Highway 401: Proposed Province-Wide Widening

[kEiThZ]

I think its a waste to widen the 401 to 6 lanes all the way. Max to Kingston....though I'd argue upto Cobourg (as present) is sufficient. Beyond that, a wider 401 is only really needed through Kingston.

Instead of widening the road the whole way, why not put that money into improving traffic management and building more rail so that we can take cars and trucks off the road. That would kill more than several proverbial birds with one metaphorical stone.

 

[Dichotomy]

Two lanes in each direction do not move traffic efficiently, period, whether in urban or rural settings. Trucks passing trucks slow the 401 all the time. You need the 3rd lane so everyone else can just keep going. That's the same reason why 4 lane arterial roads are a joke in the city.

 

[nfitz]

I think its a waste to widen the 401 to 6 lanes all the way. Max to Kingston....though I'd argue up to Cobourg (as present) is sufficient. Beyond that, a wider 401 is only really needed through Kingston.

Used to live in Kingston - a long time ago. But I still travel through a half-dozen time or so a year heading to Montreal, sometimes even during Kingston rush hour.

Has anyone seen stop-and-go traffic on the 401 through Kingston? I've only seen it if there is an accident. But I frequently see stop-and-go traffic on a long weekend between Belleville and Coburg (and Port Hope before the widening was finished ... and through Oshawa ...).

Mind you, it's a whole different story outside of the weekend. I drove the entire thing recently on a Wednesday afternoon, even went through Kingston during rush-hour. Was a pretty quiet and tame drive.

 

[kEiThZ]

^But this brings an important issue to the forefront, widening expressways only encourages more sprawl. I wonder what would happen if the province decided no more spending on the 401, and that money is going towards improve GO and VIA services. I think there is a good argument to be made for extending GO services to Port Hope and Cobourg, via Bowmanville and Newtonville instead of a future 401 expansion to 8 lanes upto Cobourg.

 

[MisterF]

I sometimes wonder what a majorly improved Highway 7 from Peterborough to Carleton Place (where an expressway is already being built to the 417) would do. I wouldn't be opposed to extending the 115 freeway to at least where Highway 7 meets Highway 28 North, and from Carleton Place to Perth, with more passing lanes and upgrades the rest of the route.

Actually Highway 7 is being widened to 4 lanes as far as Hwy 28. Not full freeway though. The long term plan for the 115 is to extend it north to Lakefield and Youngs Point. Hwy 28 between Lakefield and Hwy 7 is routinely stop and go on summer weekends, especially southbound on Sunday afternoons.

As for Highway 7, passing lanes are planned every 5-10 km, much like Highway 17 between Arnprior and North Bay, or Highway 69. I don't see a full 4-laning ever happening though.

 

[lordmandeep]

If you ever go on the 401 with 6 lanes it is usually slow even on a Sunday in places around Guelph/Milton and Port Hope.

 

[Hipster Duck]

I sometimes wonder what a majorly improved Highway 7 from Peterborough to Carleton Place (where an expressway is already being built to the 417) would do. I wouldn't be opposed to extending the 115 freeway to at least where Highway 7 meets Highway 28 North, and from Carleton Place to Perth, with more passing lanes and upgrades the rest of the route.

Highway 7 should be a 4-lane non-divided highway east of Peterborough to Havelock, with a Norwood bypass. East of Havelock, I think 3-lanes (so, a passing lane alternating between the east and westbound side) would do the trick, with a paved shoulder and some sort of left-turn apparatus (like jug-handles).

They're extending the freeway to Carleton Place? Hello exurbia!

 

[ShonTron]

That would be the way to go. I would also suggest the same for Highway 69 between Nobel and south of Sudbury, where the MTO is also planning turning the whole thing into a freeway. The freeway by-pass of Parry Sound is almost complete, as is Nobel, as well as about 15 kilometres south from Sudbury. Why the MTO insists on either full-fledged freeways or sticking with two-lane roads is nuts, even though they did play with four-lane undivideds (Highway 10 through Caledon, Highway 6 north of Hamilton) and RIRO expressways in the 1970s, and super 2s in Caledonia, Wallaceburg-Sarnia and St. Thomas.

I now know that Highway 6 between Hamilton and the 401 is a death trap and inadequate, and would prefer its upgrade to a dual carriageway with a few parclos (Highway 5 at least) as the alternative to 424.

The Kitchener-Guelph corridor is a perfect example of this stupidity - they allowed Highway 7 to be totally inadequate for decades because they wanted a freeway on a new alignment, where a simple 4-laning with perhaps some new alignments within the urban area would have been fine.

Highway 7 from Norwood to Peterborough can be quite brutal for traffic sometimes, but isn't bad through Madoc.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

^But this brings an important issue to the forefront, widening expressways only encourages more sprawl.

Highway widening doesn't encourage sprawl, highway expansion does. The highway is already hemmed in by development. Expanding highways encourages sprawl as the expansions are usually into empty or farm lands which developers snap up and build quickly along the side of the highway.

 

[lordmandeep]

How is Highway 6 a death trap?

I was going 100km with cruise the whole way from Hamilton to the 401???

 

[nfitz]

How is Highway 6 a death trap?

There's no barriers to prevent head-on collisions, with people speeding down the highway through all the traffic lights. The article notest that "A grim total of 24 people have died in crashes on the 24-kilometre section since 2000, making it the deadliest stretch of highway in the province".

I was going 100km with cruise the whole way from Hamilton to the 401???

Case in point. Must have gone down well in the 60-km/hr zones.

 

[lordmandeep]

I slowed down there....


Actually thinking about, the road would be dangerous at night.

 

[nfitz]

Actually thinking about, the road would be dangerous at night.

And at sunrise/sunset. And with freezing fog. Ice and snow. I take it sometimes to get from KW to Toronto if the 401 has had a major incident between 6 and 407. It's great on a good day.

 

[Dichotomy]

One of the most frightful night trips in my life (and living in Collingwood for 11 years there were a host of scary night trips in blizzards, etc.) was on a return trip from Florida, via the 401 and Guelph: fog, freezing rain. On the back of the Niagara Escarpment there is some wierd, changing weather that contributes to these conditions.

 

[unimaginative2]

The problem with 4-lane undivided highways is that they often have rather high accident rates. People treat them like expressways and drive very fast, and a head-on collision at those speeds is pretty guaranteed to be fatal.