Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Now that said. GO can be a cause for urban sprawl as well.

 

[Northern Light]

I'm all for rail and transit upgrades, but tolls on the 400-series?

Do you know how clogged local streets will become if this happened? 2 lane rural roads will become busy thoroughfares as well. No one will want to pay, and will weaken Ontario's reputation from a economical standpoint. Commuters will hate it, tourists will hate it, truckers will hate it, and thus there will be a lot of protests at Queens Park since a huge majority will oppose this plan. I don't think this will ever happen.

I don't see what the problem with widening the highways is. They're already there, and the 400-series have one of the largest right of ways in the world, so significant reconstruction of the land surrounding the highway isn't usually needed. Widening helps improve traffic flow by increasing capacity which is something a growing economy and population need. Ontario already has very few freeway networks compared to elsewhere so there's already an increased strain on the existing routes. By refusing to build new freeways even more widening and attention needs to be paid to the existing routes.

Simply put, it would cripple our economy if we don't build new highways, widen existing highways or toll existing highways. The only new routes I can see in the near future are the Windsor-Essex Parkway, Highway 424, and a new connection between K/W and the GTA. I don't think the 408 or 407 extension is that badly needed.

****

No offense, but I can't agree at all.

Vancouver has ZERO expressways within its boundaries, and its booming out of control on par with if not (in relatives terms, more than Toronto)

And many cites, even in the U.S. have far fewer lane km of highway that we do here (per capita)

The 401 is now busiest freeway in the world by volume of traffic, and yet we have not just 1, but 3 major e-w corridors through much of the GTA (with the 407 and Gardiner/QEW running roughly in parallel)

We don't need anymore lane KM of freeway.

Its worth pointing out the new lane km of highway almost never alleviate congestion for more than a year. Even with 407 being tolled it has EXCEEDED its original design capacity and been widened since construction, due to congestion!

AHA you say, proof we only need even 1 more highway, or a wider one.........YET, the only area to show truly massive commuting growth in the last 20 years....(in absolute numbers) is downtown Toronto. Nothing else in the GTA comes close. It is also less congested that Markham/Vaughan/Mississauga etc.

AND

NOT ONE new lane km of freeway has been added in the area during the last 20 years.


400-series highways without tolls are demand creators, not demand satisfiers. They are also more expensive to build and maintain that GO Rail.

And people will get over the tolls and switch to transit.

Nonsense that they will clog local roads. That has not been the experience that I'm aware of almost anywhere else.

You live in Oakville and commute to downtown Toronto.........gonna take Lakeshore all the way in? Dundas? I don't think so....

You'll suck it up and pay the toll or you will switch to GO.

As it should be.

 

[unimaginative2]

Congestion on the 401 in London isn't bad as it bypasses the city. The MTO plans to widen the 401 in London to 8 lanes sometime in the near future and to a max of 10 lanes in the far future.

London is the largest city in North America not to have some sort of freeway serving local traffic. The 401 and 402 are for long distance traffic and are not used for local use and commuting.

Traffic congestion is common in the city and it gets worse every year. The proposed routes around London will help relieve congestion as the city grows. The Veteran's Memorial Parkway may one day become a freeway and a route in the west has been protected from development so that it can go in when there is ample need. The route north of the city probably won't happen as development sprawls all the way to London's north city limits, and municipalities north of London reject a freeway plan. The only way this could ever be possible is if the government decides to extend the 403 from the 401 to the 402 west of the city.

I agree that there is congestion but I don't think a ring road will really make much of a difference to the in-city congestion. Vancouver also doesn't really have any freeway serving local traffic. I guess there's nothing wrong with protecting corridors but I think there are much, much better ways for London to spend hundreds of millions of dollars.

I'm all for rail and transit upgrades, but tolls on the 400-series?

Do you know how clogged local streets will become if this happened? 2 lane rural roads will become busy thoroughfares as well. No one will want to pay, and will weaken Ontario's reputation from a economical standpoint. Commuters will hate it, tourists will hate it, truckers will hate it, and thus there will be a lot of protests at Queens Park since a huge majority will oppose this plan.

Is this really a problem in New York or Pennsylvania, both of which have tolls on their main highways?

 

[TOareaFan]

****

No offense, but I can't agree at all.

Vancouver has ZERO expressways within its boundaries, and its booming out of control on par with if not (in relatives terms, more than Toronto)

And many cites, even in the U.S. have far fewer lane km of highway that we do here (per capita)

The 401 is now busiest freeway in the world by volume of traffic, and yet we have not just 1, but 3 major e-w corridors through much of the GTA (with the 407 and Gardiner/QEW running roughly in parallel)

We don't need anymore lane KM of freeway.

Its worth pointing out the new lane km of highway almost never alleviate congestion for more than a year. Even with 407 being tolled it has EXCEEDED its original design capacity and been widened since construction, due to congestion!

AHA you say, proof we only need even 1 more highway, or a wider one.........YET, the only area to show truly massive commuting growth in the last 20 years....(in absolute numbers) is downtown Toronto. Nothing else in the GTA comes close. It is also less congested that Markham/Vaughan/Mississauga etc.

AND

NOT ONE new lane km of freeway has been added in the area during the last 20 years.


400-series highways without tolls are demand creators, not demand satisfiers. They are also more expensive to build and maintain that GO Rail.

And people will get over the tolls and switch to transit.

Nonsense that they will clog local roads. That has not been the experience that I'm aware of almost anywhere else.

You live in Oakville and commute to downtown Toronto.........gonna take Lakeshore all the way in? Dundas? I don't think so....

You'll suck it up and pay the toll or you will switch to GO.

As it should be.

Well, as long as the people in Oakville have options it is ok then....that's it toll everybody...Oakvillians have options!

 

[Northern Light]

TO Area Fan,

If you read my post above that one in the thread, you would have noted that the tolls proposal is largely in conjunction with providing 'transit alternatives' to the vast majority of commuters.

Now its true I said toll on all 400-series highways, and that there are portions of the 401 and some others that are in more rural areas.

However, I also noted that tolls should be lower in rural areas, reflecting lower costs (smaller highway), no lighting etc.

I think its fair to ask a toll giving that anyone taking a bus pays a fare, even if you have no other choice. You don't get to have the gov't provide you a FREE bus ride.

Your highway drive should not be 'free' either.

But should be lower cost, where alternatives are in short supply/impractical

 

[TOareaFan]

TO Area Fan,

it is all one word

Now its true I said toll on all 400-series highways, and that there are portions of the 401 and some others that are in more rural areas.

Markham is not rural, Meadowvale is not rural, Brampton is not rural ...and so on....yet so many of the "toll all the highways" advocates (which I may have mistakenly taken you for) judge the availibility of transit alternatives to driving commute on their impression of what the Lakeshore (east and west) lines provide.

I think its fair to ask a toll giving that anyone taking a bus pays a fare, even if you have no other choice. You don't get to have the gov't provide you a FREE bus ride.

Your highway drive should not be 'free' either.

But should be lower cost, where alternatives are in short supply/impractical

Highway driving is not free now. The taxes and fees that drivers pay (gas tax, tax on gas tax, license renewal fees, plate renewal fees, taxes on tires, taxes on a/c, etc) may not pay the full cost of providing roads and the like but, likewise, no transit user costs pay for the cost of transit either.

I am a, mostly, driving commuter because I feel I have to based on the level of service I get. I may be wrong but that is how I feel. I am pretty sure that if I had grown up and established roots in an area served by the Lakeshore line that I would be a more frequent user of transit....but I didn't.

This is not a battle between transit and cars....at least it should not be. But to punish people by charging them a fee to pay for something in the future that is caused by bad planning in the past while they do not have viable alternatives in the present seems a bit wrong.

We will never get all cars off the roads, and even if the growth in transit use slows the growth in car use...car use will still grow. Just as it was wrong to only build roads in the past it would be equally wrong to not build roads in the future.....but the balance should probably shift.

 

[dunkalunk]

IMO, here are the highways that need to be built west of the GTA

-Highway 6 Upgrade to full access highway
-Hanlon Parkway Upgraded
-Conestoga Parkway safety upgrades (lacking center median)

Here are the highway projects that need to be trashed:
-424
-GTA west corridor

In order for this to happen, here's what needs to be done:
-VIA/Go need to acquire the North Mainline from GEXR (current lease expires 2018)
-GO and VIA trains need to come to Kitchener and Cambridge quicker and with more frequency (track upgrades)
-Region of Waterloo LRT needs to be built
-All grand river communities need to adopt the Presto system, and integrate service (GRT, Guelph, Brantford, Paris)
-Serious talk about high speed rail to Pearson and Kitchener

And as for alternate road improvements:
-Connect Shirley Drive to completely underused Wellington Street Interchange, Create a semi-divided highway with at-grade intersections, something like this
-Add passing lanes on Highway 24 between Brantford and Cambridge
-4-Lane Highway 7

I'm indifferent about the 7/8 expansion to Stratford as I don't know too much about it and am not entirely sure if it is justified or not.

 

[unimaginative2]

High speed trains to Kitchener/Waterloo from Toronto would be absolutely mobbed with people. It would be busier than Ciudad Real to Madrid. The stop at Pearson would be very popular, too, with people wanting to avoid parking at the airport.

 

[cfloryan]

I'm against tolls

And my reason is simple: tolls would create a superfluous bureaucracy. Let's think about all the reasons for tolls:

1 - Decrease highway demand
2 - Encourage public transit
3 - Fund highway maintenance
4 - Fund public transit

Yet increasing the gas tax accomplishes all of these without the downside of creating a new infrastructure and bureaucracy for toll collection. And remember bureaucracies cost money - money that could otherwise be poured into even more transit

 

[TOareaFan]

High speed trains to Kitchener/Waterloo from Toronto would be absolutely mobbed with people. It would be busier than Ciudad Real to Madrid. The stop at Pearson would be very popular, too, with people wanting to avoid parking at the airport.

Just curious over this plan. Why K-W in particular? Is it your idea that the trains would stop only at Pearson then DT? What is the fare that could be charged to make these trains "mobbed"? Is this somehow related to highways?

 

[unimaginative2]

Just curious over this plan. Why K-W in particular? Is it your idea that the trains would stop only at Pearson then DT? What is the fare that could be charged to make these trains "mobbed"? Is this somehow related to highways?

1) You can't really practically run a high speed service with more than one intermediate stop (Pearson, obviously) on a 100 km route. Perhaps a skip-stop routing with Guelph could work.
2) Obviously a reasonable fare would have to be charged. The Spanish approach is probably best, using dedicated rolling stock with more limited on-board service and higher-density seating for regional routes.
3) Competitive rail alternatives are the best way to prevent the need for new and expanded highways.

 

[waterloowarrior]

I'm against tolls

And my reason is simple: tolls would create a superfluous bureaucracy. Let's think about all the reasons for tolls:

1 - Decrease highway demand
2 - Encourage public transit
3 - Fund highway maintenance
4 - Fund public transit

Yet increasing the gas tax accomplishes all of these without the downside of creating a new infrastructure and bureaucracy for toll collection. And remember bureaucracies cost money - money that could otherwise be poured into even more transit

There's no need to create a whole bureaucracy just for this... there are lots of companies with the resources and experience for running toll roads/toll collection. For instance, the London and Stockholm charges are operated by IBM. 407ETR or another similar company could do the toll collection here.

 

[TOareaFan]

There's no need to create a whole bureaucracy just for this... there are lots of companies with the resources and experience for running toll roads/toll collection. For instance, the London and Stockholm charges are operated by IBM. 407ETR or another similar company could do the toll collection here.

So you would not create a bereaucracy to take some of the cash out of the tolls but you would pay a private sector provider to do the same thing? I am liking the other poster's gas tax idea more and more.

 

[TOareaFan]

1) You can't really practically run a high speed service with more than one intermediate stop (Pearson, obviously) on a 100 km route. Perhaps a skip-stop routing with Guelph could work.
2) Obviously a reasonable fare would have to be charged. The Spanish approach is probably best, using dedicated rolling stock with more limited on-board service and higher-density seating for regional routes.
3) Competitive rail alternatives are the best way to prevent the need for new and expanded highways.

Fair enough.....I just wondered what "reasonable" is....it is a term that gets thrown around a lot and then when a service is introduced and the price announced we often get "holy cow that's expensive...might as well drive".

It may because I live there but it irks me that somewhat that there is general acceptance that K-W should have high speed express service to Toronto bypassing a more poplulated city like Brampton but people often (not saying you do/did this) dismiss the transit needs of Brampton itself. I think both cities will end up getting reasonably served by some higher level of GO service but not until 2015 - 2020.

 

[dunkalunk]

I am personally not a fan of traditional highway tolls either, they mostly force people to move to less costly and already over-congested routes (401 vs 407)

What I would really love to see are GPS transponders, or tamper-proof odometers placed inside vehicles and that vehicle being charged per km of driving, with tolls being higher in urban areas and rush hours. With consumer level electric vehicles over the horizon (Nissan Leaf, Better Place) the gas tax doesn't make a lot of sense to discourage car use if your car runs on electricity.

With more people in electric cars on the road, not subjected to the gas tax, this will only cause more congestion and create more idling for transport trucks and other diesel spewing vehicles. It also does nothing to reduce suburban sprawl. I can't remember who said this quote, but; "expanding highways to fight congestion is like loosening your belt to fight obesity".

This is more of a land-use issue than anything else. You make it easy for people to drive long distances, they will drive long distances and put more strain on the system. You make it easy for people to take the train or transit over long distances, and they will do likewise.