Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

[innsertnamehere]

As someone who lives not even 5 minutes from that interchange, I can tell you that during the PM peak it's a huge choke point. There are effectively only 2 through lanes on the 403 from the split westward. The leftmost lane comes right off the 407, and it's pretty much empty. The traffic from Brant St and the Toronto-bound QEW have their own lane, but that ends a few hundred metres west of the 407.

I drive through it all the time as well and can assure you it is not nearly as congested as the 404/401 - not to say it’s not congested.. just not the comical levels of congestion the 404 sees.

The third through lane MTO is planning through the interchange should correct most of the issues, it would be over a 50% increase in capacity over today, as they will be correcting a bunch of other smaller issues like merging traffic from the Brant St interchange, reduced weaving approaching the split, etc.

 

[Transportfan]

The E.C. Row isn't dead. It's a good way to get across town and all my friends from Windsor love to rub it's usefulness in my face since London has no equivalent.

I'm surprised that the 401 wasn't built to go through London. It seems big enough for it, if just barely.

 

[DirectionNorth]

I'm surprised that the 401 wasn't built to go through London. It seems big enough for it, if just barely.

I believe that the 401 was originally supposed to run through London, but the ROW ran through a rather upscale neighborhood, which killed the project. I couldn't find anything online though.

 

[Haljackey]

I'm surprised that the 401 wasn't built to go through London. It seems big enough for it, if just barely.

There's a lot of politics why it wasn't but the TL,DR version is that St. Thomas bitched at the province saying they wanted 401 access too... So the 401 was built roughly midway between London and St. Thomas (at the time before London sprawled out). However with the decline of manufacturing and railroads, St. Thomas didn't really grow nearly as much as was predicted (See the Highway 3 staged freeway I commented about on the last page). Now however, St. Thomas is growing quicker again thanks to London's rising home prices and the ability to WFH means a lot of people won't need to commute to London for their jobs.

So that, plus the Highway 402 plan north of the city being shelved by the rich/elites and cancelled municipal freeway plans meant that London didn't really get a a freeway for local traffic. Highbury Ave does have a couple interchanges but the 401 interchange has traffic lights on it (should have flyovers one day?). Veterans Memorial Parkway (VMP) was also a staged freeway but the city went cheap and put traffic lights on it too (including the 401 interchange when the VMP was extended south).

So that's kinda why in a nutshell. Add to that no real good transit and lots of at-grade railway crossings and you get a city that can get pretty clogged at times- at least clogged compared to similar sized cities. Some progress is being made with the half-assed BRT plan so that's something, and a few choke points at the railway crossings are going to be enhanced soon too.

 

[Ward8]

Here is an article on the BRT/Cancelled highway plans. Honestly dodged a bullet. A freeway running through downtown London would have been catastrophic.

Transit Deja Vu: Parallels between London's lost freeway and the endangered BRT plan

Is London city council experiencing Déjà Vu nearly 50 years after letting what could have been the city’s biggest project ever, slip away?

london.ctvnews.ca

 

[Northern Light]

Ontario Eco-Groups have filed suit in court to get the Federal government to pursue a Federal Environmental Assessment of the Bradford Bypass.

Groups launch lawsuit against federal environment minister over decision not to do an Impact Assessment on the Bradford Bypass

/CNW/ - On Monday, March 14th, seven environmental and community organizations filed a lawsuit in Federal Court against the federal Minister of Environment and...

www.newswire.ca

From the above:

***

 

[ShonTron]

The Highway 3 Super 2 through St. Thomas was a precursor to what was expected to be growth of that city, but also as a connector towards Nanticoke, which the province planned for major industry and hundreds of thousands of new residents.

I didn’t know that Highway 401 was supposed to go any closer to London than it does, but it’s possible that several alignments were studied. At one time, Highway 401 was also planned to go much closer to Downtown Kitchener, along the Highway 7/8 alignment, but of course it didn’t.

Highway 401 doesn’t come close to many cities and larger towns, including Chatham, London, Woodstock, Kitchener, Guelph, Kingston, or Cornwall. (Or Toronto, for that matter). The largest sprawled towards the highway, but leaving the highway far from urban centres simplified land acquisition, construction, and later expansion.

Apart from Ottawa’s Queensway, Kitchener’s Conestoga Parkway, and the EC Row, the provincial government didn’t really build urban freeways. It built long-distance highways and, later, suburban connectors.

 

[W. K. Lis]

The Highway 3 Super 2 through St. Thomas was a precursor to what was expected to be growth of that city, but also as a connector towards Nanticoke, which the province planned for major industry and hundreds of thousands of new residents.

I didn’t know that Highway 401 was supposed to go any closer to London than it does, but it’s possible that several alignments were studied. At one time, Highway 401 was also planned to go much closer to Downtown Kitchener, along the Highway 7/8 alignment, but of course it didn’t.

Highway 401 doesn’t come close to many cities and larger towns, including Chatham, London, Woodstock, Kitchener, Guelph, Kingston, or Cornwall. (Or Toronto, for that matter). The largest sprawled towards the highway, but leaving the highway far from urban centres simplified land acquisition, construction, and later expansion.

Apart from Ottawa’s Queensway, Kitchener’s Conestoga Parkway, and the EC Row, the provincial government didn’t really build urban freeways. It built long-distance highways and, later, suburban connectors.

Highway 401 (and Highway 427) was originally called the "Toronto By-Pass". No longer.

 

[lenaitch]

The Highway 3 Super 2 through St. Thomas was a precursor to what was expected to be growth of that city, but also as a connector towards Nanticoke, which the province planned for major industry and hundreds of thousands of new residents.

I didn’t know that Highway 401 was supposed to go any closer to London than it does, but it’s possible that several alignments were studied. At one time, Highway 401 was also planned to go much closer to Downtown Kitchener, along the Highway 7/8 alignment, but of course it didn’t.

Highway 401 doesn’t come close to many cities and larger towns, including Chatham, London, Woodstock, Kitchener, Guelph, Kingston, or Cornwall. (Or Toronto, for that matter). The largest sprawled towards the highway, but leaving the highway far from urban centres simplified land acquisition, construction, and later expansion.

Apart from Ottawa’s Queensway, Kitchener’s Conestoga Parkway, and the EC Row, the provincial government didn’t really build urban freeways. It built long-distance highways and, later, suburban connectors.

Certainly to the east, the lakeshore communities along Hwy 2 were centred on their waterfront since water was the original means of travel and commerce. Trying to freeway that route would have been horrendously disruptive and expensive.

 

[ssiguy2]

Halljackey is quite correct, the 401 was suppose to go further north roughly between Southdale & Commissioners until St.Thomas bitched. In fact it was suppose to take that route and continue to Woodstock NORTH of Ingersol and Dorchester.

The 402 was suppose to go thru the north end of town and continue to the 403 making it one long freeway but London's old wealth in the northern part of the city quickly put an end to that.

 

[kamira51]

Halljackey is quite correct, the 401 was suppose to go further north roughly between Southdale & Commissioners until St.Thomas bitched. In fact it was suppose to take that route and continue to Woodstock NORTH of Ingersol and Dorchester.

The 402 was suppose to go thru the north end of town and continue to the 403 making it one long freeway but London's old wealth in the northern part of the city quickly put an end to that.

Yeah, now it takes almost half an hour to go from Western to the 401.

 

[drum118]

Yeah, now it takes almost half an hour to go from Western to the 401.

It takes me about the same time to get to the 402 using Wonderland from where I am coming from.

 

[gweed123]

Apart from Ottawa’s Queensway, Kitchener’s Conestoga Parkway, and the EC Row, the provincial government didn’t really build urban freeways. It built long-distance highways and, later, suburban connectors.

And in Ottawa, the Province even went so far as to actively avoid building more freeways through built-up areas. The original alignment for the 416 had it cutting through much more of Nepean than the final alignment did. The final alignment largely assumed the ROW of Cedarview Rd, and cut through mostly Greenbelt. There are little bits of the former reserved 416 ROW throughout Nepean, but most of it has been sold off and developed piece by piece.

 

[gweed123]

The 402 was suppose to go thru the north end of town and continue to the 403 making it one long freeway but London's old wealth in the northern part of the city quickly put an end to that.

IMO the 402 and 403 should be signed as one continuous highway, with a concurrency with the 401 through London, Ingesoll, and Woodstock connecting them.

If it were up to me, the 402 would run from Sarnia to the Freeman Interchange in Burlington, and the Mississauga section of the 403 would be resigned as 410, terminating at the QEW in Oakville.

 

[ssiguy2]

^^^^ I disagree. If the original 402 design for the northern part of London occurred then I could see it as it would basically be a straight route.

I think if they one day decide to extend the 402 it would be to connect London & Niagara allowing cars and transports to completely avoid Hamilton and the QEW. It would actually be well used as it would help divert a lot of the transport traffic off the 401 between the 402 & 403. There are no bigger cities along the route but it is still fairly populace including many decent sized towns..............Delhi, Dunnville, Simcoe, Tilsonburg, and Alymer and the latter 2 are increasingly London suburban commuter communities.