Quote:
Originally Posted by Simpseatles
As for the London roads,(better stay on topic, or Haljackey will freak!  ) while I would like to see more growth, I'm happy that we don't have 6 lane arteries, wide freeways and unparraleled sprawl like in the G.T.A. That's what turns me off about Toronto, because as dense, and urban is it's downtown areas are, the vast majority of the areas, even within the city itself, are suburban. And of course once you get past those your into the first round of suburban cities (Mississauge, Brampton) and then your into the newest boomburbs like Milton, or Barrie. It's really quite maddening! |
lol! With so many threads in this local section, staying on-topic should be fairly easy but we all get carried away.
About 6 lane roads... the only one I could see is Wellington between Base Line and the 401. Many sections of it already have 3 lanes (6 lanes between Base line and Commissioners, 3 southbound lanes from Southdale to Bradley, 3 southbound lanes from Exeter to Wilton Grove) so making it a complete 6 lane facility shouldn't be too much trouble.
-The only other 6 lane artery I see for the short-to-mid term is some sections of Oxford street.
Unlike cities like K-W which channel traffic through just a few corridors (like King Street in Kitchener), London has more of a grid pattern which means there are more ways to get from A to B. That's one of the main reasons why we don't have a lot of wide roads.
I really don't like to call Toronto/GTA a mess of sprawl and freeways because the region is actually 2.5x denser than other cities in North America with a comparable size. In addition, Toronto's freeway network is actually quite minimalist, but I like their strategy of having a few mega-freeways to handle capacity rather than criss-cross the city with many smaller ones. If Toronto and the MTO focused on upgrading the major interchanges they would get a lot more capacity out of these routes than widening them further.
I still think London could have feared better with a freeway in the east end. It would help reduce the amount of freight trucks using the surface streets (like Highbury) and make our industrial areas more economically attractive by having a direct connection to the 401. The VMP might be the answer for this if it is actually upgraded to a freeway but I think it's too late and too far away from the industrial complexes. A freeway would also help residents in booming north London get off city streets by using it to channel cars to the 401. Roads like Richmond, Highbury and Wellington would see a noticable reduction in traffic if we built a freeway.
Threaded Mode