Driving in London is becoming more and more frustrating.

With construction, new drivers and a growing population, London’s roadways have never been more congested.

When I first began driving with my G2 license, back in 2018, I used to love going for a drive with my friends and looking at some of the cool architecture in London. Now, even commuting to school and only driving when necessary is too much.

London’s population has been steadily increasing for years, with over 50,000 new Londoners since 2020, according to Statistics Canada, adding to the roadway congestion.

As London becomes a bigger and bigger city, I think the drivers are becoming more and more aggressive.

The number of times I get cut off just for the driver to slam the brakes on or try to lane change without checking their blind spot makes driving feel like you’re playing Mario Kart’s hardest course (Rainbow Road… obviously).

The cherry on top is that London’s roadways have more potholes than even road which means the whole city is constantly under construction.

London has a record-breaking road construction budget, with $270 million worth of road work plans.

This obviously causes problems when trying to commute anywhere in London, especially at rush hour.

The other day, I tried to drive from Westmount Mall to Victoria Hospital at 5 p.m. Normally that drive would take me 20 minutes. Well, I took the wrong way and went down Wellington St., which is currently down to one lane going both ways. I didn’t get to the hospital until 6 p.m. I drove back to the west end of London after and it took me 13 minutes on Commissioners.

I get it, everyone’s in a rush trying to get from point A to point B, but I truly think London just has bad drivers. The amount of times I’m driving and someone makes a wide right turn making me swerve, or turning when I’m too close and I have to slam on my brakes, or, my personal favourite, when a car decides to stop in the middle of the lane to do an illegal U-turn.

So you’d think, if London is seeing huge population growth and needing insane amounts of road construction, that we would allocate funds for other forms of transportation. Wrong.

London has made no visible steps to work on the traffic in the city, other than sometimes promoting riding a bike. But bike lanes are far and few in between, making commutes longer when you’re stuck behind a biker.

My dad’s a motorcycle rider and the amount of times we have been taking a ride to get ice cream in the summer and someone tries to merge into us or literally run us off the road is insane. And that’s a motorized bike so I’d say you’re even less safe with a Walmart helmet and a bell.

London transit is also unreliable, and with the traffic and the construction, buses run late more often than not.

I honestly am more likely to just sit and wait out rush hour than even attempt to drive home because it’s truly just a lost cause.

I don’t know what needs to be done, but something needs to change. Whether that’s making drivers take a driving test every year so there are less bad drivers or allocating more funds to expand the roadways.