Quote:
Originally Posted by LikeHamilton
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. 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 exit at Airport Road did not get a bridge over the highway and only one ramp with just a left turn lane into the airport. It just received a traffic light at the exit to Airport Road. And lastly they took out the other 2 lanes that were to be separated by a median.
As to traffic, at certain times of the day it is bumper to bumper. At 3 to 8 in the morning it is a long line of trucks coming from the airport. As to trucks going there, they have had to close off part of the south end of the parking lot to build a controlled staging area to corral and control all of the trucks coming into the airport.
They need the bridge at Book Road because the heavy trucks slow down for the light there, take a long time to regain their speed. This causes long lines of traffic to form behind them and sometime very impatient people will try and pass them. There have been a few head on accidents on this stretch of road.
I know the airport has been pushing for the two extra bridges, Airport and Book Road with interchanges at Book Road, Airport Road and one at Glancaster Road. This last one would help open up the southwest end of the airport to freight traffic. All of the land at this end of the airport is being swallowed up by developers.
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I'd think if they do any interchanges it would just be two to start -- Book and the airport access road. Glancaster seems like it would be too close, and Butter may make sense (to me it would be Butter or Glancaster, not both) but I'm not sure the traffic volumes would warrant a third until we see development on the land southwest of the airfield.
If a Book Rd. interchange happens, I wonder if the city would extend Dickenson to connect directly, rather than keeping that awkward jog north on Glancaster with the sharp turn at Book?
I also wonder when it would make sense to have ramps on/off Hwy 6 at Garner on the south side, given the industrial/commercial development that will be happening and its need for better airport access. One could argue the local roads provide enough, but that traffic may be a nuisance to residents.
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