Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

[Haljackey]

HOV lanes cause a lot of very bad behaviours on highways. You have the people who dive right for the HOV lane (I suppose for the novelty factor) to drive 95 in a 100 zone because they have 2 people in the car despite the highway being freeflowing. When this happens, you get a stream of people crossing the buffer to pass them on the right.

People need to understand that the HOV lane is not the passing lane, despite being the leftmost lane. It can be frustrating to be behind a slowpoke yes, but those are the dice you throw when you commit to using this lane. Just get out at the next weave zone if you want.

I wonder if making the HOV lanes open access would help. I know there are lots of examples in the states. I don't see why it would hurt to pilot such a thing.

Seeing how blatantly the HOV buffer is disregarded, I support this. Removing the buffer and cannibalizing a bit of the inner shoulder could give the highway room for another general lane too, depending on the config. I don't think the HOVs on the 401 express could be turned to two lanes, but the HOVs on the QEW could between the 403 and the 403.

 

[innsertnamehere]

An HOV buffer only adds 0.5 metres to a highway width. It's not really enough for an extra lane.

MTO could probably squeeze an extra lane on the QEW but it would have to accept substandard shoulder widths. A 5-lane cross section of GP lanes needs 18.75 metres of platform width excluding shoulders, the QEW is currently at around 15.5 to 16 metres in width. Getting it to 18.75 would require basically the full removal of the interior shoulder. That or accept smaller lane widths, which comes with it's own safety issues. Dropping lane widths to 3.65m (a standard more typically seen in the US with 12ft lanes) would cut half a metre off the platform width and would probably make a 10-lane cross section work with a minimal interior shoulder like what is on the 400.