Ottawa, Ontario – Reports are calling Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation (MTO) initiatives to fix the lack of transport truck parking an “insult” to drivers.
In 2018, a study was conducted by SPR Associates of Toronto and decided that more than 350 new parking spots should be installed per year, and recommended emergency measures such as partnering with municipalities and repurposing public lands including the existing Downsview airport, off-season CNE grounds, and a yet-built Pickering airport.
SPR says that creating more parking spots will make it easier for drivers to take a break from driving, and in turn, reduce the risk of collisions.
“It is easy to criticize and harder to create solutions. However, after three years, MTO’s response to SPR’s report must be regarded as token or symbolic only, and insufficient given the importance of this issue to the economy and public safety,” SPR says. “The weak response might be attributed to a tendency of the MTO bureaucracy to ignore such problems, concentrating on its engineering and planning studies, as it has under Liberal governments (2003-2018) and the current Tory government.”
Ted Harvey, the lead author on the SPR report, says that the 2018 report was not well received by the MTO.
“This is typical of government. They often hesitate to do things and often sit on top of research,” Harvey says. “I felt particularly it was important to try to push this because we had the researched understanding of what was going on.”
SPR’s research focused mainly on the Highway 401 corridor between the international border at Detroit and the Quebec border. It is travelled by about 40,000 trucks per day.
“SPR’s study confirmed that the longstanding truck parking shortage is a major issue for Ontario, resulting in extremely negative impacts on drivers and the trucking industry in general,” the consulting firm says in its statement. “The study demonstrated that driver fatigue from not being able to find a safe place to park to rest or sleep results in a higher risk of collisions and risks to public safety.”
SPR said that Ontario was lacking 1,200 to 2,600 truck parking spaces in Southern Ontario, where there are currently about 3,900 spots available, with the most intense shortage of parking being around Toronto.
Following the release of the report, MTO did create more parking spaces at ONroute centres, though SPR says they are insufficient.
“Improvements to ONroute parking areas were seen as mostly aesthetic, creating prettier parking, with no real increase in truck parking spots,” SPR said.
The government announced that they would create much needed parking in Northern Ontario, though no plans have been officially announced for central, southwestern and eastern Ontario, SPR said.
“The 28 locations identified by MTO for the redevelopment of parking are mostly located in remote areas where land values are low, with existing tourist stops. These will help in the north, east and southwest, but do not fix the urgent shortages in central Ontario.”
