Why do Toronto’s busiest streets and highways sometimes feel like combat zones?

There are many theories on why people become angry behind the wheel of a car, says Christine Wickens, a scientist with CAMH’s Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, who has studied driver aggression.

“Most people who are generally hostile are going to be generally hostile on the roadway as well,” Wickens says citing one widely accepted theory.

Human beings are also territorial by nature, so “there’s this personal space around your vehicle, and you don’t want it to be invaded.”

Another theory is that the anonymity of driving fuels bad behaviour. “If someone cuts you off on the highway, chances are they can’t see you. You’ll probably never come across them again,” she says.

“But if it happens in your driveway, and you and your neighbour pulled out at the same time, and nearly hit each other, would you be just as likely to get out and scream and yell and rant and rave? Probably not.”

Wickens was the lead author of a recent study that found angry, aggressive drivers are much more likely to get into crashes than calmer motorists.

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Toronto is also an increasingly crowded place to move around in which will invariably amp up stress and tension levels on city streets, says Murtaza Haider, director of the Institute of Housing and Mobility at Ryerson University.

An estimated 20 million people cross the Yonge St. and Dundas St. intersection every year, he notes.

“Pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists, transit vehicles are all trying to share the same space. And given the intensity of interactions you see, at times, conflicts,” he says. “Fortunately most conflicts are someone honking or using their fingers creatively.”

And while the city has Manhattanized, with condo towers shooting up all around us, no new roads have been built, “so road capacity has remained the same, but the number of users has multiplied tremendously.”

Commuters trying to get in and out of the city, meanwhile, are battling gridlock and coping with the uncertainty of their travel times.

That “lack of control” also boosts stress levels and exacerbates tensions, Haider says.

He warns Toronto is getting to the stage “where we have built as much commercial, office, retail and residential that any further increases will just increase friction between cars, automobiles, pedestrians and bikes and within bicyclists themselves.”

Jared Kolb, executive director of Cycle Toronto, noticed how “stressed” he became the moment he got back on his bicycle on Toronto streets after a trip to Copenhagen, where bikes travel along a 390-km network of designated lanes.

Toronto has just 131-km of on-street bike lanes or separated cycle tracks.

The city needs to invest heavily in cycling infrastructure and “really carve out space so cyclists have a space and drivers have a space, he says. More people will opt to bike to work, rather than drive, if they feel they can arrive alive.

“To really dial down the stress on the roads, we really need to dial up our investment in protected bike lanes right across the city.”

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