London Roads

[Mick42]

Originally Posted by haljackey

I wonder what the cost/challenges would be to deviate the BRT from Richmond to Talbot and widen/deepen the famous Talbot Street Underpass- it would then use Oxford to Wharncliffe towards Western and Masonville.

Heck you could even omit a rail crossing if you had the BRT connect between Oxford's Thames River bridge and CP underpass where The Belfort Night Club is. That might require some expropriation, but likely cheaper. It's tight, but doable for a BRT-Only Road. Heck, that also bypasses the mixed traffic on Wharncliffe route so you could get the west line going on Oxford to Wonderland.

Could even have Talbot cut through the north parking lots of the Night Club and neighbouring buildings. Not sure how close it could run alongside the track, it would be tight.

[jammer139]

Prep work to replace the sewers on York St between Clarence and Wellington to start.


https://london.ctvnews.ca/prep-work-underway-for-york-street-construction-1.6874638

[jammer139]

Road Closure of Highbury Ave for maintenance and litter clean-up.
May 15th 6:30am to 3pm


Hopefully they put up some signs to educate people about littering. Highbury and VMP are both garbage dumps for idiots who toss out their fast food containers our their vehicle windows.



https://london.ca/newsroom/public-servic...re-highbury-avenue-between-hamilton-road

[Djeffery]

I don't get why Highbury has to be fully closed for this while VMP gets by with single lane closures each direction for the same type of work.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

I don't get why Highbury has to be fully closed for this while VMP gets by with single lane closures each direction for the same type of work.

Probably easier and safer to do this work on the VMP vs Highbury. Also speeds would be lower. Working around on/off ramp terminals would be more dangerous with vehicles vs intersections, for example.

At least we're not like Toronto which closes the DVP & Gardiner for entire weekends for maintenance/cleanup. Heck the elevated section of the Gardiner is basically closed for the next 7 years due to desperately needed repairs and is chronically congested due to the necessary lane closures.

-----

Speaking of Highbury, avoid the Oxford intersection if you can due to BRT construction. Traffic is being routed to different spots almost weekly so it's hard to adapt. Of course that leads to merging problems with drivers not following the ~one dozen zipper merge signs posted all around it.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by jammer139

Road Closure of Highbury Ave for maintenance and litter clean-up.
May 15th 6:30am to 3pm


Hopefully they put up some signs to educate people about littering. Highbury and VMP are both garbage dumps for idiots who toss out their fast food containers our their vehicle windows.



https://london.ca/newsroom/public-servic...re-highbury-avenue-between-hamilton-road

Tim Hortons would be completely bankrupt if they were forced to clean up the trash that their customers leave everywhere. Worst of the worst, followed by McDonald's, Bud Light...

[jammer139]

CBC article on road projects.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/here-are-london-s-summer-construction-hotspots-1.7206382

[haljackey]

CAA worst roads 2024

https://www.caasco.com/advocacy/worst-roads/2024-results

London missed the top 10 in the province, but we did get 3 out of the 5 worst in 'western' Ontario



Includes Brant, Huron, Middlesex, Norfolk, Oxford, Perth County, the Waterloo Region and more.

1 York Road Guelph
2 Adelaide Street North London
3 York Street London
4 Ira Needles Boulevard Waterloo
5 Adelaide Street South London

At least there's plans to rebuild these roads in the next bit. Adelaide underpass will transition to some resurfacing/rebuilds north and south of it next, and York Street is getting a new coat of asphalt where the sewer separation projects are underway.

[CanadianTalk]

Some good news for people that often get stuck behind left-turning vehicles heading westbound along Oxford at Quebec...

At the last meeting, council approved a partial property acquisition for the properties at the S/E corner of Oxford and Quebec to accomodate a left turn lane at Oxford and Quebec and the addition of bike lanes on Quebec Street.

This will take place when that stretch of Oxford is scheduled to get rehabilitated which according to the budget document is in 2026.



https://pub-london.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=108929

[Djeffery]

That will be extremely good to see. And hopefully not too long after, they can figure out a way to extend the left at Adelaide as well, as that lane is pretty short and narrow. You get 2 vehicles larger than a Prius making a left and it constricts the adjacent WB lane.

[jammer139]

Typical short sightedness on the part of our expert city planners. Why they didn't get this done last year when they rebuilt Quebec St and shutdown this intersection to rebuild it is beyond belief. They will rebuild the intersection once again and waste taxpayers dollars and cause delays. City Hall needs to do better!


And the bill to taxpayers is over $2M. Is it any wonder property tax increases are over 8% when City Administration continues to fail this badly over and over again.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by jammer139

Typical short sightedness on the part of our expert city planners. Why they didn't get this done last year when they rebuilt Quebec St and shutdown this intersection to rebuild it is beyond belief. They will rebuild the intersection once again and waste taxpayers dollars and cause delays. City Hall needs to do better!


And the bill to taxpayers is over $2M. Is it any wonder property tax increases are over 8% when City Administration continues to fail this badly over and over again.

Municipal politics is messy, and we all know London is probably worse than average for this kind of thing. Typical.

At least it's planned to be incorporated with a Oxford Street East rebuild. The road is in pretty rough shape, and needs a resurfacing at minimum. A left turn lane to the Timmies/Nissan dealership a little further east of Quebec would also be a blessing and it looks like there is room to do it easily. Maybe that could be part of the project too... but knowing better it probably won't be a thing.

---

The 2 lane rebuild currently underway for Colonel Talbot between Lambeth and Southdale is also getting a ton of flak from residents. With all the new high rises and other developments constantly getting proposed for this area, the city has squandered an opportunity to actually build adequate infrastructure to serve these new builds. Widening to 4 lanes will mean another project that needs to be proposed, planned, approved, and actually built, costing more money and time than it needed to.

[jammer139]

A number of years ago Foxwood apparently purchased a number of the homes just east of the former bank along the south side of Oxford St in what I suspect is a land assembly move. Whether they also purchased the old bank or not or tried who knows. If they also purchase the homes immediately south of the bank down to the vacant Sunripe store they could potentially redevelop the entire SE corner. Hopefully they would demolish the old bank building and the city would claim an easement to install a new right turn lane off of Adelaide onto east bound Oxford and similarly extend the southbound left turn lane off Oxford onto Adelaide. Southside Construction also recently purchased the NW corner retail plaza. Also an ideal location for redevelopment with high rise residential and ground floor retail commercial.



Would love to see the SE corner redeveloped and the intersection expanded as a bonus. It would be a WIN WIN for the whole city. Of course the local NIMBY's and so called heritage folks would want the old bank saved as some kind of monument to history.

Originally Posted by Djeffery

That will be extremely good to see. And hopefully not too long after, they can figure out a way to extend the left at Adelaide as well, as that lane is pretty short and narrow. You get 2 vehicles larger than a Prius making a left and it constricts the adjacent WB lane.

[Snark]

Originally Posted by jammer139

Typical short sightedness on the part of our expert city planners. Why they didn't get this done last year when they rebuilt Quebec St and shutdown this intersection to rebuild it is beyond belief. They will rebuild the intersection once again and waste taxpayers dollars and cause delays. City Hall needs to do better!

And the bill to taxpayers is over $2M. Is it any wonder property tax increases are over 8% when City Administration continues to fail this badly over and over again.

Why don't you get a job at the City and straighten out these people with your "expertise"? After all, I'm sure that you simply need to get in there, kick a few asses, apply some simple common sense, bark out some orders, and all will become excellent. It happens like that in countless movies I've seen over the years and it works every time! You seem to have all of the wisdom, and a keen grasp of the 50, 70, or 100 or so moving pieces that are interlocked together in work such as this. I'm sure you have expertise in engineering design, master planning, transportation engineering, hydraulics, project management, business planning, interagency coordination, budgeting, urban planning and staging of development, infrastructure network condition assessment and prioritization, and oh ya one more thing: the proven ability to manage and coordinate dozens or hundreds of highly skilled workers concurrently performing hundreds of individual complex tasks within an overall annual budget envelope of $100 million+. Your expertise in these fields will surely see the municipality out of the wilderness and into the promised land.

[MolsonExport]

I live in Hyde Park. We have been waiting for the extension/completion of Coronation Drive for about 10 years now. The farm that was blocking the extension is gone (between South Carriage Way/Road and Gainsborough). There is a city proposal sign indicating that the city planners are soliciting feedback.

And yet, the city just rebuilt the sidewalk on Gainsborough, right where the extension should go, and put traffic lights right in the centre (the lights are still bagged, now for three months). If the extension goes through, they would have to tear this up.

Does anyone know why the city elected to go this way? Would love to know what is happening here.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I live in Hyde Park. We have been waiting for the extension/completion of Coronation Drive for about 10 years now. The farm that was blocking the extension is gone (between South Carriage Way/Road and Gainsborough). There is a city proposal sign indicating that the city planners are soliciting feedback.

And yet, the city just rebuilt the sidewalk on Gainsborough, right where the extension should go, and put traffic lights right in the centre (the lights are still bagged, now for three months). If the extension goes through, they would have to tear this up.

Does anyone know why the city elected to go this way? Would love to know what is happening here.

I'd assume it's another project that was deferred due to budget issues / cost overruns for projects like BRT, along with others like the Wharncliffe CN underpass. So a sidewalk here would provide some interim use until it finally gets underway XYZ years from now.

You could ask the ward councilor or city what's up for more deets too.

[Djeffery]

Isn't there a 2 building complex recently approved for adjacent to that roadway extension? Maybe as part of the servicing for those buildings, Coronation will be built through that field? I mean, if those buildings ever get built, we've talked about that site since I've been on this page lol.

[MolsonExport]

It just doesn't make sense to me to spend all the money refurbishing the intersection and installing lights, when it is only going to be temporary.

Maybe, as posited by Haljackey, it was deferred by a few years, and the work was deemed necessary to comply with accessibility regulations?

[MolsonExport]

the latest info I could find was from 2022: https://london.ca/sites/default/files/20...sborough%20February%2024%202022_AODA.pdf

Personally, I can't wait for this to get done, as the amount of traffic needlessly routed down side streets is getting ridiculous (traffic that could otherwise be directed towards higher volume capacity roads like Gainsborough). The traffic circle at Hyde Park Road and South Carriage Road/Way is like a pinball machine...horrible for pedestrians.

[PeteM]

Matt Brown was trying to further his political career by aligning with local MPPs on changing the initial LRT plan. It should come as no surprise that he was only thinking of himself and didn't care about the city. And thus a transformative project died

And so it went, goes and will go forever in London. I've made peace with the fact that I'll never be proud or excited by anything this city does with infrastructure. I focus on things like Sunfest, greenspace, etc.