Sigh, HERE WE GO AGAIN....................
I say this not only as a licensed and car-owning driver, but as someone who has driven this stretch of #7 many times over the years, as recently as last fall.
Enough with the never ending MTO program of highway widening and new highways.
Not needed.
At best, a frivolous use of taxpayer dollars producing little or no benefit.
At worst, one more act of planning, fiscal and environmental negligence.
I have never experienced a traffic jam on the Peterborough area #7, except when a bridge is blocked for reconstruction. Which in no way bears on the general width of the road.
Right now this is a scenic drive, mostly though moderately developed rural land, mixing a few small towns and villages, the odd agricultural use, some cottage properties and conservation a crown lands.
That's as it should stay!
Building a 4-lane highway leads to more sprawl, more inefficient land use, more very expensive freeway lanes to maintain, at least moderately adverse environmental impact and a far less pleasant drive.
Ultimately it just leads to a six-lane highway, then an 8-lane and on and on and on.
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First, we need to acknowledge there is no meaningful traffic problem on 7, east of Peterborough.
And the traffic on 35/115 and the more westerly portions of #7 is almost entirly limited to Friday Afternoon/early evenings and Sunday Afternoons for the warm 1/2 of the year.
This is a cottage and camping driven issue, which provides adverse driving conditions (barely) for a whopping 5% of the time.
When we acknowledge that, it becomes apparent, that more lane km of freeway is not the answer.
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What we do need in this area, is to look at how we can alleviate some congestion.
There are several answers.
1) spread out demand.
This can be done by adding a 1-2 more holiday weekends each year (Sask and Nunavet Already have 10, as does the U.S.), ON has 9.
This can reduce some camping or resort related traffic by spreading out demand.
Also do-able is simply promoting alt. office hours (still 40 a week) but more offices that offer employees a choice of early Fridays (in an hour early, out 1-2 hours early).........not uncommon now, but mixing that with the same for Monday mornings.
The result would spread out the peak-demand period on weekends, thus reducing congestion.
2) Move non-passenger goods off-road in the corridor. Revive the old CP line from Havelock to Smith's Falls and rebuild the Havelock to Toronto portion, for freight purposes alone. Never mind the fictional numbers for restoring passenger service on this route which allocated not only 100% of capital to the passenger side, and accounted for all the rolling stock etc, but which also featured a contingency bordering on fraud at 25% ++
Simply ungrading and reinstalling track for freight, involves no stations, no rolling stock (that's CPs problem) and no operating cost. It could be done for the same cost as the proposed highway widening at much lower on-going financial cost to the tax payer.
3) Consider, the passenger rail question I looked at above, but cost the track to the freight plan (proportionately) for which it is primarily intended; then instead of contemplating a commuter service, looking at the train as an excursion service taking you close to many parks and cottages, and featuring car-rental and park shuttle buses at relevant stations. Two Friday trains (and the same back on Sunday) could easily remove 500 people and 200+ cars from the road per trip or 1,000 and 400 respectively.
That's sane and sensible.
