Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

[ericmacm]

I was driving through Sarnia for work today and I saw some survey work ongoing on the HWY 40 corridor. This is almost certainly part of the Preliminary Design/Environmental Assessment phase that was announced earlier this year, which is apparently scheduled to take 2 years. Interestingly enough, the survey work extends all the way into the already twinned southern portion until the Churchill Road intersection. That section of the highway is pretty rough so it would be nice if the province was planning on making some additional improvements as part of the twinning.

 

[Deadpool X]

Most highway contracts are cheaper than many realize. The massive 401 widening to Milton is only costing something like $600 million.

Unfortunately, a single km of subway line these days costs more than this 18 km highway widening project.

 

[Steve X]

Unfortunately, a single km of subway line these days costs more than this 18 km highway widening project.

It's probably cheaper and easier to stick to schedule to just level homes to build subways on the surface.

Just sell the air rights and build condos on top afterwards!

 

[darth_freeman]

Interestingly, the Eglinton Crosstown and Highway 413 are both in the same order of magnitude of cost - $5B (property acquisitions for each are another matter).

Both are forecasted to have about 5,000 users per direction in the peak hour and 200,000 daily users.

There is no answer as to which one is "better" or provides "more benefit", I'm sure different people will have different opinions. Each project is definitely very suited for the area that they are located in.

 

[Deadpool X]

It's probably cheaper and easier to stick to schedule to just level homes to build subways on the surface.

Just sell the air rights and build condos on top afterwards!

With today's house prices, levelling homes would be many times more expensive than deep bore tunneling.

 

[afransen]

With today's house prices, levelling homes would be many times more expensive than deep bore tunneling.

Including reselling land afterwards? I'm not convinced. When underground stations cost $500M-$1B a pop...

 

[Deadpool X]

Including reselling land afterwards? I'm not convinced. When underground stations cost $500M-$1B a pop...

It will take decades to resell that much land at profit. Also we have not considered levelling more homes to build approach roads to these new buildings. You won't make money from those roads. Also, building dozens of bridges on roads to cross this at grade line. Anyways, we are discussing something that is unrealistic and impractical.

 

[afransen]

It will take decades to resell that much land at profit. Also we have not considered levelling more homes to build approach roads to these new buildings. You won't make money from those roads. Also, building dozens of bridges on roads to cross this at grade line. Anyways, we are discussing something that is unrealistic and impractical.

Literally at grade is probably a silly idea, but to widen ROWs slightly where necessary to enable an elevated line is probably not unrealistic. Especially where we literally have SFHs with driveways facing arterials--absolute madness from a traffic engineering perspective.

 

[Steve X]

Literally at grade is probably a silly idea, but to widen ROWs slightly where necessary to enable an elevated line is probably not unrealistic. Especially where we literally have SFHs with driveways facing arterials--absolute madness from a traffic engineering perspective.

Elsewhere it's a silly idea. The GTA just can't seem to get transit cost under control nor can they build anything in a reasonable time. A decade later, the Crosstown is still not opened. They certainly took way less time to level homes to trench the 401 in Windsor.

Certainly leveling homes ain't cheep. Probably around $75-100m per km just to buy all the property. If they can trench it and build it at a reasonable $100-150m per km, it's certainly not a bad deal considering the cost of deep tunneling subways are in the range of $500m per km now.

 

[mtomo]

The new Highway 89 bridge over Highway 400 looks like it's open. The old one should be demolished soon?

 

[innsertnamehere]

The new Highway 89 bridge over Highway 400 looks like it's open. The old one should be demolished soon?

I drove by yesterday and the abutments beside the old bridge have been excavated away. I imagine it will be demolished over night in the next week or two.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Elsewhere it's a silly idea. The GTA just can't seem to get transit cost under control nor can they build anything in a reasonable time. A decade later, the Crosstown is still not opened. They certainly took way less time to level homes to trench the 401 in Windsor.

Certainly leveling homes ain't cheep. Probably around $75-100m per km just to buy all the property. If they can trench it and build it at a reasonable $100-150m per km, it's certainly not a bad deal considering the cost of deep tunneling subways are in the range of $500m per km now.

The 401 extension in Windsor is the most expensive highway per km in Ontario history and cost only something like $100m/km.

 

[Haljackey]

Niagara mid peninsula is dead and will not be getting built any time soon.

This one makes sense- but the QEW needs some love if this isn't built. Hamilton to St. Catharines can really use an extra lane right now. That merge just past the Red Hill Niagara-bound is atrocious. You have 4 lanes from the QEW and 2 from the Red Hill merging into 3. Getting a 4th lane built, even if it is HOV will really help the bottleneck out.

Eventually when the Garden City Skyway is twinned you could see 8 lanes on the QEW all the way to the 405 interchange or perhaps even the 420. The widening in St. Catharines would be tough tho.. that's a narrow corridor to add another lane in, especially if it is HOV with a proper buffer zone.

Bonus bucks if you can somehow extend the HOV through the Freeman Interchange in Burlington and cannibalize one of the lanes on the Burlington Skyway for HOV. That would allow a HOV lane to run all the way to the 403 split in Oakville!

 

[innsertnamehere]

This one makes sense- but the QEW needs some love if this isn't built. Hamilton to St. Catharines can really use an extra lane right now. That merge just past the Red Hill Niagara-bound is atrocious. You have 4 lanes from the QEW and 2 from the Red Hill merging into 3. Getting a 4th lane built, even if it is HOV will really help the bottleneck out.

Eventually when the Garden City Skyway is twinned you could see 8 lanes on the QEW all the way to the 405 interchange or perhaps even the 420. The widening in St. Catharines would be tough tho.. that's a narrow corridor to add another lane in, especially if it is HOV with a proper buffer zone.

Bonus bucks if you can somehow extend the HOV through the Freeman Interchange in Burlington and cannibalize one of the lanes on the Burlington Skyway for HOV. That would allow a HOV lane to run all the way to the 403 split in Oakville!

MTO has plans to add HOV’s, but I don’t think they are particularly needed right now past Grimsby, and definitely not past the 406. The QEW through St Catharines was just widened, what, 10-15 years ago and operates just fine.

The Garden City Skyway is planned to be twinned and widened to 8 lanes in the next few years, mostly as a result of rehabilitation needs of the existing bridge. It’s a waste of money if you ask me as the extra capacity really isn’t needed, they probably could have gotten away with simply reducing the bridge to 4 lanes for a few years to do a staged rehabilitation.

MTO does plan to eventually widen the Burlington Skyway again as well, from what I recall it involved a widening of the eastbound structure from the 1980’s. nothing immediate though as it is obviously a very expensive project. In the interim the HOVs through Oakville and Burlington will be extended to the immediate base of the bridge at North Shore Boulevard.

 

[Haljackey]

MTO has plans to add HOV’s, but I don’t think they are particularly needed right now past Grimsby, and definitely not past the 406. The QEW through St Catharines was just widened, what, 10-15 years ago and operates just fine.

The Garden City Skyway is planned to be twinned and widened to 8 lanes in the next few years, mostly as a result of rehabilitation needs of the existing bridge. It’s a waste of money if you ask me as the extra capacity really isn’t needed, they probably could have gotten away with simply reducing the bridge to 4 lanes for a few years to do a staged rehabilitation.

Just seems if the Garden City Skyway is going to be 8 lanes whenever the new bridge is finished, you may as well maximize this capacity with 8 lanes to and from the bridge. Aside from busy holiday weekends, the QEW flows fine through St Catharines but 8 lanes would sure be nice here and toward the 405/420 when the skyway is twinned.

Regarding the skyway project itself, I do happen to agree with you BUT it is good to have redundancy in the network. You can close one of the bridges completely for rehab work, and you get full shoulders on each side vs the 0 shoulders today. Ever been traveling on the QEW when there is a breakdown/crash on the skyway? It ain't fun.

As for the HOVs, yes get them pushed to Grimsby at least for now, and eventually to the 406. That will help stagger the 6-3 lane merge at the Red Hill interchange quite a bit further down the road. You'd still have a bottleneck, but at least it's a long bottleneck and not a stubby