Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

[44 North]

A pipe dream would have the 402 curve south-southwest of the 401 and head towards St. Thomas. As described by @ShonTron, this isn't necessary. London's urban growth boundary doesn't go much further south than 402 / 401 so a second parallel freeway is not needed, especially considering the slow-ish growth of the region (at least compared to Greater Toronto)
Full size http://www.londondev.ca/Art/LDI_Combined_Board04.jpg

It was just an idea I had, and yeah their growth iirc from their BRT plans is something like 70k over the next couple decades. Which compared to the GTA is fairly anemic. But at the same time the city doesn't have much in the way of an expwy system, so maybe city planners would aim to make up for that over the long term by building a more "modern" London in the far south. Perhaps filled with GTA expats. As in: come to London to experience the rural-ish/suburban dream, but without GTA-level traffic.

Along 401 would be any planned new industry/warehouse/large commercial, and from Lambeth and along this 402 extension would be swaths of residential. Highbury would be quasi expressway standards like today, and extended south to St Thomas Expwy. And for fun the London & Port Stanley Rwy would see tram-trains operating as a commuter service between St Thomas and downtown London. London is kinda an interesting area in that it's in the middle of nothing, but a 'big city' (according to them, not me however). Sorry, should've put this in the Fantasy thread.

 

[BurlOak]

The lack of a ring road freeway really has hurt London. Its about 50km from Hwy. 402 (near or SE of Strathroy) to Hwy. 401 (near Veterans Memorial). VHM could have been about 25% of this distance if it were done back in the day.

 

[ShonTron]

The province, at one time, planned for major growth in Southwestern Ontario, especially on the Highway 3 corridor. Townsend, outside of Jarvis, was supposed to be a sizeable "new town" community, but never went too far. The Nanticoke industrial area was supposed to be huge. Haldimand-Norfolk was organized as a Regional Municipality in advance of this projected growth, but never really happened.

This helps to explain the Highway 3 Super-2 in St. Thomas, designed for twinning. I suspect there were plans for Highway 402 to connect with that at one time.

 

[BurlOak]

I had this link for the London ring road, but it appears dead. I do not even recall what exactly it described. Maybe someday in the distant future, Highway 7 will be extended to meet this ring road.

http://www.london.ca/Transportation/PDFs/LondonExecSumApril5.pdf

 

[Johnny Au]

I had this link for the London ring road, but it appears dead. I do not even recall what exactly it described. Maybe someday in the distant future, Highway 7 will be extended to meet this ring road.

http://www.london.ca/Transportation/PDFs/LondonExecSumApril5.pdf

The link is dead.

 

[BurlOak]

The link is dead.

Sorry. I do not even recall what the link details were - it was from a few years ago.

 

[drum118]

Was in Hamilton on Friday and use the 403 to get to Oakville. I see they have open the new eastbound 3 lane bridge over the Desjardins Canal and shift the the westbound to the old eastbound. The old westbound bridge is having the concrete removed from it.

By the looks of things, they are planing to widen this area to the west of King St which sure needs it. Those who know and use this area can tell us more about it.

They have repave a large section of hwy 48 since my last trip on it in June.

401 westbound traffic was backup at Yonge St on Sat as the off ramp was close and crews working on it.

They have built the new lane on 403 to connect to the 401 westbound, but no concrete or asphalt on it yet.

I am really glad I don't have to drive every day, as it would be so stressful to do so and worse than when I stop driving full time for that reason.

 

[darth_freeman]

Prequalified Teams Selected for Highway 401 Expansion Project
A request for proposals is expected to be released in fall 2017.

Visit here to learn more about the Highway 401 Expansion project.

The ~25km HOV lanes will be a game changer. Carpoolers and buses will be home free from Hwy 410 to west of Milton, with the HOV lanes likely extended to K-W in another 5-10 years after.

Will be interesting to see how they protect for the future GTA West highway.

 

[muller877]

I had this link for the London ring road, but it appears dead. I do not even recall what exactly it described. Maybe someday in the distant future, Highway 7 will be extended to meet this ring road.

One of the ring road benefits was to divert traffic north of London and onto the 402 (getting to the Port Huron crossing vs Windsor). With the Herb Grey Expressway, the Ambassador bridge and Gordie Howe Bridge being built in Windsor there will be more and more truck traffic going down the 401, not the 402. As such even though it would be a great idea I question the need of a ring road.

It would be used by mostly residents and should we create an expressway (vs high capacity concession roads) for local traffic?

 

[gweed123]

Was in Hamilton on Friday and use the 403 to get to Oakville. I see they have open the new eastbound 3 lane bridge over the Desjardins Canal and shift the the westbound to the old eastbound. The old westbound bridge is having the concrete removed from it.

By the looks of things, they are planing to widen this area to the west of King St which sure needs it. Those who know and use this area can tell us more about it.

Doubtful that this section actually gets widened. The two railway bridges just to the east of the Desjardins Canal (leading into the Bayview Junction) have their piers placed in such a way that widening the highway would likely mean replacing those bridges (it's a bit of a tight squeeze as it is).

If there's any section of the 403 that gets widened, it'll be between King St and the Linc, where it's basically two lanes in each direction (upbound on the Ancaster Hill has 3 lanes, but it's basically just an extra truck lane). 3 down to 2 at the Main St exit already bottlenecks a bit during peak periods, so going from 4 to 2 would make it even worse.

I think the Desjardins bridge project is just a bridge replacement, with some modifications being made to the curve in that area.

 

[Steve X]

One of the ring road benefits was to divert traffic north of London and onto the 402 (getting to the Port Huron crossing vs Windsor). With the Herb Grey Expressway, the Ambassador bridge and Gordie Howe Bridge being built in Windsor there will be more and more truck traffic going down the 401, not the 402. As such even though it would be a great idea I question the need of a ring road.

It would be used by mostly residents and should we create an expressway (vs high capacity concession roads) for local traffic?

Not to mention they have widen the 401 to 6 lanes in the entire Essex Region. MTO still has to widen the 401 from there to the 402. The problem with making it easier for trucks to head over is the increase truck traffic from MI to NY states. It just floods the highway with traffic that isn't even local. I don't know if a ring road would solve the problem.

 

[Raul]

Does anyone know when the Creekbank Rd Extension over the 401 will happen in Mississauga ?

 

[Dan416]

Does it bother anyone else that Google Maps shows Regional Road numbers over street names and you have to zoom in really closely to see the actual street name?

 

[Leo_Chan]

Does it bother anyone else that Google Maps shows Regional Road numbers over street names and you have to zoom in really closely to see the actual street name?

I find it a bit inconvenient, but not annoying. What is annoying is that smaller streets that don’t have the regional number distinction do have the full street name on the map, while larger arterial streets that have numbers and names only should the number.

Here’s another inconsistency, the highway number, in words, is displayed when you’re at the same zoom level as when you get small streets’ names, but not the larger streets’ names.

We could send feedback to Google about this though.

 

[ssiguy2]

The link is dead.

Small wonder, so is the project.

I was born and raised in Greater London and the Ring Road has been talked about since the 1970s and it will NEVER happen. Just as politics always gets in the way of Toronto transit, the same is true for London roads.

The 401 was suppose to be an effective commuter route for fast growing London the 1960s and was suppose to run about 2km north of where it is now and run north of Ingersol but St.Thomas protested so it had to be between the 2 which is why the 401/Wellington interchange is almost exactly the same distance from downtown London as it is from downtown St.Thomas. Then the 402 was suppose to go North of the city to solve the problem of northern London being so far away from the 401. Again politics got in the way and it would have run too close to Labatts home and the politically powerful North London area. It was suppose to basically run parallel to HWY#22 past Strathroy and meetup at the 403 at Woodstock.

Now you have London at the crossroads of 2 freeways neither of which are much good to commuters and increasingly in fast growing Northern London, people are taking the old HWY#8/7 thru Stratford to KW and then got on the 401 as it would take too long to get to the 401.