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Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

Highway 7's jog in York Region, as Former Highway 7 jogs from being Queen Street east of the 410 to being Bovaird west of the 410. Looking at the map the northerly concession for both is close, but not the same.
 
ShonTron said:
Highway 7 used to jog at Yonge Street (Highway 11). It followed the first east-west sideroad north of Steeles Avenue (connecting Brampton, Woodbridge, and Thornhill), then continued along the second east-west sideroad north of Steeles Avenue to connect with Unionville, Markham, Brougham, and Brooklin. For a few decades, Yonge Street carried both Highways 7 and 11 for a short bit. The original route of Highway 7 jogs a lot between Sarnia and Ottawa, connecting towns and cities together along mostly existing concession roads and sideroads. The route straightened out a bit by way of re-routings and bypasses, like the one between Concord and Yonge Street which by-passed Thornhill, partially on a new alignment, partially via Langstaff Road.

The old route, Centre Street, was designated Highway 7B for a short period.
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Technically this applies to many provincial highways. Roads were designated provincial highways with the Department of Highways (now MTO) rebuilding the road to higher standards and eventually eliminating jogs and building bypasses. Ultimately those bypassed sections are decommissioned. I believe there isn't that many conventional highways that were built from scratch for their entire length or even significant portions. There isn't that many at-grade expressways in Ontario. Of course most the freeways were paved over farms more most of the length.

There wasn't much twinning of conventional highways to become freeways in Ontario. Highways 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407, 409, 412 and soon 418 were all built from stretch for most of their length. 400 was built from stretch up to Barrie and then twinning of Highway 69 beyond (it wasn't even called 69 back then). 404 between Steeles and 401 were built on top of Woodbine Av. 410 was built on Heart Lake Rd except the new alignment north of Bovaird. 416 was twinned for 2/3 of the way with a new alignment north of former highway 16. 417 was twinned west of Kanata, the rest was built on a new alignment including most of The Queensway. 427 was twinned between QEW and 401 and later built into a collector/express system. Everything north of the 401 was on a new alignment. Highway 11 and 35/115 were built into RIRO expressways not freeways. The rest of 115 up to Peterborough city limit were twinned. It's actually more correct to call the highway 11 and 69 projects as new 4 lane freeway as many of the twinning sections are actually new alignments.

It's actually interesting that Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia are the only provinces that have a separate designations class from freeways (e.g. 400-series highway in Ontario and 100-series highway in NS). The remaining 6 of the 9 provinces (PEI has no freeways) reroute their conventional highway designation onto the new alignment. Of course Ontario has some 400-series highway that doesn't really replace another highway. If it was New Brunswick, 401 can be the new highway 2, 400 be called 11 from TO to Barrie and 69 at the split. 402 can be part of highway 7. 403, 404, 406 and 406 can get a new number. 407 in parallel to highway 7 would be another part of highway 7. 409 gets a new number. 410, 412, 416, 417, 420 and 427 would be known as highways 10, 12, 16, 17, 20 and 27 respectively. Maybe QEW should get a public numerical designation. Then we won't have the problem why 115 has a large freeway portion and not be known as 415. Who knows why they thought starting highways with 4XX is a good choice. I get it originally meant to indicate 4-lane highways. I don't know of any other places in North America that have a system starting with a randomly 4XX numbering. I guess when the interstates system doesn't exist and no where else in North America has a freeway numbering system, the Department of Highways came up with 400, 401 and 402 in 1951/52. Heck in Scandinavia, some freeways don't even have their countries designation but instead use the European route number (e.g. E6). If ON, QC and NS kept their old numbers, we'll still have highway 2 going from Windsor to Halifax as TCH is still Highway 1 in the western provinces after all that twinning that happening in the last 15 years.
 
Leo_Chan said:
Lowering tolls will result in more cars (obviously), but it will increase maintenance costs right? Since more cars use the highway, then the more damage and wear and tear is applied to the road. Is that one of the reasons the 407 ETR company has such high tolls? Is the "balance" they have correct, or is there a balance to be found that results in the same amount of "profit" for the corporation and a better experience for drivers?
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The 407ETR also has to pay interest and constantly widen the road (based on mandated service levels).

They had revenue of $1.1b last year. This was used to pay:
- $150M in expenses (maintenance)
- $370M in interest
- $130M in income tax
- $75M in expansion
Net cash flow is $375M. Of course shareholders need some return. It's a bit high but not egregious.

If the province owned the road they could reduce the profit somewhat...but offset by government inefficiencies and paving contractor shenanigans.

So it comes down to the question if you lower the price will more people be on the road? (price elasticity) My guess is no...if you lower it to create traffic jams why would people pay money to go on the 407 vs staying on the 401.
 
Highway 400 north of Barrie is on a new alignment to Midland. It was initially built as a super 2, before later being upgraded to a full freeway.
 
Interestingly, Highway 400 was originally planned to go northeast from Coldwater to Gravenhurst, instead of towards Waubaushene. That first phase - the super 2 section - continued along what is now Lower Big Chute Road to Highway 12, in the direction of Gravenhurst. Motorists headed towards Sudbury would have turned left on Highway 12, and turned again at Highway 103 (later Highway 69). You can see where Highway 400 turned to meet Highway 12 on Google Maps:

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/44...m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d44.683569!4d-79.643699
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
The trouble with turning what was once a regional arterial connecting communities across Ontario into an urbanized Main road is dealing with all the through traffic travelling between those communities that will now be slowed by the now urban built form. 407 accomplishes part of this but is hindered by it's tolls. If you want to turn "Hwy 7" into an "Avenue 7" (to steal some municipal marketing speak) you need to provide a bypass around the built up centre.
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I don't think there's a lot of long distance traffic on Hwy. 7, as I'd think ppl take the 401 now, especially with the 401 going to KW and Guelph as well as connecting with the 35/115 to Peterborough and the 416 to Ottawa.

But if I'm wrong, the highway could be rerouted north up Pickering Townline and then over Stouffville Rd. (or follow a concession further south first and multiplex with 48 to bypass Stouffville itself) and King Rd./King St. to near Georgetown. Doing that would also have the benefit of reuniting the two sections of the highway.

As for the "Avenue 7 "name, a much better name would be "Veterans Avenue", given recent naming trends for previously unnamed roads.
 
If that's the case, I wonder how Highway 7 maintained that name in York Region instead of, say, Wellington St, whereas in Brampton no one calls it Highway 7 anymore (or Regional Road 107) it's just the northwestern portion is Bovaid Dr and southeastern part is Queen Street.
 
I think it's because Highway 7 in York Region was stitched together in the mid 1980's to create an almost-expressway-expressway, uniting what was Centre Street in Vaughan, the short stretch up Dufferin Street, and parts of Langstaff Road in Richmond Hill. After that was done, because Highway 7 was a continuous road in York Region, I'm guessing it made sense to call the whole thing "Highway 7" rather than the old names for the local sections in each municipality. Compared to Brampton, where the road is disjointed, with a short stretch down Main Street, I'm guessing that it didn't make sense to call the separate disjointed roads all as Highway 7.

Take a look at the York Region Community Services map, containing historical imagery of York Region from 1954-onwards. Very cool looking at the changes, especially in Highway 7.
 
chinesehorse said:
I'm guessing it made sense to call the whole thing "Highway 7" rather than the old names for the local sections in each municipality. Compared to Brampton, where the road is disjointed, with a short stretch down Main Street, I'm guessing that it didn't make sense to call the separate disjointed roads all as Highway 7.
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Kinda late but I think the reason Hwy. 7 isn't named in York Region is because "Wellington" is a more community-specific name that wasn't appropriate for a road passing through multiple municipalities, while Brampton is just one city where the two sections of the highway continued with names after they turned off, making it easy to extend the names along them.
 
chinesehorse said:
I think it's because Highway 7 in York Region was stitched together in the mid 1980's to create an almost-expressway-expressway, uniting what was Centre Street in Vaughan, the short stretch up Dufferin Street, and parts of Langstaff Road in Richmond Hill.
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Highway 7 was built in the 1920s (I think it followed Centre Street, Dufferin and the current Highway 7 corridor). They realigned it between Centre Street and Dufferin in the 1980s, and grade-separated it east to Bayview for what was originally going to be Highway 407.

In Markham Highway 7 was just built by connecting a bunch of disjointed roads, which is why there are the slight turns at McCowan, Markham Road and Ninth Line. I'm not sure where "Wellington Road" comes from but I'm guessing it's just the name of someone who owned land there. That's where a lot of Toronto's street names come from. Lawrence, Sheppard, Finch, Morgan Street, Arnold Avenue, John Street, Langstaff Road, Gamble Road - all those streets are named after someone who owned land on the corner of that street and Yonge in the 19th century.
 
The Highway 7 at-grade expressway was only built cause they have to make room for 407 along with a new alignment bypassing Centre and Yonge. Early plans only called for the 407 to be built in phases with the 427 to the curve just north of Centre to be built first. Then all the changed with the NDP creating a toll to finance the highway for 35 years for more of the 407 to be built at the same time. Otherwise I don't think the Richmond Hill part of Highway 7 would look like what it does today if it wasn't for the 407.
 
Steve X said:
The Highway 7 at-grade expressway was only built cause they have to make room for 407 along with a new alignment bypassing Centre and Yonge. Early plans only called for the 407 to be built in phases with the 427 to the curve just north of Centre to be built first. Then all the changed with the NDP creating a toll to finance the highway for 35 years for more of the 407 to be built at the same time. Otherwise I don't think the Richmond Hill part of Highway 7 would look like what it does today if it wasn't for the 407.
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If the Gardiner was removed, likely the new Lakeshore would look like highway 7. Now that Gardiner and 7 are as is, development must account for it.
 
amnesiajune said:
In Markham Highway 7 was just built by connecting a bunch of disjointed roads, which is why there are the slight turns at McCowan, Markham Road and Ninth Line.
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Technically they were the same roads. Errors while land surveying were corrected every few blocks, creating these disjointed sections that were later joined together.

You can get a lot of information on the disjointed sections that were cut off when the road was corrected, because many of the times, they carried the old name of the road. For example, we know a section of Major Mackenzie Drive in Markham was previously named 17th Sideroad because of a disjointed section at Warden Avenue. Meanwhile, the section of Major Mac in Richmond Hill was previously named Markham Road, thanks to a disjointed section of road at Bayview.
 
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