning up to Dundas West - but such a massive, costly project is unlikely to come to fruition for years, or perhaps even decades, as has been the case with New York City's long-delayed Second Avenue subway.

What's more, the DRL is competing with other transit mega-projects, such as the proposed Eglinton cross-town light-rail line, which will run underground from Laird to Keele. "You can't have both," says Prof. Miller. "These are really tough decisions."

For a growing number of downtowners, cycling is an alternative, albeit a frequently dangerous one. Creative director Ian Chalmers, who commutes from his home in the St. Clair West area to an office on King East, regularly rides to work in warm weather and uses a combination of his car, transit and cabs in the winter.

After numerous close calls, he thinks the no-right-on-red plan is "a great idea" because it will help make riding safer. But Mr. Chalmers also uses his car or cabs and understands the driver's perspective. "People in cars are just not very happy because it sucks. On the days I drive, it's quite frustrating to get into the city."

Yet, in a cold city, Prof. Miller doubts cycling can gain the mass popularity it enjoys in places such as Amsterdam and Copenhagen. And, he adds, the city's half-measures on cycling infrastructure - narrow lanes with no separation from traffic - leave no one satisfied. As Ms. Bambrick concedes, "It needs to feel safe, and right now it doesn't."

Nor are all bike lanes well used, a detail that leaves some wondering if it makes sense to cleave off parts of already crowded streets. Howie Schmelzer, operations manager at Centre Honda on Richmond East, noticed that the city recently added bike lanes on Sherbourne, near his dealership, eliminating one lane in each direction.

"You never see anybody biking there, but you can't drive there. It makes it very frustrating."

For Torontonians like Ms. Wilkes, who live too far away to ride to work and need to use both transit and the car to go downtown, the greatest frustration of all is being stereotyped. In council committee this week, some councillors derided the disputants in the Jarvis Street debate as wealthy Rosedale residents.

"This characterization is just so unfair," says Ms. Wilkes, who chuckles sardonically when asked if she's a millionaire.

"No," she replies. "I do know some rich people and they're in their offices by 7 a.m." - before the routes start to clog up. "It's the average people with 9 to 5 jobs who are getting hit with the traffic."

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World war on the car: How other cities discourage driving

LONDON:

Between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays, the City of London charges an £8-10 fee ($14-18) for cars entering a downtown zone that extends from Notting Hill to the financial core. Discounts are available for some drivers, including congestion-zone residents and those operating alternative-fuel vehicles. The city introduced the levy in 2003 and extended the "C-zone" in 2006. In 2006/2007, the city invested £123-million ($216-million) from congestion-toll revenue into the transportation system.

NEW YORK CITY:

As part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's green plan, the city has established bike lanes on Broadway and other arterials. After an almost 40-year delay, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began construction on the Second Avenue subway in 2007, to relieve crowding into the core. The MTA is also building new tunnels for commuter trains coming into Manhattan from Long Island.

COPENHAGEN:

The Stroget is a pedestrian-only street that runs through the medieval core of the Danish capital. Established in the early 1960s by the municipal council in response to worsening traffic congestion on the old town's narrow streets, the Stroget is the longest pedestrian-only shopping drag in Europe and is one of the city's top tourist attractions. The no-car zone has been extended to other streets in the vicinity, and includes parts of the university and arts districts.

SINGAPORE:

Since the 1970s, the Singapore government has used a combination of congestion charges and extremely high vehicle registration levies - the rates can be as much as 150 per cent of the price of the car - to discourage car use. The island city, however, has an excellent rapid transit system, which has been continuously expanded since the late 1960s. The government is currently spending about $32-billion to double the rail system by 2020.

BOGOTA:

In the late 1990s, then mayor Enrique Penalosa began building a 340 km bike trail network, known as CicloRuta for the city of 7 million. The project cost about US $50-million. He also established car-free Sundays on 120 km of the city's main thoroughfares. Today, 54 per cent of homes have bikes and the increase in cycling has offset an estimated 36,800 tonnes of CO2 since 2000.

Source: http://www.c40cities.org/bestpractices/transport/bogota_cycling.jsp