I took a ride this morning - Gregg Lintern was on the train and we happened to chat for a bit which was a nice surprise.
The ride from Humber College to Finch West took 50 minutes. The train never exceeded 45km/h and rarely exceeded 30km/h. Gregg reported it took over an hour for him to go from...
The map isn't perfect - MTO is actively doing the EA to build interchanges on the Hanlon, it's definitely still on the books.
The map is missing a few other projects MTO is thinking of - HOVs on the QEW through Mississauga, 6-laning the QEW to the 420, HOV extension on the 404 up to Green Lane...
considering a lane-kilometre of 400-series highway can cost as little as $5 million.. understandably more. For the same level of investment it is costing to extend the subway 1 kilometre into Scarborough, MTO is building 100 kilometres of freeway expansion to extend Highway 400 towards Sudbury...
I drove the QEW HOVs this morning for example and it saved me maybe 30 seconds total. When the GP lanes slowed down, so did the HOVs.. just slightly less.
The one HOV that always saves a tonne of time is the SB 404 to WB 401 HOV ramp. That one is a really useful connection.
the province is spending about $4 billion on highways in 2025. Most of which is maintenance capital - repaving, bridge replacements, etc. Just keeping existing assets in good shape. As of today there is exactly 3 highway expansion contracts underway in the entire province - the Highway 3...
My experience lately is that HOVs rarely operate with significant time savings over the GP lanes anyway. Or at least not on the QEW. There may be a marginal time difference in AM peak, but on weekends and during PM peak there is effectively no difference.
Something like this:
At ~4.4 km, you are probably looking at about $1 billion to tunnel it as per latest cost comparables and $2-3 billion for fitout and a mined terminal station at Union. If you are willing to cut travel speeds you could probably reduce the tunnel length to something closer...
going to have some absolutely incredible ceiling heights for a hotel!
Great to see more and more hotel supply coming online downtown as well. We all know it's badly needed.
one more comment about this one - Open-air Type G loading? When has the city ever allowed that in the downtown? Definitely a great cost-cutting measure.
I don't entirely disagree - as I said, I don't think the City needs to be running around building 700sf 3-beds and 400sf 1-beds like some industry builders do. They should be targeting functional, simple units without excess space - which tends to align closer to the numbers I quoted - 550-600sf...
I'm doubtful of Kennedy if only because of space limitations on the corridor. I doubt Metrolinx is going to want Alto intermixing with its services on the corridor.
Plus - It's simply slow. The biggest curve you'd be able to get at Agincourt is maybe 75mph, and that's with quite a bit of...
You too can play in fantasy land of oversized units and overkill elevator ratios with fancy architecture when you are playing with public tax dollars! woo-wee!
Seriously. The city is wasting the ability to house probably an extra 100 families or so here by their little games with oversized...
Much like the Bradford Bypass, the 413 is going to solve a lot more traffic issues on local roads than it will on other freeways.
The 413 is going to pull a lot of traffic off local arterials in Brampton, and exactly like you said, make it easier to build safer local streets.
The Dutch model...
case in point, Twice (K-pop) has two nights booked in Hamilton and is the only headliner to book the entire stadium capacity for TD so far.. and with two nights as well!
At this point they would basically either need to destroy a nature preserve in the Oak Ridge Moraine or do a tunnel of some sort to get it through there. When you look at google maps it doesn't appear overly urbanized but that's because it's a large nature preserve.
Mind you, highway tunnels...