Planned Sprawl in the GTA

[MisterF]

Halton has a ton of large road projects underway or soon to be underway.

Generally Halton is the worst offender in the GTA for"mega-stroads". Their MO is large, 70km/h limited access arterial roads. Roads like this.


The concept of widening roads shouldn't be a foreign one, as an area urbanizes it should be natural to expect a rural concession road to evolve, the discussion should be more nuanced on how that road is designed. Britannia Road of 2009 wouldn't work for an urbanized area, but so too do I question if Britannia of 2022 working for what is needed. The reality of these areas is you need a lot of arterial road capacity, but how those arterials should be designed is a real valid question. At least it has separated, dutch-style multi-use paths? It at the very least doesn't strike me as fundamentally different than a modern Dutch arterial. I could see it working with some tweaks (smaller lane widths, larger median to provide a better pedestrian refuge, shifting of crossing locations at intersections to minimize crossing distance, etc.)

Some key differences between the Dutch arterial and the one in Milton:

• Narrower lanes and lower design speed
• Fewer lanes
• LRT in the median
• Separated cycling infrastructure on both sides and, critically, protected intersections. No painted bike lanes with forced conflicts at every intersection.
• Implements the Dutch concept of separating streets and roads. No driveways to private businesses from the arterial.
• Much higher densities, with buildings on the frontage streets being right up to the sidewalk. Instead of power centres and strip malls, commercial development looks like this.

All these things reduce demand for driving and the need for giant arterials and parking lots. That saves money on infrastructure and makes land more productive. A great counterpoint to standard Canadian suburbia.

 

[W. K. Lis]

 

[W. K. Lis]

Some key differences between the Dutch arterial and the one in Milton:

• Narrower lanes and lower design speed
• Fewer lanes
• LRT in the median
• Separated cycling infrastructure on both sides and, critically, protected intersections. No painted bike lanes with forced conflicts at every intersection.
• Implements the Dutch concept of separating streets and roads. No driveways to private businesses from the arterial.
• Much higher densities, with buildings on the frontage streets being right up to the sidewalk. Instead of power centres and strip malls, commercial development looks like this.

All these things reduce demand for driving and the need for giant arterials and parking lots. That saves money on infrastructure and makes land more productive. A great counterpoint to standard Canadian suburbia.

Copied and pasted from above...

 

[afransen]

Halton has a ton of large road projects underway or soon to be underway.

Generally Halton is the worst offender in the GTA for"mega-stroads". Their MO is large, 70km/h limited access arterial roads. Roads like this.


The concept of widening roads shouldn't be a foreign one, as an area urbanizes it should be natural to expect a rural concession road to evolve, the discussion should be more nuanced on how that road is designed. Britannia Road of 2009 wouldn't work for an urbanized area, but so too do I question if Britannia of 2022 working for what is needed. The reality of these areas is you need a lot of arterial road capacity, but how those arterials should be designed is a real valid question. At least it has separated, dutch-style multi-use paths? It at the very least doesn't strike me as fundamentally different than a modern Dutch arterial. I could see it working with some tweaks (smaller lane widths, larger median to provide a better pedestrian refuge, shifting of crossing locations at intersections to minimize crossing distance, etc.)

One major design difference is having a low speed access road on the side, rather than allowing driveways directly off the arterial.

One advantage of going with narrower one way arterials is that it makes it possible to reduce speeds while maintaining average speed, through signal timing. Lower max speeds means lower traffic noise, improving livability. With coordinated signal timings, there is no penalty to adding mid-block pedestrian cross-overs and crossing distances are reduced. Can probably get away with shorter cycles too, as clearing times are reduced.

These massive wide ROWs are just terrible, and hard to fix in future.

 

[just east of the creek]

Copied and pasted from above...
View attachment 436220

One thing that has not been touched on is the tremendous difference in tax treatments of cars in Holland vs Ontario. And it’s very impactful. It’s not that the Dutch are tremendously anti-car, but the costs of owning a car or SUV are very different. For instance, if you loved that Volvo SUV, you would buy one without the back seat, making it a two seater, and saving on taxes from the most extreme, to the merely ridiculous, and then locate a seat in Poland and instal it yourself. The cost of having a family.

Another point of consideration is that some of these ROWS in more urban centres are very wide - 4 lanes of traffic, separate wide bicycle lanes, some sort of a verge with trees, then a 2 lane service road, including a lane of parking.

One huge advantage is the existence of separate bicycle lanes alongside almost any road of note, even more rural sections. Which invites year around cycling to work etc, and, even in Holland, that can be just darn freezing. Which would make a toddy of Jenever so welcome.

 

[afransen]

Just checking... a typical gas powered car (Mazda 3 to Volve XC60 range) would cost around 1000-2000 euros of road tax per year in South Holland.

The ROW width for the dutch arterial insertnamehere provided is 50m from building facade to building facade. That is comparable to many suburban arterials in the GTA. I wouldn't be surprised if the throughput of the dutch arterial is considerably better, leaving aside the fact it supports an LRT ROW.

 

[just east of the creek]

Just checking... a typical gas powered car (Mazda 3 to Volve XC60 range) would cost around 1000-2000 euros of road tax per year in South Holland.

The ROW width for the dutch arterial insertnamehere provided is 50m from building facade to building facade. That is comparable to many suburban arterials in the GTA. I wouldn't be surprised if the throughput of the dutch arterial is considerably better, leaving aside the fact it supports an LRT ROW.

You could be right re the ROW. I am working from memory a bit as its been pre COVID since I've been in Holland, and even then I was not measuring. Most of my experiences are from the Nijmegen - Venlo - Eindhoven area and then The Hague. But I can distinctly remember these ROWs as it was Carnival at the time, and I was walking the streets with some Dutch friends.

 

[Northern Light]

Found the map for the Provincial Order to expand Hamilton's urban boundary to allow more sprawl; its even larger the than the option Hamilton considered and declined:

Bue (and red) striped area to be new sprawl if the order sticks.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Halton Region was also expanded - the red and blue areas are net additions from the decision.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Notably the Hamilton decision designates all remaining white belt lands in Hamilton that are available for residential growth as urban area. The remaining whitebelt lands are required to be employment as a result of the Hamilton airport.

Modifications were also made to the urban boundaries in Niagara and Peel, though those were generally more minor than in Halton and Hamilton as the latter two had opted to not expand their urban boundaries at all.

 

[ericmacm]

Those are massive amounts of urban area added to Halton. That Georgetown section is crazy, looks to be around 2/3rds the size of Georgetown itself. The massive employment section along the west side of the 407 is nothing to sneeze at either.

Would have preferred to see focus on Hamilton’s downtown before an urban boundary expansion, but I guess at the end of the day, the province holds all the power here.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Those are massive amounts of urban area added to Halton. That Georgetown section is crazy, looks to be around 2/3rds the size of Georgetown itself. The massive employment section along the west side of the 407 is nothing to sneeze at either.

Would have preferred to see focus on Hamilton’s downtown before an urban boundary expansion, but I guess at the end of the day, the province holds all the power here.

Hamilton's downtown has over 40 residential towers proposed and under construction already, it's already taking a lot of growth. Definitely room for a lot more though, Hamilton has excellent urban bones and can absorb a ton of intensification easily if it wanted to.

The MMAH sees Hamilton absorbing a lot more of the 905 growth than it has in past decades, however, so I see why the MMAH wanted more land added. Growth projections have it growing to 820,000 by 2051, which is about 250,000 people.

Halton Region has a lot of land as it's seen as being the fastest growing 905 region in the next few decades as well, with 500,000 people expected to be added by 2051, twice as many as Hamilton.

Comparatively, Toronto is expected to take on about 850,000 people in that time frame.

A big change to remember here is that previously municipalities were required to set aside land for 20 years of growth, that was changed to 30 years. So these areas represent what is expected to be developed between now and 2051, while normally lands would have been set aside for 2041.

 

[afransen]

I would be a lot more comfortable with this if we had demonstrated the competence to develop greenfield residential more effectively. Where is the plan to provision these areas for rapid transit eventually? Nope, we'll cover it in McMansions, and be stuck with existing freight rail lines, subways or on-steet LRT as the only ways to provide rail transit connectivity. It's just painfully stupid.

 

[Sunnyside]

Found the map for the Provincial Order to expand Hamilton's urban boundary to allow more sprawl; its even larger the than the option Hamilton considered and declined:

View attachment 437660

Bue (and red) striped area to be new sprawl if the order sticks.

I am glad you provided this. Maybe I’m mistaken about their status, but it doesn’t show the new lands added in Ancaster. Could’ve sworn There is a large parcel of land now added west of Hwy 6 and south of Rymal. Don’t know if there’s any maps with it yet.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I am glad you provided this. Maybe I’m mistaken about their status, but it doesn’t show the new lands added in Ancaster. Could’ve sworn There is a large parcel of land now added west of Hwy 6 and south of Rymal. Don’t know if there’s any maps with it yet.

That is a part of the proposed greenbelt changes, which is a seperate thing to the urban boundary expansion.

I'm curious about the proposed large area to be removed from the Greenbelt in Ancaster as it is mostly within the noise area of the Hamilton Airport and can't be used as residential.. it seems odd to me to remove it from the greenbelt for employment uses when Hamilton has massive employment only whitebelt areas still sitting unused.