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Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

There is a lot of truck traffic in Mississauga to Milton corridor. Expanding GO trains does not help them at all. The flaw as pointed out before is the 2+1 HOV express lanes. If a truck is passing on the left, it will definitely screw up everyone and force people illegally into the HOV.
 
Steve X said:
There is a lot of truck traffic in Mississauga to Milton corridor. Expanding GO trains does not help them at all. The flaw as pointed out before is the 2+1 HOV express lanes. If a truck is passing on the left, it will definitely screw up everyone and force people illegally into the HOV.
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TIL you can be forced to make an illegal lane change when traffic you don't like is inconveniently in front of you.
 
Steve X said:
There is a lot of truck traffic in Mississauga to Milton corridor. Expanding GO trains does not help them at all. The flaw as pointed out before is the 2+1 HOV express lanes. If a truck is passing on the left, it will definitely screw up everyone and force people illegally into the HOV.
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After having driven this stretch yesterday, I think it may be a feature rather than a bug. Tolling the 401 to disincentivise single occupant commuting is a non-starter, but this they got away with. I had a green plate and a passenger, and sailing through from the airport all the way to highway 25 on a weekday was a rush. Thanks to the double white line between interchanges, nobody slowly passing a truck that was slowly passing a truck was clogging up the left lane.
 
turbanplanner said:
Laws are useless without enforcement. We have to consider how things work in the real world.
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Tell me about it.

99% of all cars passing me today in the HOV of the new 401 extension in both direction were illegal there in the first place. Then you had a dump truck doing 80 in the express lanes as well a number of Sunday drivers in the passing lane doing the limit or less when they should been in the right hand lane in the first place.

Lots of truckers in the express trying to pass one and another. Best you could do going west was 110-115 compare to 115-130 going east.

Whoa!! express lanes going west to James Snow, but no express going east. Only 5 lanes and a useless HOV lane for eastbound.
 
max said:
TIL you can be forced to make an illegal lane change when traffic you don't like is inconveniently in front of you.
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People are so impatient these days. I see multiple people making illegal U-turns everyday to avoid long waiting left turns. Now that Toronto program most intersections to give pedestrian time to cross, I see people ploughing through red lights like it was green cause they don't want to wait that 3 seconds. Right turns happen when they disallow right turn on red and they honk you for blocking their way. There's these 10% of the drivers that doesn't care.
 
Steve X said:
People are so impatient these days. I see multiple people making illegal U-turns everyday to avoid long waiting left turns. Now that Toronto program most intersections to give pedestrian time to cross, I see people ploughing through red lights like it was green cause they don't want to wait that 3 seconds. Right turns happen when they disallow right turn on red and they honk you for blocking their way. There's these 10% of the drivers that doesn't care.
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As one of those people who does this occasionally, I see no problem if 1) It is legally permitted, 2) Traffic is light and 3) Signal timings are ridiculous, multi-minute affairs. My commute involves a signalized left turn, and very light on-coming traffic. The suburbs should probably make more use of 'through turns' for major arterial intersections instead of ridiculous double left turn lanes and multi-minute long phases.
 
Steve X said:
People are so impatient these days. I see multiple people making illegal U-turns everyday to avoid long waiting left turns.
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In my experience, locations where U-turns are illegal are rare. I'm not out there driving in rush hour much though - where are you seeing this?
 
Talking to a few police officer on duty for the Hurontario LRT, their main bitch are drivers who fail to use their flashers so they have an idea what these driver is planning on doing coming at them. Then the drivers who fail to obey their hand signals that they are almost run over as well the ones who make illegal right hand turns on a red without stopping.

Saw a number of drivers today trying to make a left turn out of the passing lanes next to the left turn lane illegally while waiting for the light to change and backing up traffic behind them.
 
afransen said:
Reducing the time cost of driving leads people to consider living further from work. They're not being irrational. They are driving until they qualify. If you could guarantee low cost, free-flowing 401, people would live in Cambridge on a quarter acre and drive to dt Toronto.
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(I realize you're not arguing for this)

Where there would either be no parking available; and/or it would cost $60 per day.
 
Dec 14
The last video trying to use the Sony camera with no view screen that I had the zoom out to far. It was shaking for some reason compared to the DSLR I used on my return trip. Come Monday, will have the new camera to shoot videos and not having to use the DSLR anymore. The Sony camera server me well these 8 years for videos as well for photo with its long zoom. Hope the new one does the same thing.

Slow and fast videos going westbound and the eastbound are in the hwy 401 thread
 
innsertnamehere said:
Full report here:


I thought the tables were interesting - specifically showing which projects were deferred and which were advanced.

View attachment 442091

View attachment 442092

Interestingly - the 413 apparently scores a 668 EPF Score - the highest number of any project other than upgrading the Hanlon Parkway in Guelph.
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Looking at this, here's my take:

I may agree or disagree with any number of projects for any number of reasons.

Ultimately, I'm not opposed to the government doing what its supposed to do, which is prioritize, based both on its stated goals, and public endorsement of its choices.

However.............

a) I think if the Government overides its own Ministry criteria for prioritizing projects, it ought to have to explain that choice. I don't think that's a big ask. Why do you disagree w/your professional advisors/planners? Maybe there's a good reason, but its incumbent on you (the government) to share what that is......

b) I'd like to see how the substance of that formula, perhaps @innsertnamehere has how projects are 'scored'.

I will disagree w/the MTO on support for several of these projects; and disagree with the details of how they are implemented in several more.

So I can't take issue, in principle, with the government having a distinct opinion; I only want to see them defend that choice based on evidence.
 
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Northern Light said:
Looking at this, here's my take:

I may agree or disagree with any number of projects for any number of reasons.

Ultimately, I'm not opposed to the government doing what its supposed to do, which is prioritize, based both on its stated goals, and public endorsement of its choices.

However.............

a) I think if the Government overides its own Ministry criteria for prioritizing projects, it ought to have to explain that choice. I don't think that's a big ask. Why do disagree w/your professional advisors/planners? Maybe there's a good reason, but its incumbent on you (the government) to share what that is......

b) I'd like to see how the substance of that formula, perhaps @innsertnamehere has how projects are 'scored'.

I will disagree w/the MTO on support several of these projects; and disagree with the details of how they are implemented in several more.

So I can't take issue, in principle, with the government having a distinct opinion; I only want to see them defend that choice based on evidence.
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I don’t know anything more than what is in the auditor report, but it appears it’s a weighted impact of travel time, economic benefits, environmental impacts, etc. a project which saves a lot of travel time on a road with a lot of commercial traffic with low environmental impacts would score highest, basically.

The 413 has an exceptionally high score likely because the economic and travel time benefits are absolutely massive, while it likely scores lower on environmental impacts.

You won’t find me disagreeing with a bit more transparency on these kinds of things, even basic things like regularly publishing these scores and priority lists showing what is likely up next for funding.

That said, an elected government definitely has the right to choose what goes forward in a democracy. Choosing on EPF scores alone is probably the “most efficient” way to spend tax dollars, but governments are elected to make changes and they should be able to if they wish.
 
afransen said:
As one of those people who does this occasionally, I see no problem if 1) It is legally permitted, 2) Traffic is light and 3) Signal timings are ridiculous, multi-minute affairs. My commute involves a signalized left turn, and very light on-coming traffic. The suburbs should probably make more use of 'through turns' for major arterial intersections instead of ridiculous double left turn lanes and multi-minute long phases.
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Left turns are the most difficult problem for traffic engineers, if only NA drivers could learn to use roundabouts.

Once you get to the point double left turn lanes with a dedicated signal phase there isn't much more that can be done to alleviate the situation. Unfortunately we can't seem to handle them in anything but the lowest traffic level conditions.
 
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