Bradford Bypass (MTO, Hwy 400 - Hwy 404)

[narduch]

You are referencing one specific situation and ignoring a plethora of others. I drive from Barrie to downtown all of the time. I would love to head south on the 400, scoot across the new bypass to 404 and head south to downtown via the DVP thereby avoiding the 401 entirely.

This is why I know you are posting on vibes and not reality.

That stretch is pretty brutal.

 

[nfitz]

As I mentioned above this is wishful thinking. Nobody that is already near the 400 and has to get to a northern destination near the 400 is driving to the 404. They will use Jane or 27 or Weston or something else

They'll use whatever Google Maps or whatever says is fastest. I've used 407 from near Gerrard Street before instead of the Gardiner/QEW because it was going to be 15-minutes faster, with nightmare traffic.

You can cherry pick routes that it won't work. That doesn't mean it isn't going to be a great route for many trips. Do you never use Highway 9 or Highway 86?

I have no doubt that this highway will be better use than Highway 418.

 

[narduch]

They'll use whatever Google Maps or whatever says is fastest. I've used 407 from near Gerrard Street before instead of the Gardiner/QEW because it was going to be 15-minutes faster, with nightmare traffic.

You can cherry pick routes that it won't work. That doesn't mean it isn't going to be a great route for many trips. Do you never use Highway 9 or Highway 86?

I have no doubt that this highway will be better use than Highway 418.

I drive all over the GTA for work.

This highway is a luxury and is being built on environmentally fragile land.

Sometimes I wonder where the Urban is on Urban Toronto. We have so many threads where people will defend to the tilt anti-urban projects.

 

[nfitz]

I drive all over the GTA for work.

This highway is a luxury and is being built on environmentally fragile land.

Sometimes I wonder where the Urban is on Urban Toronto. We have so many threads where people will defend to the tilt anti-urban projects.

If we were really that concerned about the environmentally sensitive Holland Marsh, we'd buy out all the farms, shut down agriculture, and restore it to it's natural state; which should significantly help Lake Simcoe water quality.

A simple relatively narrow road corridor isn't going to make much difference - heck the amount of existing agriculture it will remove may may even help mitigate the small amount of damage.

Where's the urban? It's not in 905 ... that's suburban and sub-suburban.

We've been talking about this particular project since the 1960s, with the government first announcing it in the 1970s. It's not like the recent projects such as 413.

 

[Civdis]

I drive all over the GTA for work.

This highway is a luxury and is being built on environmentally fragile land.

Sometimes I wonder where the Urban is on Urban Toronto. We have so many threads where people will defend to the tilt anti-urban projects.

This comment is so dogmatic. The area this highway is to be built in is not urban in any way. Trust me, I am an urbanist hence the reason I joined this site 18 years ago, but I'm not dogmatic about it. We need a diverse transportation system.

 

[Jonathan's Junction]

Sometimes I wonder where the Urban is on Urban Toronto. We have so many threads where people will defend to the tilt anti-urban projects.

It's seems a bit disingenuous when people make these sort of claims. I'm not sure what urban metropolis you envision Bradford to be, and on the flipside, I can very much argue that through traffic is making Bradford worse of a place than a freeway bypass will. Just because it is a freeway does not mean it is inherently evil, some of the most freeway dense places in the world are also have some of the best urbanism. And some places with super high freeway densities also suck.
The reality is, if you are more concerned with what comes after the freeway than the freeway itself, it would be far more beneficial to advocate for policies that actually fix the issue (higher target densities, mixed use developments, growth management strategies, etc.). And not to mention, our standards are actually pretty decent for modern developments in Ontario. The reason the worst of American sprawl exists is not entirely because they built roads, it is because attempts at proper planning back then were shoddy at best. Hate to say it, but so long as our population is growing, we still need to build things.