Highways In Canada II

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by ConundrumNL

I think your going to see road pricing become a thing out of pure necessity. As EV adoption increases, revenues from gas taxes are going to drop. A lot of that money goes into road maintenance, so the shortfall has to made up somewhere.

They 'might' be able to implement some sort of EV electric use tax at public chargers, but that would be much harder for home charging.

I've heard some US states are looking into moving to cost per mile model.

I'm not so sure of that. A lot of trends lately in North America are moving away from road tolls, not towards them. A lot of southern states (i.e. Texas) which have built a ton of toll roads in the last decade have issued decrees to stop building them, and just this week Ontario introduced legislation to "ban" new toll roads.

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I'm not so sure of that. A lot of trends lately in North America are moving away from road tolls, not towards them. A lot of southern states (i.e. Texas) which have built a ton of toll roads in the last decade have issued decrees to stop building them, and just this week Ontario introduced legislation to "ban" new toll roads.

And Nova Scotia no longer collects tolls on the Cobequid Pass section of the TCH for NS plated vehicles.

[hipster duck]

Toll roads are a good idea, but Mike Harris selling the 407 to a private consortium for $3 billion in 1999 (an independent auditor found that that was about 1/4 the fair price at the time - now multiples higher), and that private company charging drivers 33 cents per kilometer during rush hour on top of transponder fees and flat toll charges, means that toll roads are a political third rail in Ontario.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Toll roads are a good idea, but Mike Harris selling the 407 to a private consortium for $3 billion in 1999 (an independent auditor found that that was about 1/4 the fair price at the time - now multiples higher), and that private company charging drivers 33 cents per kilometer during rush hour on top of transponder fees and flat toll charges, means that toll roads are a political third rail in Ontario.

ooh man I can tell you don't drive on the 407! Tolls are now up to $0.67/km in rush hour.

The government owned part of the 407 is a lot more reasonable as there is no entry charge with a transponder and the rates are literally half (actually, 33 cents per km) of that of the private component.

The whole point of the highway has always been to be designed to be kept 100% traffic free at all times. Even before it was sold, it was advertised as being designed that way through posting toll rates to keep congestion off it. it was never going to be an I-90 with tolls set at $0.05-$0.10/km.

But yea - it's made tolls politically toxic in Ontario now as the public can't understand that tolls can be a lot more reasonable.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

And Nova Scotia no longer collects tolls on the Cobequid Pass section of the TCH for NS plated vehicles.

I believe they call it the "New Brunswick Welcome Fee" now.

Either that or the "Fuck You New Brunswick Fee."

I forget which............

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I believe they call it the "New Brunswick Welcome Fee" now.

Either that or the "Fuck You New Brunswick Fee."

I forget which............

It was great having a NS plated rental car last summer when visiting family in NB. Passed through the Cobequid toll plaza with a friendly wave and smile!

[Acajack]

I drove the Cobequid last year and never noticed there was a difference in how cars were treated at the toll plaza based on plates. Maybe I wasn't paying attention.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

ooh man I can tell you don't drive on the 407! Tolls are now up to $0.67/km in rush hour.

Yikes! Yeah, I don't drive the 407 regularly (I used to). I just went off what I saw in a 10 second check of the 407 website.

The whole point of the highway has always been to be designed to be kept 100% traffic free at all times. Even before it was sold, it was advertised as being designed that way through posting toll rates to keep congestion off it. it was never going to be an I-90 with tolls set at $0.05-$0.10/km.

Yeah, that's reasonable and I understand this. The value for a user of a toll highway that's congested rapidly approaches zero. I just think that the 407 - which is an urban expressway with urban traffic patterns/demand - poisoned the well for toll highways between cities, where we really need to get building.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I believe they call it the "New Brunswick Welcome Fee" now.

Either that or the "Fuck You New Brunswick Fee."

I forget which............

I think the official term is actually The NB & PEI Welcome Fee but close.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I believe they call it the "New Brunswick Welcome Fee" now.

Either that or the "Fuck You New Brunswick Fee."

I forget which............

Many people say the Atlantic provinces are the most welcoming but I tend to disagree. Especially when NS is punishing people for visiting. And I'm still angry at how the Atlantic provinces treated other Canadians during Covid. I had absolutely no trouble travelling in the Western provinces during that time but would have actually gone East if I could have so it's their loss.

Next time I'm in NS I may take the old non-tolled highway lol.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Loco101

Many people say the Atlantic provinces are the most welcoming but I tend to disagree. Especially when NS is punishing people for visiting. And I'm still angry at how the Atlantic provinces treated other Canadians during Covid. I had absolutely no trouble travelling in the Western provinces during that time but would have actually gone East if I could have so it's their loss.

Next time I'm in NS I may take the old non-tolled highway lol.

I always take the old route if I'm not in a hurry and the weather isn't bad, especially in the daytime. It only adds about 10km but is more scenic and more interesting imo.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

If Toronto were an American city, what we'd have is a 10 lane interstate Gardiner Expressway that cuts through downtown and exits out to the east along roughly the Scarborough expressway (along Lake Ontario) alignment, and another 10 lane 401-type highway a bit further north of where the 401 is today. There would also be a lot more freeways cutting straight down to the Gardiner, lessening the 401's need to serve as a portion for certain trips (for example, the 401 is very wide between the 403/410 and 427 because everyone coming from Brampton and the northern half of Mississauga and going downtown has to thread through this section of the 401).

Spadina Expressway would have been built which would have cut the Annex in two and destroyed Kensington Market.

The rejection of Spadina represented a sort of "un-American" turn. In the 1950s/1960s you had a sort of "Midwestern city catch-up." This was the orientation of Metro Council (fittingly two expressways are named after the first two Metro chairmen, Gardiner and Allen). But the Annex had a significant progressive middle class element and you had reformers on council. Premier Bill Davis made a historically important decision to reject it.

[Nouvellecosse]

The US also has that trend as well in some of the more vibrant and urban cities. SF is perhaps most famous for its freeway fights but there were also other like the NYC vs Moses battles too. In fact, Jacobs, a key figure in Toronto'a freeway fight was also central in opposing Moses in NYC. So it's very much in keeping with the US template for a larger and more urban city to have more freeway capacity than Europe but fewer freeways than the most extreme US examples. But much less common to see smaller cities like Winnipeg that have so few.

[Spocket]

No. I'm sick of everybody's go-to plan being, "tax us more!" We have a situation right now where the middle-class is being decimated. Homes are well outside of reach for young people. Grocery prices are out of control. Cost of living is through the roof. But people always think that their pet desires are the individual things that we should all pay extra for because, "just think of the benefits!"

You know what we should do if we want to see more highways built and maintained properly? Tax the wealthy bastards bending us over a barrel. They've been getting a 40+ year tax break: they can pay their share for a change so that instead of adding a tip option on self-checkouts, they pay for the roads they leave for us to manage.

Until I hear about our plan to place some tax burden on those freeloaders, I will never entertain any notions of tolled highways or tolls on any other public service.

[Innsertnamehere]

There were freeway fights all over the US and basically every US state has a litany of cancelled urban expressways, even Detroit. They just managed to get a lot more urban expressways built before it become politically unpalatable. A lot of states are still building new urban interstates too (California, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, etc).

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

There were freeway fights all over the US and basically every US state has a litany of cancelled urban expressways, even Detroit. They just managed to get a lot more urban expressways built before it become politically unpalatable. A lot of states are still building new urban interstates too (California, Louisiana, Texas, Florida, etc).

I asked my colleague who used to study in Berkeley how CalTran managed to plow SR-58 (future I-40) through a built up part of Bakersfield in 2017. He said that inland empire’s poorer so that CalTran can get away with that.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Field area has shales that further complicate construction of any kind, aside from the high mountains. (Sorry I forgot to mention that in my earlier post.)
I wonder if Chase has similar complicating factors.

Geology absolutely matters. This is also why grade-separating TCH through Manitoba will be costly business (due to poor drainage), especially within Red River Valley (which includes Winnipeg). I suspect that twinning TCH in the shieldy part of eastern Manitoba will come out cheaper than grade-separating Winnipeg Perimeter Highway.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for an interstate standard TCH across the country, but sometimes stuff costs more than it seems to cost prima facie.

That said, it bugs me that, when MTQ was building A-50, even where deep rock cuts were needed, it only built 2 lanes instead of all 4.
The additional cost incurred from additional blasting shouldn’t be that much. Maybe it would have cost more labour trying to conceive the cut for 4 lanes instead of 2? (MTQ’s big on getting the cut slope right for rock cuts.)

I drove it this past weekend and thought of this post.

All along the super-2 sections they have built double overpasses to accommodate the second carriageway when the highway is eventually widened. But geez in some places they cut it so close with the rock formations, like here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.6250...8192?entry=ttu

I am not an engineer but I have to wonder when the time comes to blast that rock out of there that there won't be a risk to the structural integrity of the overpass. It's really, really close.

There are a few places along the A-50 that are like this.

I don't understand why they didn't at least blast a little bit more the first time.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I drove it this past weekend and thought of this post.

All along the super-2 sections they have built double overpasses to accommodate the second carriageway when the highway is eventually widened. But geez in some places they cut it so close with the rock formations, like here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.6250...8192?entry=ttu

I am not an engineer but I have to wonder when the time comes to blast that rock out of there that there won't be a risk to the structural integrity of the overpass. It's really, really close.

There are a few places along the A-50 that are like this.

I don't understand why they didn't at least blast a little bit more the first time.

You put little mats over the blasting area to keep the rubble from flying everywhere. It's a pretty straightforward process to do blasting.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

You put little mats over the blasting area to keep the rubble from flying everywhere. It's a pretty straightforward process to do blasting.

I know, but the vibration and ground waves don't pose a risk to nearby structures?

[Innsertnamehere]

Explosives used in blasting aren't that strong from my understanding. It's usually small "slots" with rudimentary dynamite sticks dropped in to cause the rock to fracture and enable it to be broken up. They aren't blowing it to smithereens or anything.