Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

[Northern Light]

It's hard to take these kinds of people seriously

Laurence Lui is quite thoughtful, I have no difficulty taking him seriously.

, they need to realize that car infrastructure is a necessity in Ontario, especially in the GTA,

At no point did Laurence or anyone else say 'Rip out every last road, that's it!, no highways, no arterials, no side streets, no driveways, no parking lots'.

In fact, no one so far as I know has advocated for entirely removing even one highway or road, and advocating for narrower roads isn't all that common either.

What people are expressing exasperation over is widening existing highways that are among the largest in the world; and building even more of them into the hinterlands.

They are right to be exasperated. It isn't necessary; and worse, it harms our economy, it harms our environment, it facilitates building inefficient sprawl that is expensive
to service and it destroys some of the (literally) best farm land on the planet.

The biggest issue is the current rail network only benefits people going to and from Toronto, but for people who want to go anywhere else, requires a car and that means having a good road network and that means more highway infrastructure.

First off, this completely undersells both the reality of existing public transit and its potential. Lots of people in Brampton and Mississauga and elsewhere ride the bus to work, to school, and the grocery store every day.

Second, yes, that modal share is lower than one might like, because the network isn't as robust, as frequent, as swift as one might hope. The answer on that front is more investment. Brampton is the poster child for showing that
when you invest in good transit it pays off and attracts riders away from the car; they need to do more of that, and other systems need to start.

Narrowly, on the subject of rail, there is a general agreement that GO needs at least one cross-town rail route from west GTA to the East GTA, and that is now in the high level provincial plans; but it will certainly be two decades (or more) before
we see a GO line running in either the 401 or 407 ROW.

I belive it all stems from the fact we ripped up perfectly good railway corridors across the province, we wouldn't need to rely on the automobile

That certainly didn't help, though, I don't believe we actually ripped out any East-West rail corridors across the GTA. Our mistake in public policy was not building at least one more than we have today, if not two.

This is the situation we created, so how do you fix it?

See above. Better transit, Regional fare and service integration, and an additional E-W regional rail corridor.

 

[nfitz]

I belive it all stems from the fact we ripped up perfectly good railway corridors across the province, we wouldn't need to rely on the automobile

I'm having a hard time taking that comment seriously! Which railway corridor did we rip up in Ontario that would have made a big difference in automobile usage? Offhand, the most significant I can think of is Peterborough to Smith Falls, and the east-west lines through St. Thomas - and I don't think maintaining passenger services on either of those would make very little difference to traffic.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

We'll talk about cancelling this highway's expansion when Milton gets subway lines, all day 2 way GO service and a large bus network.

2 Way all day Go service yes. However local transit is, for the most part, the purview of local municipalities. So your criticism should be equally directed towards Milton as it is towards the government of Ontario

***EDIT***
Also when was the last time a completely new heavy rail line (i.e. not adding rails in an existing corridor) was built in the GTAH? When that happens then we can talk about comparing road construction to transit construction.

 

[lenaitch]

I belive it all stems from the fact we ripped up perfectly good railway corridors across the province, we wouldn't need to rely on the automobile

Public acceptance of the private automobile was incremental and, in the non-political sense, populist. People became attracted to the automobile because it gave them freedom and flexibility. This was at a time when passenger rail cross-crossed the province, so it seems people chose otherwise. Passenger services faded because they became unpopular and unprofitable. Rail lines were lifted because they became unprofitable, not from lack of passenger revenue but from lack of freight revenue. The rail corridors weren't "perfectly good" because they lost their value to the people that owned them.

2 Way all day Go service yes. However local transit is, for the most part, the purview of local municipalities. So your criticism should be equally directed towards Milton as it is towards the government of Ontario

***EDIT***
Also when was the last time a completely new heavy rail line (i.e. not adding rails in an existing corridor) was built in the GTAH? When that happens then we can talk about comparing road construction to transit construction.

You got me thinking. In terms of mainline track, I would say the CN York and Halton subdivisions in the 1960s.

 

[ShonTron]

Public acceptance of the private automobile was incremental and, in the non-political sense, populist. People became attracted to the automobile because it gave them freedom and flexibility. This was at a time when passenger rail cross-crossed the province, so it seems people chose otherwise. Passenger services faded because they became unpopular and unprofitable. Rail lines were lifted because they became unprofitable, not from lack of passenger revenue but from lack of freight revenue. The rail corridors weren't "perfectly good" because they lost their value to the people that owned them.

You got me thinking. In terms of mainline track, I would say the CN York and Halton subdivisions in the 1960s.

I’d argue the GO Transit dedicated tracks between Pickering and Oshawa in the 1990s, as it’s a completely separate rail subdivision from the neighbouring CN Kingston Sub.

 

[lenaitch]

I’d argue the GO Transit dedicated tracks between Pickering and Oshawa in the 1990s, as it’s a completely separate rail subdivision from the neighbouring CN Kingston Sub.

Yup, you're right.

 

[kamira51]

I'm having a hard time taking that comment seriously! Which railway corridor did we rip up in Ontario that would have made a big difference in automobile usage? Offhand, the most significant I can think of is Peterborough to Smith Falls, and the east-west lines through St. Thomas - and I don't think maintaining passenger services on either of those would make very little difference to traffic.

I count everyrail corridor as important, it gives people options for traveling.

As a bonus, by having options, you can toll all the roads and have a very good reason to do so, thus reducing cars on the road.

First off, this completely undersells both the reality of existing public transit and its potential. Lots of people in Brampton and Mississauga and elsewhere ride the bus to work, to school, and the grocery store every day.

What I'm mostly targeting is on a regional scale, not really local.

Second, yes, that modal share is lower than one might like, because the network isn't as robust, as frequent, as swift as one might hope. The answer on that front is more investment. Brampton is the poster child for showing that
when you invest in good transit it pays off and attracts riders away from the car; they need to do more of that, and other systems need to start.

Absolutely.

Narrowly, on the subject of rail, there is a general agreement that GO needs at least one cross-town rail route from west GTA to the East GTA, and that is now in the high level provincial plans; but it will certainly be two decades (or more) before
we see a GO line running in either the 401 or 407 ROW.



That certainly didn't help, though, I don't believe we actually ripped out any East-West rail corridors across the GTA. Our mistake in public policy was not building at least one more than we have today, if not two.



See above. Better transit, Regional fare and service integration, and an additional E-W regional rail corridor.

I agree 100% that we need another east-west railway corridor, I also belive we should be building new rail corridors, that will serve car dependent areas on southern Ontario.

 

[Deadpool X]

2 Way all day Go service yes. However local transit is, for the most part, the purview of local municipalities. So your criticism should be equally directed towards Milton as it is towards the government of Ontario

***EDIT***
Also when was the last time a completely new heavy rail line (i.e. not adding rails in an existing corridor) was built in the GTAH? When that happens then we can talk about comparing road construction to transit construction.

What else do you think I meant by large bus network?

Secondly, I am not playing politics here. I am blaming the "authorities". I don't care if they are federal, provincial or municipal. The point is that one should not be surprised or angered with the highway expansion knowing what kind of low density suburbs we had been building for almost a century. We can't just undo what we did. We decided to build car-dependent suburbs and now we can't let them choke while we decide to build one new train line in 20 years.

 

[Deadpool X]

The best we can do would be to stop building these goddamn places.

Sure. But for the older suburbs, the ship has already sailed. We can only improve transit share marginally.

 

[Deadpool X]

What people are expressing exasperation over is widening existing highways that are among the largest in the world; and building even more of them into the hinterlands.

The highway portion being widened is nowhere close to the largest. It's 3+3 lanes wide which is actually a very narrow highway in a large urban agglomeration. Portions of 401, 427, 400, 404, 407, 410, QEW, 403 are all wider than this.

Nearest toll free highway is 18 km from Milton so you can understand the pressure on this highway, especially considering that it is the most important inter-city, inter-province route and a major trucking route. 401 is 6 lanes wide in the middle of nowhere. There is no reason it should be equally wide in an urban area as it is in countryside.

 

[ericmacm]

Nearest toll free highway is 18 km from Milton so you can understand the pressure on this highway, especially considering that it is the most important inter-city, inter-province route and a major trucking route. 401 is 6 lanes wide in the middle of nowhere. There is no reason it should be equally wide in an urban area as it is in countryside.

Yeah exactly, the 401 has a dual-purpose role, being both a major long-haul route for the province, as well as a major inter-city route within the GTA, easily being the most important highway within both the province and the GTA. Outside the GTA, the 401 is adequately served as a long-haul route with 2-3 lanes in either direction since it doesn't pass directly through any major areas (save for select locations), but the GTA has to deal with both long-haul and local inter-city demand so naturally, it makes sense to have a double-wide collector/express system to handle both types of demand.

The original extents of the collector/express system made sense when it was built in the 1980s. Areas like Brampton and Mississauga weren't that large at the time, but the area around the 401 densified quickly in the 1990s. The Mississauga 401 widening was a matter of playing catch-up because the highway was struggling to handle both the long-haul and local demand in the area since at least the late 1990s/early 2000s. The current work to widen it out to Milton is an attempt to get ahead of already crazy demand that will get worse in a decade. The recently announced eastern widening will be doing the same for Pickering to Oshawa, trying to get ahead of the future demand as the eastern cities both grow and densify. I believe that endless highway widening is not a sustainable solution but it needs to happen for the 401 so it can handle both types of demand in the growing periphery.

As a side note, I'd really like to see a continuous HOV lane across the entire GTA section of the 401. I know the Halton to Mississauga section will have a continuous one, and any future eastern GTA widening will likely have one too, but I'd like to see one get established through Toronto as well.

 

[north-of-anything]

I assume they see no need with the new Line 5 interchange just 3km up the road. Line 5 feeds into Canal Rd.

Exactly this.
Bradford is also rebuilding the 10th Sideroad and 5th Line to make a better-paved road with a gradual curve north into the west end of town. It will be a more convenient and safer interchange for the vast majority of residents - including myself. Farmers in the Holland Marsh are upset about losing direct access from Canal Road, but I'd rather they drive an extra few kilometers than have new exit ramps cannibalize more of the Marsh.

 

[Fritter]

I'm having a hard time taking that comment seriously! Which railway corridor did we rip up in Ontario that would have made a big difference in automobile usage? Offhand, the most significant I can think of is Peterborough to Smith Falls, and the east-west lines through St. Thomas - and I don't think maintaining passenger services on either of those would make very little difference to traffic.

Port Whitby to Port Perry, Uxbridge to Lindsay, Lindsay to Peterborough, Stouffville to Sutton, Barrie to Washago via Orillia, just to name a few

 

[gweed123]

Port Whitby to Port Perry, Uxbridge to Lindsay, Lindsay to Peterborough, Stouffville to Sutton, Barrie to Washago via Orillia, just to name a few

I'd add Hamilton to Caledonia (what is now the escarpment rail trail). Would have been a game-changer for intra-Hamilton travel, including access to Hamilton Munro, if that was kept in place.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Port Whitby to Port Perry, Uxbridge to Lindsay, Lindsay to Peterborough, Stouffville to Sutton, Barrie to Washago via Orillia, just to name a few

none of those would have been particularly busy lines. The only one I think was truly a mistake to remove is Barrie to Orillia / Washago. Port Perry, Uxbridge, etc are too small to service generally in a matter that would significantly impact automotive modal shares.

Lindsay *maybe* would have been nice to retain a rail connection, but even then, I'm doubtful.

Caledonia being removed comes closer to being useful as it services Hamilton Mountian and would have been the most useful line to provide service to Norfolk and Haldimand Counties, but even then beyond Caledonia populations become too dispersed to be really all that useful.