London Roads

[jammer139]

Glendon Drive "5-corners" roundabout construction update in Middlesex County.

https://www.middlesexcentre.ca/articles/glendon-drive-improvements

Construction stages presentation.

https://www.middlesex.ca/sites/default/files/documents/1208_pic1_final-compressed.pdf

[jammer139]

Two new roundabout projects in St Thomas see opening and construction on the nearby intersection requiring road closure to finish the final stage.

https://london.ctvnews.ca/as-two-roundab...-set-to-close-for-construction-1.7088681

[HuronZephyr]

Originally Posted by 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.

The city's population is supposed to increase by 50% over the next 25+ years. The city will never be ready for it due to the stumbling buffoons in city hall.

[HuronZephyr]

Originally Posted by K85

I've given up on this city and transit... and a lot of others things. I can't yet convince the family to up and move, but there are very few options available in terms of work / schooling for the kiddo

I'm looking at moving away from London for exactly these reasons. I just need an affordable place to live where there is reasonable access to medical care, shopping and other essential amenities.

The minute I find that place, I'm gone. I've lived here for 35 years, and the city has never really progressed much in that time.

[inimrepus]

Originally Posted by HuronZephyr

The city's population is supposed to increase by 50% over the next 25+ years.

It probably won't end up being growth this high, this was the expected increase using the old immigration targets which have been slashed by quite a bit.

[CanadianTalk]

The City is planning upgrades to Kilally Road from Webster Street to Clarke Road.

https://getinvolved.london.ca/kilally-infrastructure-project

Construction is expected to start in 2025 and will be completed in multiple stages, see proposed timeline below.

• Stage 1 (2025): Construction will take place from Sandford Street to Clarke Road.
• Stage 2: (2026): Construction will take place from Webster Street to Sandford Street.
• Stage 3 (2027): Construction will consist of minor cleanup work and the placing of surface asphalt.

This project includes:

• Upgrades on Kilally Road between Webster Street and Sandford Street from the current 2-lane rural road with ditches and gravel shoulders, to a 2-lane urban road with concrete curbs and gutter, bike lanes and sidewalks.
• Kilally Road between Webster Street and Clarke Road will be reconstructed as a rural cross-section with ditches, gravel shoulders and wider asphalt to accommodate on-street bike lanes.
• New watermains, sanitary and storm sewers are also an integral part of this project which will support residential development in the northeast of London.
• Sandford Street will undergo asphalt rehabilitation.

A public webinar meeting about this project will be held on November 20th.

[jammer139]

This area will see alot of new residential development in the next 10 years and the road definitely needs to be fully rebuilt. Sifton has a new subdivision called Caverhill planned on the east side of Clarke between the river and the entrance to Fanshawe Conservation area and they also purchased the farm on the SW corner at Clarke and Kilally Rd. It should include separate turn lanes at each intersecting road in the design to eliminate backups and bus stop pullouts for future bus traffic. Don't build for today but what the traffic volumes will be like 10 plus years out which will be dramatically higher then they are now. The area could see 10,000 new residents in the coming years and this will be a primary road to serve them. Time for the city planning dept to show vision and plan infrastructure accordingly.

Originally Posted by CanadianTalk

The City is planning upgrades to Kilally Road from Webster Street to Clarke Road.

https://getinvolved.london.ca/kilally-infrastructure-project

Construction is expected to start in 2025 and will be completed in multiple stages, see proposed timeline below.

• Stage 1 (2025): Construction will take place from Sandford Street to Clarke Road.
• Stage 2: (2026): Construction will take place from Webster Street to Sandford Street.
• Stage 3 (2027): Construction will consist of minor cleanup work and the placing of surface asphalt.

This project includes:

• Upgrades on Kilally Road between Webster Street and Sandford Street from the current 2-lane rural road with ditches and gravel shoulders, to a 2-lane urban road with concrete curbs and gutter, bike lanes and sidewalks.
• Kilally Road between Webster Street and Clarke Road will be reconstructed as a rural cross-section with ditches, gravel shoulders and wider asphalt to accommodate on-street bike lanes.
• New watermains, sanitary and storm sewers are also an integral part of this project which will support residential development in the northeast of London.
• Sandford Street will undergo asphalt rehabilitation.

A public webinar meeting about this project will be held on November 20th.

[jammer139]

Don't understand why York St progress has stopped between Clarence and Wellington. There is no equipment or crews on site and they have filled in all the excavation and installed new manholes and storm drains but its just gravel. Why are they waiting and wasting good weather now when they could be installing the base layer of paving and before the snow arrives?

[jammer139]

GPS data shows the congestion issues in London.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/turns-out-londons-a-world-class-city-for-traffic-congestion

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by jammer139

GPS data shows the congestion issues in London.

https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/turns-out-londons-a-world-class-city-for-traffic-congestion

the traffic around UWO has become gridlocked twice a day. My 4km drive home used to take 10 minutes; it now takes 30 minutes or more. Cars idling on Western Road....waiting for traffic to move, busses to get moving, students to stop crossing at the wrong moments.

Probably the worst traffic in the city.

Things are going to get much worse in the years to come, as our city leaders decided not to go forward with mass transit in north-west London, the part of the city that is growing much, much faster than the northeast or southeast of London (but which seemingly gets most of the upgrades and recreational facilities).

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

the traffic around UWO has become gridlocked twice a day. My 4km drive home used to take 10 minutes; it now takes 30 minutes or more. Cars idling on Western Road....waiting for traffic to move, busses to get moving, students to stop crossing at the wrong moments.

Probably the worst traffic in the city.

Things are going to get much worse in the years to come, as our city leaders decided not to go forward with mass transit in north-west London, the part of the city that is growing much, much faster than the northeast or southeast of London (but which seemingly gets most of the upgrades and recreational facilities).

Josh Morgan is a one trick pony. He is laser focused on housing, housing, housing and is doing nothing about transportation infrastructure. It's a major issue and has been for decades. It's the nature of civic politics in this area because it's easier to dither than do something disruptive and expensive. I almost think the province has to take over the transportation planning in the city as London's politicians have never wanted to make hard decisions. Building our lame diet BRT lite has people complaining, I can't imagine if we actually built real mass transit or an in city highway.

[Nintentario]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Probably the worst traffic in the city.

...for cars!

My ebike and I can get to Western/Sarnia to downtown in 13 minutes no matter the weather or traffic. It'll be safer once they put in those dedicated bike lanes along Western Rd., too.

Imagine if we built protected bike lanes from Sarnia/Hyde Park all the way across the river at Philip Aziz, and continued down Huron? So much traffic could be alleviated by folks taking a bike instead of a car.

[MolsonExport]

^yes, I bike in about half the year, but lately, since my wife also now works at UWO, and with my eldest child enrolled in his first year, I am driving more often than I would like to.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

Josh Morgan is a one trick pony. He is laser focused on housing, housing, housing and is doing nothing about transportation infrastructure. It's a major issue and has been for decades. It's the nature of civic politics in this area because it's easier to dither than do something disruptive and expensive. I almost think the province has to take over the transportation planning in the city as London's politicians have never wanted to make hard decisions. Building our lame diet BRT lite has people complaining, I can't imagine if we actually built real mass transit or an in city highway.

but it is the housing, housing, and housing that is making our roads more congested. You can't keep increasing housing/density (two things that I support, to be sure) without adapting the infrastructure to accommodate the extra people.

Mass transit? Nope.
Highways? Nope.
Double-digit tax increases? Yep.

and those high taxes are what motivate some to live outside London's municipal boundaries, further adding to vehicular traffic. (Mind you, how much can one really 'save', given the costs associated with having to drive in to work/shop, etc. Plus, living in the boonies is not for everyone. But most of my colleagues that live outside of London have stated lower property taxes as one of the primary motivators).

it is far more expensive to build fresh when the population and traffic have grown substantially.

Calgary and Edmonton (and KW) started building their mass transit when they were about London's size.

[jammer139]

City notice about reconstruction of Rectory St from Florence to Little Simcoe.

Work to be completed as part of this road reconstruction project includes:
• Removing the current road surface, curbs and gutters
• Replacing watermain, sanitary sewer, and storm sewer (see Appendix B)
• Renewing private drain connections and water services
• Adding new granular sub-layer, base granular, and asphalt
• Adding new curbs, catchbasins, and gutters
• Boulevard restoration (adding new topsoil and sod)
• New cycling infrastructure
• Tree removals

https://pub-london.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=112512

[Djeffery]

And hopefully a smoother railway crossing.

[Nintentario]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^yes, I bike in about half the year, but lately, since my wife also now works at UWO, and with my eldest child enrolled in his first year, I am driving more often than I would like to.

It's certainly worth mentioning that we need protected cycling lanes before we consider adding more large vehicle traffic. The amount of bodies a large protected bike lane network surrounding UWO could move is vastly understated. Especially if we want to have more density - people can't be required to own a car to live a good life in the city.

[CanadianTalk]

Originally Posted by CanadianTalk

The City is planning upgrades to Kilally Road from Webster Street to Clarke Road.

https://getinvolved.london.ca/kilally-infrastructure-project

Construction is expected to start in 2025 and will be completed in multiple stages, see proposed timeline below.

• Stage 1 (2025): Construction will take place from Sandford Street to Clarke Road.
• Stage 2: (2026): Construction will take place from Webster Street to Sandford Street.
• Stage 3 (2027): Construction will consist of minor cleanup work and the placing of surface asphalt.

The city held the public session on this today. They said that the main reason why they are doing this project now is to further extend the underground sewers and watermains along Kilally from Webster St all the way to Clarke Rd. If you recall, the City did a similar project along Kilally from just east of Highbury to Webster 5-ish years ago to service the new Edgevalley subdivision which was recently built-out.

This new work will allow future subdivisions to be built north and south of Kilally. It was mentioned that Sifton's Caverhill subdivision at Clarke/VMP/Kilally (that Council approved earlier this year) will be serviced by this new infrastructure.

https://getinvolved.london.ca/kilally-infrastructure-project

• Video Link



The section between Webster and Sandford will be reconstructed as an urban road with curb + gutter, sidewalks and in-boulevard cycling paths on both sides. Right now this stretch of Killaly is a narrow rural-like road.








The section between Sandford and Clarke will be rebuilt as a rural road with ditches, no sidewalks, however the pavement will be wider for on-road bike lanes.

[Snark]

Originally Posted by Nintentario

It's certainly worth mentioning that we need protected cycling lanes before we consider adding more large vehicle traffic. The amount of bodies a large protected bike lane network surrounding UWO could move is vastly understated. Especially if we want to have more density - people can't be required to own a car to live a good life in the city.

It will be interesting to see how the provincial government's apparent coming clampdown on dedicated bike facilities on streets will affect every municipality that has active transportation planning (existing and future). If it all comes to pass, large portions of every municipality's master planning will have to be rewritten (to exclude a lot of planned dedicated on-street bike facilities), and perhaps even existing facilities be removed.

I wouldn't dispute your assertion in the scenario you outline above, but the provincial position is driven by conservative political opinions and ideology, not technical considerations. You may recall that the premier's brother, when mayor of Toronto, referred to such users of bike facilities as "bike riding pinkos" (and I wouldn't be surprised if he made allusions to their sexual orientation as well under his breath). Their opinion (and solution) is for all those miscreants to be real men and get a real job and buy a real car, instead of riding your bicycle to the health store to get your vegan food on the way to the monthly meeting of the local Marxist chapter.

The pendulum of politics is swinging back to the right-wing side of the spectrum in much of the Western world. Expect more of these sorts of things, and initiatives much stronger than just blackballing bikes.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by Snark

It will be interesting to see how the provincial government's apparent coming clampdown on dedicated bike facilities on streets will affect every municipality that has active transportation planning (existing and future). If it all comes to pass, large portions of every municipality's master planning will have to be rewritten (to exclude a lot of planned dedicated on-street bike facilities), and perhaps even existing facilities be removed.

I wouldn't dispute your assertion in the scenario you outline above, but the provincial position is driven by conservative political opinions and ideology, not technical considerations. You may recall that the premier's brother, when mayor of Toronto, referred to such users of bike facilities as "bike riding pinkos" (and I wouldn't be surprised if he made allusions to their sexual orientation as well under his breath). Their opinion (and solution) is for all those miscreants to be real men and get a real job and buy a real car, instead of riding your bicycle to the health store to get your vegan food on the way to the monthly meeting of the local Marxist chapter.

The pendulum of politics is swinging back to the right-wing side of the spectrum in much of the Western world. Expect more of these sorts of things, and initiatives much stronger than just blackballing bikes.

This.

The city is at the mercy of the province so all of our multi-year master plans and budgets go the way of the Dodo when there is a policy change like this.

I think our existing bike infrastructure in London is ok, its just projects that removed a travel lane for a bike lane that at are at risk, and I don't think London did that for anything. For future projects however yes they might need to be redesigned to reflect the new provincial rules, whatever they may be.

All this flip flopping, along with the federal government's flip flop to immigration really changes London's (and other cities) plans for future growth. London should still grow fast even with reduced immigration due to all the people coming here to escape higher cost of living in places like Toronto.

So ya we have a lot of catch up to do, even if London's population stays the same for the next several years.