Trans Canada Highway Twinning: Segments U/C

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Ah, perfect! If Ontario works on twinning from the provincial boundary toward Kenora quickly enough, it will shame Pallister into ordering the twinning from Falcon Lake to Whiteshell.

AB needs to do that with B.C.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Ah, perfect! If Ontario works on twinning from the provincial boundary toward Kenora quickly enough, it will shame Pallister into ordering the twinning from Falcon Lake to Whiteshell.

Do kid yourself. This is exactly what will happen, as was proven when the last stretch of TCH was twinned to the Sask border only after Sask started doing their side.

MB won't twin the last 20 or so km on the eastern border until Ontario threatens to beat them to it.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by drew

Do kid yourself. This is exactly what will happen, as was proven when the last stretch of TCH was twinned to the Sask border only after Sask started doing their side.

MB won't twin the last 20 or so km on the eastern border until Ontario threatens to beat them to it.

Why is MB so averse to building proper highway infrastructure? Or is that the case for all infrastructure?

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

Why is MB so averse to building proper highway infrastructure? Or is that the case for all infrastructure?

It's not just Manitoba. It's also Alberta and Saskatchewan. I'm talking about the traffic lights outside of Calgary and that lousy portion through M.H., and the 80-kph zones by Moose Jaw and by Moosonin. You guys are like that hare in the parable of hare vs tortoise race. The tortoise may sneak up and upset the hare in the race.
B.C. is just a lost cause.

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

AB needs to do that with B.C.

Parks Canada already finished the Alberta side.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

It's not just Manitoba. It's also Alberta and Saskatchewan. I'm talking about the traffic lights outside of Calgary and that lousy portion through M.H., and the 80-kph zones by Moose Jaw and by Moosonin. You guys are like that hare in the parable of hare vs tortoise race. The tortoise may sneak up and upset the hare in the race.
B.C. is just a lost cause.

Doesn't ON have a ton of lights on the roads that make up the Trans Canada there? Part of the mess coming into Calgary I believe is the City's fault and one (more?) Rocky View County's fault. How many lights are left to be taken out in AB? Hopefully once the big work in Edmonton and Calgary is done they can start on diverting the Trans Canada from Strathmore down to connect with the 201. I also believe Alberta Transportation is working on a bypass plan for Medicine Hat unless that got thrown out. That shouldn't be that hard to do.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by jmt18325

Parks Canada already finished the Alberta side.

I know. Took them 500 years to do but they got the job done. I was talking about a couple of other highways.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

I know. Took them 500 years to do but they got the job done. I was talking about a couple of other highways.

The #1 is the only one that has a hole in hell or being twinned in our life time. The others are far to long / indirect / remote.

I actually feel for non urban highways when topography cost per km of highway is taken into factor the Prairie provinces do just as terrible as BC.

I believe even the QEW2 still isn’t a true full freeway (it still has some rural roads that dissect it without interchanges).

I would even say that Manitoba does even worse than BC on both rural and urban highways. Even BC’s urban areas are dissected with wide rivers with several arms, inlets, and lakes.

This is why we should have a true federal highway program.

They twinned the first 7kms into BC in Yoho Park and now have a plan for the remaining 40 (which better be done in a single phase!). Couple that with the last 5km section of Kicking Horse starting construction this year theoretically in 5 to 10 years the #1 in BC could be twinned all the way to Golden (around 75 km of highway)

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

Why would he slam the feds for helping Manitobans? Did he buy into the CFIB bullshit that no one wants to go back to work because they're living a life of luxury off of $2K/month?

Yes. This is what we're dealing with here.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

Doesn't ON have a ton of lights on the roads that make up the Trans Canada there? Part of the mess coming into Calgary I believe is the City's fault and one (more?) Rocky View County's fault. How many lights are left to be taken out in AB? Hopefully once the big work in Edmonton and Calgary is done they can start on diverting the Trans Canada from Strathmore down to connect with the 201. I also believe Alberta Transportation is working on a bypass plan for Medicine Hat unless that got thrown out. That shouldn't be that hard to do.

Pretty much every moderate-sized town the Trans-Canada passes though has traffic lights until Arnprior in Ontario, because it is basically the main drag through the town.

The bypasses of bigger centres (Kenora, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury and North Bay) are somewhat better for controlling access, but still have lights too.

Interchanges aren't cheap.

Unto themselves traffic lights aren't bad. However, if there's a place where volume is an issue or collisions are frequent, I'd say that merits thought into replacing them with interchanges.

Manitoba isn't particularly parsimonious. The issue is that the endless maw of healthcare just devours budgets. Given that Manitoba's population is highly centralized, it has to support a large hinterland and it isn't overflowing with resource wealth, highway construction falls down the list of importance.

[NewIreland]

Originally Posted by wave46

Pretty much every moderate-sized town the Trans-Canada passes though has traffic lights until Arnprior in Ontario, because it is basically the main drag through the town.

The bypasses of bigger centres (Kenora, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury and North Bay) are somewhat better for controlling access, but still have lights too.

Interchanges aren't cheap.

Unto themselves traffic lights aren't bad. However, if there's a place where volume is an issue or collisions are frequent, I'd say that merits thought into replacing them with interchanges.

Manitoba isn't particularly parsimonious. The issue is that the endless maw of healthcare just devours budgets. Given that Manitoba's population is highly centralized, it has to support a large hinterland and it isn't overflowing with resource wealth, highway construction falls down the list of importance.

If New Brunswick can do it, Manitoba can too.Driving in NB seemed luxurious compared to the prairies. Manitoba felt like a third world country. Highway construction must be more expensive in NB too, no? Traffic lights... on the trans Canada!!!???? C'mon.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by NewIreland

If New Brunswick can do it, Manitoba can too.Driving in NB seemed luxurious compared to the prairies. Manitoba felt like a third world country. Highway construction must be more expensive in NB too, no? Traffic lights... on the trans Canada!!!???? C'mon.

Extent of fully grade separated entirely divided freeway in NB (total ~800 km). In addition to all of the TCH (NB-2), all of NB-1 & NB-95 is divided too, as well as portions of NB-7, NB-11 & NB-15



And yes, it would cost more to build this infrastructure in NB than MB. In NB we have some difficult terrain and several major bridges that needed to be built. MB is mostly flat and good soil conditions.

[JHikka]

The NB map is missing the divided section of the Welsford bypass on Route 7.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by JHikka

The NB map is missing the divided section of the Welsford bypass on Route 7.

OK. It is also admittedly missing the section of NB-11 currently under construction from Shediac River to the Cocagne River.

The other section of NB-11 from Cocagne to the Little Bouctouche River is still on hold AFAIK.

[drew]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Extent of fully grade separated entirely divided freeway in NB (total ~800 km). In addition to all of the TCH (NB-2), all of NB-1 & NB-95 is divided too, as well as portions of NB-7, NB-11 & NB-15



And yes, it would cost more to build this infrastructure in NB than MB. In NB we have some difficult terrain and several major bridges that needed to be built. MB is mostly flat and good soil conditions.

Don't confuse flat with good soil conditions.

Southern Manitoba, and especially the red river valley area has probably the worst soil conditions for construction south of permafrost in the entire country.

Highly plastic clay based soils that expand and contract to varying degrees throughout the year and depending on drought or wet conditions.

We spend more on foundations here than anyone else will, full stop.

This also translates to higher road construction costs.

Blasting rock is expensive, but once you are done, your roadbed is mostly stable.

Build a road in Manitoba, and your maintenance woes are more or less instant and non stop.

[Andy6]

Yes, foundation repair businesses are household names in Winnipeg. The clay in the soil causes uneven heaving as Drew said (and knows far better than I do). It's also a very watery part of the country, so anything involving underpasses is a challenge. The amount of earthworks that had to be done to build an interchange on the bald prairie, like the 1-12 or 101-8 interchanges, is quite different from what I've seen in the Maritimes, where roads often seem to run through valleys, so that the crossing roads are already at a somewhat higher elevation to start with. Anyway, to my highly untrained eye their interchanges look sort of like they've cheated, for that reason.

The entirety of NB's excellent freeway network is only about the length of Manitoba's Highway 1, so even if MB got showered with federal cash like NB did, it wouldn't go all that far.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by drew

Don't confuse flat with good soil conditions.

Southern Manitoba, and especially the red river valley area has probably the worst soil conditions for construction south of permafrost in the entire country.

Highly plastic clay based soils that expand and contract to varying degrees throughout the year and depending on drought or wet conditions.

We spend more on foundations here than anyone else will, full stop.

This also translates to higher road construction costs.

Blasting rock is expensive, but once you are done, your roadbed is mostly stable.

Build a road in Manitoba, and your maintenance woes are more or less instant and non stop.

Dengler is learning the hard way that the land is not easy to work with just because it looks that way. Most of NE Ontario is full of problems, including fault zones.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Dengler is learning the hard way that the land is not easy to work with just because it looks that way. Most of NE Ontario is full of problems, including fault zones.

And having only not-so-high rocks and muskegs is already quite the good deal. Anyway, I’m glad to have someone as my sanity check.
Anyway, now that I’ve mapped out the route up to Sudbury (incorporating M.T.O.’s as well), I’m gonna take a break.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?m...j0&usp=sharing
Lol, beyond Sault Sainte Marie, I’m on my own...

Blasting rock is expensive, but once you are done, your roadbed is mostly stable.

@swimmer_spe, what do you think? I think that in Ontario, as long as rock blasting doesn’t bring additional issues, we’re good. B.C., on the other hand, needs to build rock catchers.
PS: What to do if blasting rocks releases radioactive uranium? Iodine pills for everyone who lives nearby?

[craner]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

The #1 is the only one that has a hole in hell or being twinned in our life time. The others are far to long / indirect / remote.

I actually feel for non urban highways when topography cost per km of highway is taken into factor the Prairie provinces do just as terrible as BC.

I believe even the QEW2 still isn’t a true full freeway (it still has some rural roads that dissect it without interchanges).

I would even say that Manitoba does even worse than BC on both rural and urban highways. Even BC’s urban areas are dissected with wide rivers with several arms, inlets, and lakes.

This is why we should have a true federal highway program.

They twinned the first 7kms into BC in Yoho Park and now have a plan for the remaining 40 (which better be done in a single phase!). Couple that with the last 5km section of Kicking Horse starting construction this year theoretically in 5 to 10 years the #1 in BC could be twinned all the way to Golden (around 75 km of highway)

I sure hope they can get that remaining 40kms through Yoho twinned in a single phase - and soon. Kind of discouraging that it still may be 10 years until twinning to Golden will be done (& no guarantee that it will). To think by 2030 the two largest cities in western Canada will still only be connected by a very substandard highway boggles my mind.

Totally agree about having a true national highways program.

With regard to Alberta’s highways, I think we have a pretty decent extent of four-lane divided highways (not freeways mind you). The network includes highways 1, 2, 3, 4, 16, 43, 63 & now 11. Of course I would like more freeway standard highways but the total kms is pretty impressive I think - certainly by western Canadian standards it is.

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by craner

Totally agree about having a true national highways program.

Pretty hard to work that politically because so much money would have to be spent in BC, and possibly northern Ontario, that the feds would then have to balance with equivalent spending in other provinces.