Hamilton Roads
 

Noticed there wasn’t really a catch all thread for roads in Hamilton, thought I would start one.

The provincial budget today announced the province will be widening highway 6 from Upper James to the 403.

I know when that highway was built 15 years ago the plan was for it to be upgraded to a freeway in the future (as shown by the full width underpasses built). I wonder if this will be a full freeway upgrade or just be building another carriageway without the interchanges like Highway 6 in Guelph?

With all the growth in air-freight and the new facilities surrounding YHM, those extra lanes will be welcome even if intersections remain. I hope they would build at least one interchange though, at Book Rd. It is the shortest path between the 403 and Dickenson Rd. (via Glancaster) and the new builds northeast of the airfield may create demand for it... the city may have to upgrade those roads as well to support the truck traffic and alleviate tensions it will create for local residents.

From the actual budget document

Also from the budget doc:

When the original HWY 6 bypass was announced, it was to be a 4 lane highway with the capacity to be widened to 6 lanes. All crossing roads where to have a bridge across the highway with on and off ramps at Book Road, Butter Road and at the entrance to the airport. A budget was set and then they took 10 years to start it. Like everything else with Hamilton, the government of the day would not give any more money to the project except what was originally budgeted for. By the way the project was started in 2001 and completed in November 2004. The Premier was Mike Harris when approved for construction. Sounds like LRT! So the highway had to fit the budget. They cancelled the bridge at Book Road and put in a level intersection on an 80 km highway (first intersection from a 100 km highway) with it controlled by traffic lights. Then they removed the ramps from Butter Road. The Airport did not get a bridge over the highway and only one ramp with just a left turn lane into the airport. And lastly they took out the other 2 lanes that were to be separated by a median.

I know the airport was pushing for the extra 2 lanes. Traffic can be heavy, even in the early morning with truck traffic to and from the airport. They would also like a ramps at the airport with a bridge and ramps at Glancaster Road to open up the west end of the airport as the east end is getting full.

Hopefully they get what they were asking for.

I remember all that. The idea got tossed around for years, sometimes touted as the first leg of a freeway into Haldimand & Norfolk (doubtful that will ever happen though, especially not before the Indigenous land rights issue is cleared up... which is also unlikely to happen anytime soon)

I think initially the argument against a fully divided highway was that airport passenger levels didn't warrant more than a super two, but with the freight business taking off it's needed, not just for volume but safety too... I've seen some close calls with cars trying to pass trucks, and I don't use that road very often.

I think MTO still plans to extend it to the Caledonia bypass at some point, but any other upgrades past that are dead more or less.

In terms of City of Hamilton Road work this summer, Hamilton will be finishing up the widening of Rymal between Fletcher and Upper Centennial this summer, and will be building the Waterdown by-pass.

Barton Street is also scheduled to get resurfaced between Parkdale and Talbot (Red Hill Valley Parkway). That one is badly needed - specifically between Talbot and Woodward, the road is in unbelievably poor condition.

The city also quietly allocated an additional $5 million to road resurfacing this year in the capital budget. The transportation department is pushing for 5 million increases each year for the foreseeable future to try and address the maintenance backlog. The city is spending about $70 million a year in road maintenance right now but needs to be spending roughly double that to maintain roads properly..

Clearly what we should be doing is expanding the urban boundary to add more roads, and not incentivizinf density on existing roads to improve the property tax base....

Or pay for it using transit money; nobody takes the bus these days. And screw the LRT... use that billion bucks on asphalt. ;)

It's unfortunate that so many people do not connect planning with finance. They're different siloes in city government, but are actually integral to each other.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7994484/o...ffic-plan/amp/

Lots of references here on Ontario's plans for highway upgrades , many impacting greater Hamilton

MTO has underinvested in the provincial highway network around Hamilton for years compared to most of the province. The 403 in Aldershot is one of the busiest 6 lane stretches of highway in the province, for example.

I think it's mostly because of the challenging terrain in Hamilton, where most of the provincial freeway network is limited by the escarpment and various water crossings. Any widening in most areas needs a lot of very expensive bridge work.

I'm not surprised they are finally starting to think about spending a bit of money in the area. My understanding is that the 403/407/QEW interchange in Burlington and the 403 east to Highway 6 is a nearer term priority for some extra lanes.

Longer term, MTO is planning to widen the Skyway again too. That'll be a fun project when it comes up. They will probably shift it to a collectors-express system, at least for over the bridge.

The 403 really needs beefing up, especially between Hwy 6 and the Freeman Interchange (which will definitely need to be upgraded as well in the near future) and west of the Linc. The gap in between is difficult -- shoehorning more lanes into the trench along Chedoke Creek would not be easy, nor would it be simple to widen the curvy portion next to Cootes Paradise. But the climb up the escarpment is probably the most difficult to engineer and would be costly.

Adding a third bridge to the Skyway will be necessary and expensive, partly because it will probably require re-alignment of Eastport Dr. (I assume that's the side a new span would fit best; there may need to be some fill in the harbour to accommodate that, especially north of the ship channel), widening the approaches and rebuilding interchanges -- at Northshore for sure, and possibly Plains/Fairview; if the widening is taken far enough, you're looking at rebuilding Woodward/Burlington St., Centennial, and RHVP connections as well. Collectors/express may make the most sense, though they could also use the middle span for HOT lanes.

I wonder if they'll take a look at widening the Linc/RHVP as an alternative to doing anything to the 403 in west Hamilton? The Linc especially gets bunged up at certain times of day.

Widening the linc/rhvp would fall on the city’s dime, unless the province hands them the money in lieu of widening the 403. Though I could see council not being enthusiastic to widening to allow for more truck traffic.

It would most likely involve the province funding and building the expansion, with city input. I believe the interchanges are up to standard, perhaps a few in the valley would need work though. There would need to be a barriered median and maybe drainage work to compensate for additional water runoff, but the new lanes would probably run within the current medians anyway.

A RHVP expansion would trigger a lot of opposition. The truck issue is another, but I believe there's still cut-through truck traffic in the lower city so more restrictions on that may be a palatable exchange (not that anyone on council except the reps for central lower city wards cares).


There's been debate for years about uploading "critical" highways that are currently municipally managed. It includes those two, the Gardiner & DVP, Windsor's E.C. Row Expressway, and maybe others but I can't think of them offhand (eastern portion of Ottawa's Queensway maybe). The Tory government would be loathe to do it, given that it was their party who downloaded many provincial highways in the first place, but that was a long time ago politically (and the PCs have carried on with the 407 East work as planned, despite it being launched under a Liberal government)

There is always the big dig option!

That's been floated too. But the cost would be enormous.

If that were to happen, they could include a conduit for the power cables that currently line the beach strip and take down those towers. A nice ancillary benefit!

Cue toll highways and lanes.

The RHVP and Linc were designed to be 6 lane highways eventually so no interchange work is really needed. It would just be installing the centre median and associated drainage and you are good to go.

If they do that they would have to do some work at the QEW interchange to make access to the westbound QEW double lane ramps as those ramps are way over capacity right now though and that would probably be a bit more expensive.

The only party to ever officially propose uploading the municipal expressways was the PCs under Tim Hudak, who proposed to upload the DVP and Gardiner and widen them (lol).

I’m not opposed to reviving the old east-west arterial road proposal from the 90’s for downtown to get truck traffic off local streets, but it would be expensive and probably quite unpopular politically. It would have extended Burlington St to the 403 via the vacant lands north of the CN corridor and a tunnel under the ridge that York St travels on to connect to the 403 near Cootes Paradise.

The report references the Garden City Skyway.
https://www.ontario.ca/page/towards-...scussion-paper