kamira51
Active Member
The funny thing about all this, building a highway is 100x easier to build than it is a new railway corridor, and any other form of transit, what a joke.
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Student99
Active Member
My obsession is with free & unrestricted movement, convenience, and getting places quickly.
Student99
Active Member
Or, with my own knowledge of my community, I could tell you the popularity was because of the convenience of the highway.
Sidenote: there are plenty of pockets of the QEW west of Toronto where homes immediately north and south of the highway are among the most expensive of their respective regions. Oh, and there are vibrant little downtowns close by too, like Long Branch, Port Credit, Clarkson, Bronte, Burlington... fine examples of a highway being hardly a city killer.
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Steve X
Senior Member
Living beside the 401 means higher air pollution from all the trucks passing by, especially near bottlenecks and highway to highway junctions where they have to brake all the time. It also means noise pollution when you keep your window open at night. That peacefully quiet night never happens, you are bounded to hear someone streaking down the highway at excess speeds or trucks honking at 3am. Plus car insurance is usually higher due to all the heavy collisions that occur at the ramps. 5 minutes away from the highway is probably a better location.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Ah yes. Anecdote, the one evidence to defeat all other evidences. #MyPrecious
kEiThZ
Superstar
Your obsession is with subsidized movement is what you mean to say. Would you still be supporting this highway if they put tolls on it like the 407? Would it still have a business case?
Personally, I'm okay with them building it as long as it's tolled like the 401. I don't want anymore taxpayer subsidies going to sprawl facilitating road infrastructure.
Rainforest
Senior Member
^ Subsidy is a dicey argument. First of all, much of the highway maintenance costs cover the impact of trucks. If I am not mistaken, the impact on the road surface grows as the fourth power of the axle load. Goods transported by trucks are used by all residents, regardless of whether they drive or not.
Secondly, the real subsidy per a transit rider is a lot higher than per a car driver. When we say that TTC recovers 65% of its operating costs from the farebox, we don't include the costs of initial construction of transit lines, as well as the capital maintenance costs, fleet replacement costs etc.
As a matter of policy, I would favor tolling the central areas of big cities, similar to London UK. The motivation would be a better use of space which is a limited resource, rather than tax / cost fairness. I wouldn't toll the intercity sections of highways, since that kind of toll would return to all consumers in the price of their transported goods.
Secondly, the real subsidy per a transit rider is a lot higher than per a car driver. When we say that TTC recovers 65% of its operating costs from the farebox, we don't include the costs of initial construction of transit lines, as well as the capital maintenance costs, fleet replacement costs etc.
As a matter of policy, I would favor tolling the central areas of big cities, similar to London UK. The motivation would be a better use of space which is a limited resource, rather than tax / cost fairness. I wouldn't toll the intercity sections of highways, since that kind of toll would return to all consumers in the price of their transported goods.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Is it? When the pitch for the 413 is the it's going to facilitate a bunch of low density single family detached subdivisions, it's pretty clear this is about perpetuating the growth ponzi scheme:
We had a Liberal government that was unwilling to even put a $2 toll on the Gardiner to pay for its rehabilitation. What makes you think a congestion charge will be even close to politically tenable in our lifetimes?
So, in our reality of cowardly politicians who won't expend any political capital to reduce car dependency, the only alternative to maintain a strict line against sprawl. And to hold a strict line on cost recovery where allowed.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Search EcoGecko on Youtube. Watch a bunch of his videos on highways and sprawl...
Rainforest
Senior Member
Indeed, I am not in favor of the 413 as proposed. The route runs too close to the GTA centre, will act as a sprawl magnet, and might increase the congestion on the 400 and 410 during the weekday rush.
I would have no objections to a new 4xx highway bypassing the GTA entirely, connecting Cambridge to Barrie via Orangeville and letting the goods flow between the Golden Horseshoe and the North to bypass the busiest highways. Not sure if the numbers are there now though.
Who knows, the political landscape changes every few years. If that's possible in the UK, then why not in Ontario.
Btw, an area entry charge will be less dependent on the provincial concent. Technically the situation is the same, Gardiner / DVP are owned by the city and the ordinary streets are owned by the city. But the optics is different; the province feels it can interfere in the decision affecting the highways, but it would be hard for the province to deny the city the righ to manage its regular streets.
afransen
Senior Member
Toronto can only do what it is specifically empowered to do by the province, I don't think it has the power to implement a congestion charge. They were given the power to collect tolls on highways, but the LPO chickened out when the city actually tried to use that power.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
I called a road builders fever dream but I had suggested a new 4xx series highway running from roughly the 400/11 split North of Barrie and travelling roughly South-West towards the North end of Kitchener. There would also be the opportunity to connect this highway to the proposed Mid Penn highway. In effect this would allow commercial traffic from/to Northern Ontario to reach the US border all while completely bypassing the GTA.
But ahh, I admit that is a fantastical proposal and I don't know how much traffic it would be projected to see.
DirectionNorth
Active Member
Hmm, I feel like proposals for a rural ring road that go like this don't have a huge business case. Even the case for the 413 itself is stronger, as it would serve York Region - Peel/Etobicoke/points further west destinations. I assume there is at least some demand for that. But most truck traffic is going into the GTHA, and I think it would be too large of a detour for them to use it. So unfortunately, the case for a rural road like that, as I see it, is non-existent.
ericmacm
Active Member
The idea of a 400-series highway that runs Barrie-Orangeville-Kitchener is interesting. I do like the prospect of bringing 400-series access further into the upper "triangle" of southwestern Ontario so more big population centres spring up outside of the GTA, and I do like the idea of being able to bypass the GTA entirely. The alignment, if it terminates south of Barrie, could actually link up directly as an extension of the Bradford Bypass. However, if something like this were to be built as an alternative to the 413, it might actually erode the case for the Greenbelt much faster than the 413 would - not to say that the 413 is without any flaws of its own.
I see encouraging growth directly on the other side of the Greenbelt eventually leading to the communities on the north side seeking direct access south toward the GTA, which would poke holes through the Greenbelt via widened roads and 400-series highway extensions northward, slowly dismantling it. At least with the 413, I could see it being better used as a "boundary" to divide between what is Greenbelt land and what isn't. Keeping the density south of the Greenbelt and slowing development north of it (maybe even continue to add to it on the north side) is how I see it lasting into the future.
I see encouraging growth directly on the other side of the Greenbelt eventually leading to the communities on the north side seeking direct access south toward the GTA, which would poke holes through the Greenbelt via widened roads and 400-series highway extensions northward, slowly dismantling it. At least with the 413, I could see it being better used as a "boundary" to divide between what is Greenbelt land and what isn't. Keeping the density south of the Greenbelt and slowing development north of it (maybe even continue to add to it on the north side) is how I see it lasting into the future.
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
Northern Ontario's main industries are forestry and mining, both industries don't have much of a foot print in in the GTHA. The biggest market for raw logs or cut lumber is in the USA, both in mills for further processing and the end market consumer. Just being devil's advocate.
I see Barrie/Orillia as being the anchor for that region (South Central Ontario? Cottage Country?) and would like to see some growth efforts there. Both cities could probably comfortably double in population while still retaining their small town feel while creating a municipal market large enough to support a local economy centred on recreational industries and other industries common in the area. For example it should be the jumping off point for all the recreational activities available in cottage country.
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