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Mid-Peninsula Highway/Niagara-GTA Corridor

I think those ideas in the article were suggested by the public or other groups during consultations, not necessarily endorsed by the consultants. Some other ideas include Invent smaller, narrower cars, Legislate car license at age 25 to support transit culture (in 416 and 905), and helicopter service (there were actually lots of good ideas, I'm just posting some of the more interesting ones). Hovercrafts and ferries were mentioned several times.
 
Just goes to show that these consultations are pure theatre, designed to placate the masses before the grown-ups go ahead and do what they planned to originally.
 
I know people are generally against the tolling of existing infrastucture, but I think it could be fairly effective in this case of Hamilton. Due to the escarpment and harbour, there are no alternate road routes that would not add an additional hour to one's trip.

The prosepct of a tunnel across Hamilton Harbour is also interesting due to the possibility of adding a rail corridor to this tunnel to provide more frequent GO service and the restoration of frequent VIA-style service to Hamilton on a dedicated, electrified track.
 
From my experience, the problems don't really start until you get to Oakville. the QEW between St Catharines and Burlington is rarely clogged unless there's an accident. I'm not really sure that any improvements made before Oakville would have any real effect, especially something as absurd as twinning (quadding?) the Skyway. Ultimately, I think the only way to fix the problem is better GO and VIA service (which at least in terms of GO is on its way). You won't be able to take the trucks off the highway but you could maybe eliminate a higher percentage of cars.
 
jn_12 said:
From my experience, the problems don't really start until you get to Oakville. the QEW between St Catharines and Burlington is rarely clogged unless there's an accident. I'm not really sure that any improvements made before Oakville would have any real effect, especially something as absurd as twinning (quadding?) the Skyway. Ultimately, I think the only way to fix the problem is better GO and VIA service (which at least in terms of GO is on its way). You won't be able to take the trucks off the highway but you could maybe eliminate a higher percentage of cars.
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It's pretty slow through Hamilton briefly at the rush hours. It's also extremely slow at most times in August throughout Niagara.
 
The route should go from QEW, south of Welland, Canborough, Haldibrook Road north of Caledonia, Highway 52, and meet the 401 and Hanlon Expwy Highway 6 interchange. There is a need for a freeway between 403 (somewhere between Brantford and Hamilton) and the 401 (around K-W and Guelph) because Highway 6 and 8 are accidents waiting to happen. The Highway 6 Hamilton By-Pass south of Hamilton was put in a place where it cannot cross the Dundas Valley and dumps more people onto the 403.
 

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I like that idea. It avoids another cutting of the escarpment and will have less effect on sprawl if stays a far distance from the QEW and the Toronto mass. I agree there should be a high-speed roadway between K-W/Guelph and Hamilton, and this does both.
 
As highway 6 is gradually being upgraded to a fullly separated expressway with divided lanes from Guelph to the 403 with a bypass of morriston, I don't see how another highway is really necessary in this area.
 
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Highway 6 puts people onto the 403 where the choice is QEW or 403 up the escarpment. The QEW is already near capacity and the 403 once it reaches capacity will be hard to expand sitting on the escarpment. Currently there is money being spent trying to fix highway 6 and highway 24... both which could be replaced by a good 408 routing that provides not only a fix to those problems but a way to avoid putting extra load on the 401, 403 and QEW which would only serve to create new bottlenecks. With a continuous route, people from K-W and Guelph can go to Niagara and Buffalo without ever touching the 403 and QEW, those from Brantford can go to Niagara and Malton without touching the QEW, and those from Niagara could use the 408 to get to the new highway planned between Guelph and Vaughan and by-pass the bulk of the GTA to get to the 400 north.
 
I hate to sound like a broken record, but I hate to see so much investment put into highways with minimal effort put into rail. No, I'm not saying that we should only invest in rail, transit, and intermodal loading facilities as alternatives to highway construction. However, the more we can reduce peak demand on the highway and network, the less incentive there will be to build new highways through farmland, greenbelt, and escarpment. It seems to be the MTO's sole job to build highways, forgetting that transportation means more than just moving cars and transport trucks around.

A mid-peninsula highway and other similar rural highway projects may be needed, however we should not consider building more sprawl-inducing highways until we have exausted other alternatives. For example, there is no reasonable rail connection between Waterloo-Wellington and Hamilton/Niagara, there is not a high-speed ferry across Lake Ontario, commputer and intercity rail service in Ontario leaves much to be desired, and highway tolls have not been considered as a viable alternative. We've highly susbudized roads and cars in this province for a very long time, I wonder what would happen if we started placing those subsudies somewhere else?
 
Millstone said:
It's pretty slow through Hamilton briefly at the rush hours. It's also extremely slow at most times in August throughout Niagara.
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I guess I'm thinking relatively. Compared to the QEW on the other side of the Skyway, the section between St Catharines and Hamilton is a breeze. I can't remember the last time I was at a stand still on this part of the QEW and it's a regular occurrence in Oakville. I also wonder whether the construction projects in Hamilton have anything to do with traffic issues.


With regards to a south Niagara highway, I think it would be really helpful to Welland but the concern I have about the highways is whether it would really take much traffic off of the QEW, especially with a route that would eventually funnel traffic back onto the 403/QEW in Hamilton.
 
I think the point of a mid-peninsula highway would not be to provide routes for sprawl or commuters. The real issue is that our manufacturing sector needs a way to move trucks in and out of Ontario without the gridlock that exists now. New highways that are built should be built away from the city providing a way to pass the city. Trucks from the Toyota plan or Honda plant, despite them purposely locating those facilities away from Toronto, currently cannot avoid the GTAH gridlock. Lanes added on the QEW provide greater incentive for sprawl than a by-pass which provides no new avenues into the city.
 
I understand that, but I think the better way to do it rather than to build a highway (which has the ability to create sprawl as well since it is south of the greenbelt) is to make the investment in rail, thereby taking cars off of the road to make more room for the trucks. It seems a bit naive to think that such a highway is only going to be used for trade purposes, and I fear that this would run the risk of creating some development pressures in some new areas.

However, at the same time Port and Welland would definitely like to see this happen because the manufacturing sector in the area has been decimated over the last decade. As much as I don't believe manufacturing should be the future of the area (despite what Welland's city council might think) this would at least make the city a bit more attractive to business.
 
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