nfitz
Superstar
I just got a bill in the mail for about $10 to simply cross a bridge over the back river on A-25 in Montreal.
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Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion
- Thread starter Haljackey
- Start date
urbanclient
Active Member
Something something, consumer spending near workplaces, velocity of money, GDP. And won't someone think of the poor commercial real estate trusts?
Yeah I think a lot of people are not aware of how expensive the 407 is compared to tolled US Interstates or tolled highways in Europe per km, even when accounting for income differences. A tolled 401 to keep traffic flowing at 90% speed limit would cost more than the 407's rates, because the demand for the 401 is so high with few viable alternatives.
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Northern Light
Superstar
Just a warning to all about the dangers of off-ramps in the post-snow conditions:
www.thestar.com
2 cars went over the guardrail (via snowbank) on the highway 8 flyover in K-W. One woman died. (separate instances)
Ramp condition: (credit embedded)
The article above also contains a photo of one of the cars, on its roof, on the highway below. I am omitting that. While the photo is not graphic, I see no need to include it. The photo above, however, I thought was important so that anyone driving realizes your car, should you take the ramp too quickly and lose control, may climb the snow, and the result could be tragic.
Waterloo woman dies after vehicle plunges off Highway 7/8 flyover in Kitchener
A motorist has died after their vehicle went off the Highway 7/8 flyover, landing on King Street East.
www.thestar.com
2 cars went over the guardrail (via snowbank) on the highway 8 flyover in K-W. One woman died. (separate instances)
Ramp condition: (credit embedded)
The article above also contains a photo of one of the cars, on its roof, on the highway below. I am omitting that. While the photo is not graphic, I see no need to include it. The photo above, however, I thought was important so that anyone driving realizes your car, should you take the ramp too quickly and lose control, may climb the snow, and the result could be tragic.
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jamincan
Active Member
The perplexing thing is that they reopened the flyover ramp after the first (non-fatal) accident without fixing the snowbanks. After the second (fatal) accident, they finally addressed the build up and it's now properly cleared. MTO says they will be reviewing their maintenance standards after this.Just a warning to all about the dangers of off-ramps in the post-snow conditions:
Waterloo woman dies after vehicle plunges off Highway 7/8 flyover in Kitchener
A motorist has died after their vehicle went off the Highway 7/8 flyover, landing on King Street East.
2 cars went over the guardrail (via snowbank) on the highway 8 flyover in K-W. One woman died. (separate instances)
Ramp condition: (credit embedded)
View attachment 711461
The article above also contains a photo of one of the cars, on its roof, on the highway below. I am omitting that. While the photo is not graphic, I see no need to include it. The photo above, however, I thought was important so that anyone driving realizes your car, should you take the ramp too quickly and lose control, may climb the snow, and the result could be tragic.
I do wonder how common these sorts of accidents are, because you would think that any flyover ramp would be susceptible to this type of build up of a ramp of snow, and with icing being particularly problematic on bridge structures, that would seem to be a general hazard with flyover ramps. This ramp actually has automatic deicers, presumably for this very reason. It may be, though, that the prolonged snow accumulation we've had the past few weeks has just seen a buildup that wouldn't normally occur.
Richard White
Senior Member
This.
I manage two Condos and both have had issues with the in-ground snow melting devices. The amount of snow overwhelmed the devices and because of the temperatures, it could not get warm enough to melt everything before it refroze.
The recent weather has rendered in ground heating moot.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
Yea, this winter is turning out to be rather extreme for Southern Ontario. The cold weather we are having (highs in the mid -teens and lows below -20) aren't uncommon, but we are having 2-3 weeks straight of it. Usually it's only for a few days at most before warming up.
We also are not having any thaws.. and now just got a record-breaking snowfall over much of the GTA on top of it. It's very unusual winter weather for Southern Ontario and I'm not surprised some systems are starting to fail under it.
We also are not having any thaws.. and now just got a record-breaking snowfall over much of the GTA on top of it. It's very unusual winter weather for Southern Ontario and I'm not surprised some systems are starting to fail under it.
Dan416
Senior Member
The crazy thing is that we DID have a thaw right before all of this crazy weather started happening. Almost all of the snow had melted. And then the snow came again. And again. And again. But yes, a highly unusual / snowy winter.
lenaitch
Senior Member
Northern Ontario as well. It's not unusual for Hwy 17 north of the Soo to be closed because of lake effect snow but it has also been closed several time along the north shore as well, along with multiple weather closures of Hwy 11 and other northeastern highways.
gabe
Senior Member
It's not that unusual or extreme. It's winter. Stop blaming the weather and put the blame where it belongs. on bad DRIVERS. I drive all over southern Ontario for work. Snow covered roads can be slippery and unpredictable, slow down and give yourself extra space. You will be just fine. Boggles my mind why people still drive normal speeds or even speed in winter icy conditions.
K-W saw 147 cm in February 2025. Compared to only 62 cm this month.
Snowfall - Monthly data for Kitchener-Waterloo
Chart and data: Snowfall - Monthly data (1 year) for Kitchener-Waterloo for Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
kitchenerwaterloo.weatherstats.ca
ZEBuilder
Active Member
Those aren't the most accurate snowfall totals just due to how they are collected, the station it takes snowfall data from is part of the CCN network (Co-Operative Climate Network) which is volunteer data. The University of Waterloo has an actual weather station that numerous departments utilize for research purposes which has vastly different totals. In February 2025 there was 77.5cm of snow much more consistent with the reality of what it was like last winter in KW. For comparison sake in January so far the UW station has recorded 88cm of snow.
While there is some level of blame that should be put on the driver we must also be compassionate given the nature of the situation and not put the entirety of the blame on them, they died tragically and we must at least acknowledge that. We need to also recognize that this winter has been anything but normal for KW, it's the most significant in terms of snowfall that KW has seen since the 07-08 and 08-09 winters, kids who are old enough to be in university wouldn't even remember those winters, and the worst month historically for snowfall hasn't happened yet. We've got to acknowledge that road crews have had a heck of a time trying to maintain road conditions to what they are, they do own some of the blame for that ramp being how it was, they've also been working seemingly nonstop for weeks. Some local streets have been snow loaded multiple times now because of the shear volume of snow and it just takes time to clear everything. It is an unfortunate situation that frankly has multiple parties that do carry some responsibility, and while blame can and will be passed around we can't solely blame the driver for the situation.
For those unaware KW got hit with snow November 27th and since then it has snowed at least 0.5cm every other day (42 of the 63 days). Since then we've gotten 191cm of snow which is more snow than every single winter since 08-09 except for 24-25 (last winter) which is only beating it by 5.5cm. So there is some level of abnormality with the road conditions. The bit of a "thaw" that we got at the end of December with all that rain (and freezing rain) didn't melt snowbanks all that much in KW just because of the shear amount of snowfall we got before that event (84.5cm) so it unfortunately did very little to snowbanks.
gabe
Senior Member
Not some blame on the drivers. 100% blame on the drivers. That overpass was built in the early 2000s, was it not? I don't recall any drivers flying over it. I have been on it many times over the years, even during the winter. People are simply going to fast. We had a similar incident years ago during the winter. A car flew over the Gardiner expressway. People need to slow down put on winter tires and stop following so close to each other.
K-W had a way worst winter last year. https://kitchenerwaterloo.weatherstats.ca/charts/snow-yearly.html
ZEBuilder
Active Member
The data you are using has two major issues, the most glaring is your interpretation of the total. The total that it displays is that of the entire calendar year, not a winter season, snowfall that falls in November and December is included with the snow from January, February and March from the same calendar year even though they are from distinct winter seasons, as such interpreting it in the manner you are can inflate or deflate the severity of a winter purely based upon when the snow fall. Secondly the data that is utilized is self reported by volunteers which has inherent uncertainty as snow drifting can be substantial (especially where that volunteer is). Hence a proper weather station setup (like UWs) will produce more accurate results and can reaffirm the fact that this winter is worse than last winter in KW.
I'm also not saying the driver isn't to blame, at least partly, but KW has been slammed with snow this year and the MTOs contractor, Emcon, does also carry some blame. They should not be making a ramp of snow next to the barrier that is designed to prevent the exact situation that happened. If someone were to lose control in the summer on that ramp the barrier wall would stop them (it's serving it's purpose), in the early winter we may have bad road conditions but the wall will still be there to stop someone, in this case the walls functionality was fundamentally eroded by the fact that Emcon made a ramp of snow (Thanks to the horrible winter KW has had). Sure the driver does have some blame but a life safety features effectiveness was reduced by Emcon so there are more parties than just the driver to blame in this situation and we all must be respectfully and compassionate to an entirely preventable tragedy.
lenaitch
Senior Member
As in most things, negligence - 'fault', 'blame', you pick, is contributory. There are seldom absolutes.
jamincan
Active Member
So, you don't recall anyone else flying over it in the past 20-25 years, and then two people do within a few hours of each other, and your conclusion is that drivers are simply worse now than back then? What happened in the 24 hours before to cause such a huge spike in cars falling off fly-overs in KW? And what has happened in the time since then to see the rates plummet? I suppose everyone just smartened up when they saw the news and are now driving safely and to conditions now?
It is self-evident that they weren't driving to conditions as this wouldn't have happened if they were. As to whether they had snow tires, I don't know for sure, but the car with the fatality had steel rims, so she probably did. Frankly, we don't know the details of how they were driving, the exact conditions at the time and how much culpability each of them individually had. What we do know is that there was a ramp of snow that negated the effects of a safety barrier and that mysteriously just as this ramp formed, we suddenly saw two incidents in short order. I know where my focus would be in addressing the problem.
nfitz
Superstar
The UW weather station is great - but it's not that useful for this, without doing some serious data processing to estimate snow depth. Because it measures rain and snowfall. Not snow depth. An increasing problem at numerous Environment Canada weather stations as well.
If you look at nearby stations with snow depth, you can see that the depths are significantly deeper this year. For example at the Turfgrass station in Guelph the latest measurement is 23 cm. And although the deepest snow in January 2025 was only 20 cm, it was lower over most of the month than 2026. Critically, there was zero snow depth on January 1, 2025 and also on January 14 2026 - so how much snow that fell before those dates doesn't have bearing here.
I'm not really disagreeing with anyone in this discussion. Just pointing out that the simple precipitation and snowfall data isn't the best data.
Anecdotally, I was ubering around Guelph the other day - the first time in the winter for years. And I was really shocked that the roads were white with snow - with little evidence of either salt or sand. It reminds me of years ago, when as soon as you crossed the boundary between the cities of Waterloo and Kitchener, suddenly there was snow pack on the (same) local road, because of insufficient salting in Kitchener. Guelph roads are a lot more dangerous than here! And I've seen similar historically going from the 427/QEW onto the Gardiner, where suddenly the snow buildup wasn't there, because of the city's better snow maintenance. Something perhaps to fear once MTO takes over Gardiner and DVP maintenance.