Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

[lenaitch]

Much like the flurry of flying truck wheels, I foresee some kind of regulatory changes. I don't know what - it would likely be something they wouldn't need cross-jurisdiction commonality.

 

[innsertnamehere]

MTO has released preliminary plans for the 410 widening in Brampton: (warning - large PDF)

https://hwy410queentobovaird.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Hwy-410-Queen-to-Bovaird-Alternative-44A.pdf

The preferred alternative extends the 10-lane section of the 410, including HOV lanes, to Bovaird Drive, and 6 regular lanes to Sandalwood Parkway.

 

[Haljackey]

Makes sense to me, any widening north of this would likely be in scope of the 413 project, should it happen. No sense doing work here if there's a major reconfiguration needed as part of that build.

Any date proposed when this might begin? Seems needed now with the way Brampton has been growing.

 

[innsertnamehere]

It's just the EA, not detailed design - so likely not for several years at least. It does appear that it's being completed because MTO intends to move on it relatively soon though.

 

[Dan416]

This is really needed actually.

 

[T3G]

I can confirm. In my most recent role at work I've been one of the backroom receiving folk and we get all sorts of folk that make you wonder how they are capable of putting their pants on in the morning. They come in to this warehouse area in flip flops, their heads buried in phones or both airpods on, they are unable to answer even the most basic of questions about their load or follow their schedule (Scott's, the soil company, routinely has drivers arrive 6 hours early), they don't bother to put away their electronics before conducting the interaction, sometimes they offload freight off their truck with one hand while continuing to stare at their phone in their other. And if you're expecting them to say things like "Hello" or "goodbye", you've got another thing coming! But probably the most infuriating guy I had was one who went around the back area of the store and demanded that we remove the barricades we were using to block it off and sort through pallets so that he could get through, instead of doing what common sense would dictate and using the public road around the front of the store.

To that end, this result, though infuriating, is entirely in line with expectations. In fact I marvel at dump trucks I see on the road without their basket up!

All of these stories pale in comparison to the psychopath I encountered today.

This is a service road behind the store I work at. It is not, technically speaking, a private road, but it is used for store business, for storing discarded pallets as shown, for offloading flatbed trucks, for storing soil and stone, etc. (The fact that this area is accessible to any random lunatic from the street is in and of itself a mistake).

Periodically, the discarded pallets need to be sorted and loaded onto a trailer to be shipped back to their owners, and when this is done barriers are erected across the width of the service road, and a spotter is on hand to block any traffic from entering. Unfortunately, there is a not small group of truck drivers who feel entitled to use this road as a transit point to their next destination, and I've exchanged words with more than one that demanded to be let through instead of doing the normal thing and going around the front of the store. I told today's shining specimen of humanity that he couldn't go through, we had to finish our work, you know, the usual song and dance and he got veryyyyy angry and said that if we didn't let him through, he would crash through the barrier and enter our workzone by force.

In retrospect, what I should have done was threaten to call the cops on him there and then, but I was so incensed that I told him he can speak to the forklift operator, who told him he would have to wait several minutes for us to finish the work, and then and ONLY then did he elect instead to back up.

The fact that any depraved lunatic can get behind the wheel of a truck is a sure sign that the system is breaking down.

 

[turbanplanner]

All of these stories pale in comparison to the psychopath I encountered today.

View attachment 574158

This is a service road behind the store I work at. It is not, technically speaking, a private road, but it is used for store business, for storing discarded pallets as shown, for offloading flatbed trucks, for storing soil and stone, etc. (The fact that this area is accessible to any random lunatic from the street is in and of itself a mistake).

Periodically, the discarded pallets need to be sorted and loaded onto a trailer to be shipped back to their owners, and when this is done barriers are erected across the width of the service road, and a spotter is on hand to block any traffic from entering. Unfortunately, there is a not small group of truck drivers who feel entitled to use this road as a transit point to their next destination, and I've exchanged words with more than one that demanded to be let through instead of doing the normal thing and going around the front of the store. I told today's shining specimen of humanity that he couldn't go through, we had to finish our work, you know, the usual song and dance and he got veryyyyy angry and said that if we didn't let him through, he would crash through the barrier and enter our workzone by force.

In retrospect, what I should have done was threaten to call the cops on him there and then, but I was so incensed that I told him he can speak to the forklift operator, who told him he would have to wait several minutes for us to finish the work, and then and ONLY then did he elect instead to back up.

The fact that any depraved lunatic can get behind the wheel of a truck is a sure sign that the system is breaking down.

It's even worse considering that trucking has been a race to the bottom for the past few years, and the standards are only going to go down. Dump trucks hitting *cking bridges wasn't a weekly thing a few years ago!