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Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion
- Thread starter Haljackey
- Start date
Haljackey
Active Member
I drove this during the summer and while good, there's still a lot of work to do on twinning the entire stretch.
What I found surprising is there aren't really any definite plans for the twinning through Nipigon itself. Likely still in-design and will be the last section to get twinned.
It feels sad because the highway opens to 4 lanes crossing the Nipigon River bridge, then narrows back to two- often lacking left turn lanes / a centre turn lane to all the crossroads and businesses lining the highway through Nipigon. You don't get the 4 lanes back until you're clearly west of Nipigon.
Still, it's something I guess.
lenaitch
Senior Member
I'm sure there are preliminary design drawings out there. I suspect the plan to four-lane the twinned section extends to the 11/17 intersection east of the bridge.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
The plan for Nipigon itself is to bypass just to the south - it's visible on MTO's corridor protection mapping:
I suspect MTO is in no hurry on that part as it bypasses all the businesses here.. which a decent percentage of traffic are stopping at anyway, and which will not be happy to by bypassed. And when traffic levels along here is only ~4,000 cars a day.. there is no capacity issue at all.
I suspect MTO is in no hurry on that part as it bypasses all the businesses here.. which a decent percentage of traffic are stopping at anyway, and which will not be happy to by bypassed. And when traffic levels along here is only ~4,000 cars a day.. there is no capacity issue at all.
lenaitch
Senior Member
I suspect that they will want an interchange or two with a service road to avoid left-turning movements across the highway.
Sauga89
Active Member
The proposed bypass is about 3.8 km long. That strikes me as perhaps unnecessarily long. I think a lot of people, if they got off the main highway, might not drive the full distance on the old route. That would hurt businesses in the middle especially. But if you look closely, there aren't many businesses on the western part of the current highway, and on the eastern side, the first few buildings bypassed would be homes.
I think if you bought out a couple of the businesses on the west end, and built a service road for the homes on the eastern end, you could probably cut the bypass to 1.8 km.
Haljackey
Active Member
That seems needlessly excessive for the volumes here. Just twinning the existing road, or making it 5 lanes with a centre turn lane is all you need. Like you said a lot of traffic is stopping here for a rest and/or food and fuel so bypassing the businesses seems dumb to me.
However I do understand the MTO's perspective. This is the only route through Canada and thus they want to make the single point of failure a nicely designed road with businesses bypassed.
By the way, what is the link you used for this, did you just draw that line yourself to show the rough route?
2323
New Member
It's the MTO grading permit map. Lots of interesting things on here.
Morriston1986
New Member
Interesting video posted by Aecon of a generated flyover of the proposed Morriston Bypass highway 6 re alignment and proposed upgrades to the 401 widening amd ramp structures
highways_6_and_401_improvements_audio-description
This is "highways_6_and_401_improvements_audio-description" by AECOM on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.
vimeo.com
jamincan
Active Member
The new interchange to 6 North seems a bit excessive for the volumes.
ShonTron
Moderator
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The 1980 trumpet interchange is definitely underbuilt for current traffic flows, especially the south-to-east ramp, but I agree, this seems to be overcompensating.
nfitz
Superstar
Presumably there is future-proofing here. I'd think that once 6 (which turns into 7) is a full expressway all the way into Kitchener, that traffic will increase. And lots of developable land along both the 6 and 7 corridors.
ericmacm
Active Member
Yeah it seems like future-proofing to me. When HWYs 6 and 7 are complete it will also form a ring with HWYs 8 and 401, so that has to be taken into account in addition to the continuity of the HWY 6 corridor south of the 401. Said ring would service a current population of ~850,000 between both Waterloo and Guelph metros.
ZEBuilder
Active Member
Tangentially related but there is slow incremental progress happening on Hwy 7 in Kitchener. The bridge demo for Frederick Street which required the relocation of a sanitary forcemain on the east side of the bridge is tentatively scheduled for the weekend of December 6th and 7th.
The Grand River bridges are also almost done detailed design so it could see construction soon.
Once the Morriston bypass and Hwy 7 are built it will make life way easier to get between the two cities. It's not uncommon for the existing 6 South exit on the 401 to be backed up past 6 North during rush hour. Likewise Highway 7 into Guelph can be a nightmare at times, if there's a crash which isn't uncommon good luck.
Garuda
Active Member
Same. It’ll be really nice when the Hanlon Parkway / highway 6/7 through Guelph is completely grade separated. It doesn’t happened often but when the train rolls through it can cause lots of congestion. Will be nice to see those at grade crossings finally separated.