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When I got up this morning, I barely caught the traffic report. In my semi-conscious state, I thought I heard something about a lane reorganization on some road. I had a funny feeling that it may have had something to do with highway 401, but I was not sure. Just to make sure, I took a look at the COMPASS Traffic Cameras and took a look at the area of the highway where there had been construction for the past year. I noticed that the area that had been blocked off was now clear! What was happening was that the collector lanes were being widened, which meant that all traffic over the Don Valley bridge was being routed to the express lanes via the transfer lanes. Once over the bridge, the rerouted traffic was lead back to the collector ramp. For that, they had to put a temporary hole in the highway divider.
From what I saw on the cameras, I noticed that there was virtually no traffic on the collector lanes, no construction on the collector lanes, and most importantly, no snow on the collector lanes. So when I drove onto the highway, I took a gamble and stayed on the right hand side of the highway where the traffic was originally being routed left. I was awarded with a completely open ramp and a clear path to work and actually made it on time despite leaving rather late.
The vast majority of the vehicles were still taking the transfer lanes onto the express ramp, and thus traffic was backed up quite a distance. I guess the commuters got so used to being forced to the left that very few people noticed that there were no more pylons blocking the lanes onto the collector ramp. More importantly, the gap in the divider that allowed the traffic to flow back to the collector lanes from the express ramp had been closed up, forcing all of those cars to stay in the express lanes and clogging up traffic there, while the now widened collector lanes were underused.
I noticed that this was still the case on the drive back during the evening rush. I guess people get into a habit and do not look for changes? I have that same problem myself..
