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Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

lenaitch said:
Not an engineer but I would imagine that would be massively costly. Unless you are somehow able to maintain load restriction, the temporary bridge and its underpinnings would have to be just as robust as the new one; you're building two bridges. Gone are the days of hoisting in a Bailey Bridge.
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What if the temporary road is just a 2 lane at-grade road with some extra landscaping work (as there are usually ditches in the shoulder of highways)?
 
lenaitch said:
An at-grade intersection of a 400-series highway? Or am I missing something.
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My better point was on extensions or new highways, not replacing existing bridges over existing highways, where the bridges are usually built before the main stretch of highway is completed.
 
Leo_Chan said:
My better point was on extensions or new highways, not replacing existing bridges over existing highways, where the bridges are usually built before the main stretch of highway is completed.
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Not sure if this is what you mean (or the opposite of what you mean).
At 427 and Zenway. It looks like they will temporarily relocate Zenway to the south so that the future bridge over 427 will be on the original straight alignment.
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7757781,-79.6370318,521m/data=!3m1!1e3

Generally, it costs an awful lot of money to put up a temporary bridge to carry traffic. Here at Major Mac, the old bridge was to the south, and carried traffic during construction of the new bridge. The new bridge was built entirely to the north.

At King Road, I believe that the old bridge was 3 lanes. Half the new bridge was built to the north. Then the old bridge is demolished, traffic switched to the new half, and the new south half it built. At the end of the day, the road centre-line did not change. (Sometimes they may even slice off the north part of the bridge so that the new one could be built closer to it - either the full new bridge or half of the new bridge. It all depends on the number of lanes on the old bridge, the number of lanes to keep during construction, and the number of lanes in the final condition - along with property availability to realign the road.
 
I can confirm that Zenway has been reduced to 2 lanes (1 in each direction) and shifted slightly south. An alternative example is the VIVA rapidway construction on the Hwy 7 bridge over Hwy 400. Traffic lanes were shifted on Hwy 7 to allow construction, expansion, and modification to the bridge and associated interchanges. Hurontario and 401 was similar.

I would think the primary goal is to avoid as much disruption of the 400 series highway as possible.
 
What happened in the 427-409 area today? According to Google traffic, today both highways were much more congested than usual.
 
Neutrino said:
What happened in the 427-409 area today? According to Google traffic, today both highways were much more congested than usual.
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EB express lanes closed from where they start at Kipling to past Hwy 400, in rush hour, which is insane.

Add that to the ongoing 427 SB lane closures at Bloor for emergency work, it was pretty nasty out there.
 
The 400 series should be raised as the current 100km/hr bears no reality to the speeds people actually travel at.

People forget in the debate that when drivers take their tests the most they travel at is 95 km/hr making them totally unprepared {and untested} for traffic in the real world. It would be better having 120 and have it more strictly enforced with far heavier fines than the current scenario of basically not enforcing the speed limits at all leaving the highways a free-for-all.

One of the primary concerns has always been {and justifably so} having higher speed limits in the winter when snow/ice/visibility are genuine concerns. What they could do is have 120 during the spring/summer/fall and remain 100 during the winter months. Dec21 to March 21 which is officially winter would be a very easy time frame for people to remember. Certainly having electronic variable speed signs up would be ideal but also extremely costly having to put up electronic signs every km in the huge 400 series.
 
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ssiguy2 said:
The 400 series should be raised as the current 100km/hr bears no reality to the speeds people actually travel at.

People forget in the debate that when drivers take their tests the most they travel at is 95 km/hr making them totally unprepared {and untested} for traffic in the real world. It would be better having 120 and have it more strictly enforced with far heavier fines than the current scenario of basically not enforcing the speed limits at all leaving the highways a free-for-all.
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Many new GTA drivers take their tests in smaller centres because of wait times and therefore do their 'high speed portion' on relatively lightly travelled 80 kmh roads. I recall when our daughter did her test the lot was full of Toronto-area driving school vehicles.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Transportation minister announced a review of speed limits today, including the possibility of raising 400 series limits.
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Should get adjustable speed limits, based on road and weather conditions they can reduce the speed limits accordingly. Also increase the fines and actually enforce the laws against slow drivers in the left or "passing" lanes.
 
ssiguy2 said:
The 400 series should be raised as the current 100km/hr bears no reality to the speeds people actually travel at.

One of the primary concerns has always been {and justifably so} having higher speed limits in the winter when snow/ice/visibility are genuine concerns. What they could do is have 120 during the spring/summer/fall and remain 100 during the winter months. Dec21 to March 21 which is officially winter would be a very easy time frame for people to remember. Certainly having electronic variable speed signs up would be ideal but also extremely costly having to put up electronic signs every km in the huge 400 series.
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I hope they look at out of city limits (vs in-city) for the 400 series.

If you have driven to Whistler there are now very good variable speed signs. Works really well. At full speed and dry you are OK going around the corners at the posted speed...very glad it is dialed back when the weather is not as good.

EDIT...Middlesex County which is Yurek's riding has many back roads at 90 (vs 80). So he is used to having different speed limits based on the quality of the road.
 
They are starting with a pilot project - probably a lightly used 400-series stretch.

Probably one with a good design standard.

Where may it be? 401 between Woodstock and Kitchener? 402? 403 between Woodstock & Hamilton? Those are my guesses.

Will trucks be allowed to go the same speed?

What will the limit be? 120? 130?

Speed variance is what kills.

Hopefully this will help keep most traffic (85th percentile) flowing at a similar speed.
 
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