Roads: GTA West Corridor—Highway 413

[W. K. Lis]

From link.

 

[11th]

Given the complaints about gas taxes prices lately I don't think anyone is deluded into thinking that driving is free.

The 407 is actively avoided like the plague for a significant portion of the population - to the point where a $5 toll charge could save an hour of traffic and they won't pay it. A significant portion of the GTA has an impression that the 407 is so wildly expensive that it is to absolutely never be used at any time, which isn't close to true at all, especially for the Durham portion.

For me, it goes like: the toll rate itself is too high and I refuse to use it for long/mid distance travel, and therefore I don't have a transponder. Now since I don't have a transponder, I won't use it for short trips either because of the add on charges.

 

[allengeorge]

However, I'm not a huge fan of varying the rate over the course of the day.

I realize that my unclear use of the phrase "time of use" has lead you down the wrong path. What I meant to say was that, unlike transit, we don't charge people for driving at the very moment they do it. Specifically, gas, insurance, the depreciation of one's car - all these feel like 'fixed' costs, independent of your choice to use Road A vs Road B.

 

[afransen]

I substantially agree with the above, but would add a caveat.

I favour tolls, for clarity, a per km charge for driving on urban freeways where alternative choices exist.

However, I'm not a huge fan of varying the rate over the course of the day.

What's been found with electricity is that much vaunted 'Smart Meters' did very little to load-shift, because as it turns out, most people can't choose when they are home and require heating or a/c; or when they can do the laundry (when their home).
Its also rather unfair to shift workers who may be penalized for being home during peak-usage times.

To take this back to the roads, most people do not determine their hours of employment, which for the majority, are in the 8am-5pm range; but certainly many have different, but fixed hours.

A varying toll rate across time implies that we are trying to encourage load-shift, but there is little evidence that this is effective, so far as I can discern. We could need a culture of flex-time to be in much greater ascendancy to see people load-shift; their commutes, even then, we would need more flexible childcare and school hours to make it work.

I favour a uniform toll rate across all times to encourage mode-shift, not load/temporal shift.

The equity argument is not all that persuasive to me. Truly poor people aren't driving, and not driving across town.

People choose their hours because they choose their jobs, and they choose where they live. Even if most people are quite resistant to incentives to change behaviour, it doesn't take a large percentage of drivers to shift discretionary trips off peak, or to carpool, or to move closer to work to make a meaningful difference to congestion. I also see no merit in charging the poor shift worker 50 cents per km (required to keep highways flowing at peak) for the privilege of using an empty highway at 3 am, especially when transit is relatively unavailable.

I would also support discounted transit fares off peak. It's about using our infrastructure more efficiently.

 

[ARG1]

The equity argument is not all that persuasive to me. Truly poor people aren't driving, and not driving across town.

People choose their hours because they choose their jobs, and they choose where they live. Even if most people are quite resistant to incentives to change behaviour, it doesn't take a large percentage of drivers to shift discretionary trips off peak, or to carpool, or to move closer to work to make a meaningful difference to congestion. I also see no merit in charging the poor shift worker 50 cents per km (required to keep highways flowing at peak) for the privilege of using an empty highway at 3 am, especially when transit is relatively unavailable.

I would also support discounted transit fares off peak. It's about using our infrastructure more efficiently.

We shouldn't be operating like this though. We shouldn't try to push people to work for jobs in uncomfortable situations just because we're horrible at infrastructure building. The government has no place in trying to dictate the populace when and how they should get around - they should always try to push the fastest option at the lowest possible price. In London, off peak travel outside of Zone 1 is charged at a flat fare in an attempt to reduce crowding and traffic in the downtown core of the city. This means that if you use services like the London Overground to try and bypass Zone 1, you can reach your destination even if its at the other side of the city at a very cheap 1.5 pounds. THIS IS HORRENDOUS, there should NEVER be an incentive to use a slower option to reach your destination. The goal of every transit authority should be to try and minimize the time it takes to go from point A to point B - that means trying to push for as many direct trips where reasonable, with fast transfers to other services when unreasonable. If people are purposefully using a slower route in order to save money, I don't care about "infrastructure efficiency", you have FAILED as a transit system.

 

[afransen]

We shouldn't be operating like this though. We shouldn't try to push people to work for jobs in uncomfortable situations just because we're horrible at infrastructure building. The government has no place in trying to dictate the populace when and how they should get around - they should always try to push the fastest option at the lowest possible price. In London, off peak travel outside of Zone 1 is charged at a flat fare in an attempt to reduce crowding and traffic in the downtown core of the city. This means that if you use services like the London Overground to try and bypass Zone 1, you can reach your destination even if its at the other side of the city at a very cheap 1.5 pounds. THIS IS HORRENDOUS, there should NEVER be an incentive to use a slower option to reach your destination. The goal of every transit authority should be to try and minimize the time it takes to go from point A to point B - that means trying to push for as many direct trips where reasonable, with fast transfers to other services when unreasonable. If people are purposefully using a slower route in order to save money, I don't care about "infrastructure efficiency", you have FAILED as a transit system.

This feels like a non sequitur. What point that I made are you addressing?

I was suggesting time of use tolling can make sense to encourage people to travel off peak, and not needlessly punish people who drive off peak when congestion is not a concern. Most of the cost of infra is for peak capacity. Encouraging off peak use increases utilization and potentially relieving peak load.

 

[ARG1]

This feels like a non sequitur. What point that I made are you addressing?

I was suggesting time of use tolling can make sense to encourage people to travel off peak, and not needlessly punish people who drive off peak when congestion is not a concern. Most of the cost of infra is for peak capacity. Encouraging off peak use increases utilization and potentially relieving peak load.

The point of trying to push people to use infrastructure at specific times to try and use infrastructure more efficiently. Things like having to pay different fares depending on the time of day is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned.

 

[allengeorge]

The point of trying to push people to use infrastructure at specific times to try and use infrastructure more efficiently. Things like having to pay different fares depending on the time of day is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned.

What exactly is wrong with this?

 

[afransen]

The point of trying to push people to use infrastructure at specific times to try and use infrastructure more efficiently. Things like having to pay different fares depending on the time of day is a non-starter as far as I'm concerned.

Why? Sydney Metro gives 30% discounted rates off peak.

Opal peak and off-peak fares

When you travel outside of peak times with your Opal card, you receive discounted fares.

transportnsw.info

 

[afransen]

What exactly is wrong with this?

Equity demands we build the church for Easter Sunday and charge the same price for the resort in Cancun in hurricane season as during March break. Who cares if that means the resort is empty--much fairer than letting it get used for a discount!

 

[EnviroTO]

What exactly is wrong with this?

Exactly. Sounds like good planning and a lot like how market based pricing works for everything else. You can't get a summer cottage at winter prices. There isn't unlimited money available to build all infrastructure to handle the worst case scenario, so it makes good sense to me to incentivize people and businesses to use infrastructure efficiently. If we design transportation to handle the peak inefficiency not only is that incredibly expensive to build, but it creates infrastructure that is underutilized most of the time. If everyone can locate their business anywhere in the GTA and have business hours of exactly 9 to 5, and then expect to service the demand without congestion, then you have the most expensive transportation network possible.

 

[W. K. Lis]

People are now suing the government over a controversial new Ontario highway​

From link.

Last week, Premier Doug Ford revealed Ontario's extravagant plan for improving transportation around the Golden Horseshoe in the next few decades, which includes a spate of new public transit projects, as well as, more controversially, two new major freeways — one of which people have just launched a lawsuit over.

Residents, politicians and various organizations have long shown their disapproval of the forthcoming Highway 413 and Bradford Bypass, both of which will have huge impacts on surrounding residents, the environment, and the future of gridlock around the GTA. (Many believe it will only make congestion worse).

As the region grows quickly and people continue to be priced out of hubs like Toronto, the highways are meant to better connect various municipalities in the area.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1364993585993703427

The six-lane 413 will run in a semi-circle from the 401/407 interchange in Mississauga in the west, to Highway 400 near King Road in Vaughan in the east, connecting with the 410 in Brampton along the way.

The 59 km-long route will only save drivers "up to 30 minutes" (if driving the entire length of the highway) while costing billions of dollars and destroying a ton of environmentally-sensitive and protected land in its path — a few of the reasons that there is so much pushback, especially in a time when remote work has become the norm for many.

The Bypass, meanwhile, will run 16.2 km between Highway 400 and Highway 404 north of the city, and has faced similar backlash, up to and including a new lawsuit launched by various groups on Wednesday.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1458826185677410306

The litigation against Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, was launched in federal court by seven organizations including Environmental Defence and Ontario Nature, and calls out the politician's decision not to conduct an impact assessment for the new roadway.

"[We've] previously made two requests for a federal impact assessment on the proposed Bradford Bypass, which would cut through the Greenbelt, the Holland Marsh provincially significant wetland, and the headwater rivers at the south end of the Lake Simcoe watershed," the groups write in a release.

"The purpose of the litigation is to hold the federal government accountable for the proper review of the impacts of the proposed highway... the case for building a highway is thin at best and we must better understand the impacts of the project."

https://twitter.com/x/status/1504187743735267337

Because of Ontario's recent changes to environmental assessment laws and the province's push to get the highway built despite opposition, the groups believe that it falls upon the federal government to properly investigate the potential benefits and consequences before the highway moves ahead.

"For the sake of Canada's environment and the communities dependent on it, we must make sure that destructive projects, such as bulldozing a super-highway through one of Ontario's largest wetlands, receive a proper and thorough review," they write.

The complainants are being represented by Ecojustice, a Canadian law charity known for setting such suits in motion.

 

[north-of-anything]

As much as I'm personally opposed to the 413, isn't it a bit disingenuous to use a picture of an eight-lane express/collector configuration as the leading picture to an article about it? If the whole point is that a 3 lane freeway is oversized and inappropriate, a wide, in-use freeway in an urban area isn't a good representation of what's going on...

 

[innsertnamehere]

yup. Most of the 413 would look like this:

The majority of the 413 at initial buildout will only be a 4-lane facility, the 6-lane part is proposed to run from the 400 to 427, but between the 427 and 401 it will be 4-lanes.

 

[kamira51]

yup. Most of the 413 would look like this:

The majority of the 413 at initial buildout will only be a 4-lane facility, the 6-lane part is proposed to run from the 400 to 427, but between the 427 and 401 it will be 4-lanes.

A perfect example of environmentalists pushing false information just to get this thing canceled.