BurlOak
Senior Member
Quick question, will there be a ramp from 401 east bound to 403 south bound toward the MCC? The other missing ramp in the system is QEW west bound to 403 north bound in order to get up to the 407 when the QEW is a mess at night.
Both of these are pretty good ideas.
1) I have never liked the 403-401 Interchange (throw in the 410 too). The 403 just below the 401 sort of has a short stretch of collector and express lanes. Those coming south from 410 and those coming from the 401 collectors (which includes all traffic coming off of 427 since they have no option to make it to the 401 express) all get put onto the 403 collectors. All of these vehicles must merge on essentially one lane (sort of two, but lane ends very soon) with the rest of the 403. The 401E to 403S ramp could be put under the end span of the high level 401E to 410N bridge, but the problem is this traffic as well would go to the 403 Collector lanes. They must find a way of improving the 403 through Matheson. Either have a weave lane where the 403 express is switching to the 403 collector, and very shortly thereafter, the 403 collector enters the 403 core - that way there is room for more lanes to merge. Alternatively, the 401 express could be prohibitted from accessing Eglinton and Eastgate and then there would be a better merge for the 403 collector traffic. I do not think it is possible to add any lanes to 403 south of Eglinton due to a couple of bridges.
2) QEW W to 403 N is also possible, probably requiring a bridge over Upper Middle Road. Again the problem is that the stretch of 403 North of QEW is quite poor with only 2 lanes at Dundas and Burnhamthorpe. There is plenty of room to widen this, but again it is more money.