[St. John's] Transport development (Highways, Airport, and Public Transit)

[rthomasd]

Don't know about paving work, but all this bridge work could easily be done off-hours. If you've travelled out past Soldier's Pond this summer you've noticed that those sites are working 24 hours a day and they certainly didn't have any trouble finding lighting, it's brighter than daylight there. These lighting trucks wouldn't appear to be expensive, it's only a generator with a jack-up pole with a few lights. One would be enough for a bridge project so can't see how that would add much to the cost of a bridge project.

The minister also said on the radio this morning that the Team Gushue Highway Extension would be done in a year or year and a half, and we know that's impossible given the amount of work that remains. Still haven't tendered Blackmarsh Rd, Topsail Rd (2), Brookfield Rd (2) so that looks like another three or four years work.

[goodgrowth]

Even if they just avoided work during rush hour it would be an improvement. (ie start 8:30am and end 3:30pm)

[J_Murphy]

Originally Posted by goodgrowth

Even if they just avoided work during rush hour it would be an improvement. (ie start 8:30am and end 3:30pm)

Take out time for breaks, and then you are really only getting six hours of good work. With our relatively short construction season, and accounting for days with bad weather, this would just prolong the projects over a greater period of time.

[goodgrowth]

Originally Posted by J_Murphy

Take out time for breaks, and then you are really only getting six hours of good work. With our relatively short construction season, and accounting for days with bad weather, this would just prolong the projects over a greater period of time.

Yeah but how much work can they get done while all that traffic is trying to get through the construction zone anyway?...they are probably held up just by waiting for all the cars to go by

Either way it seems insane for the both the workers and drivers to have road construction during rush hour.

The night-time solution seems like it would be the best though...

[goodgrowth]

Looks like Team Gushue Highway won't be completed for another 2 years...

http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...hway-project/1

[delesseps]

Originally Posted by goodgrowth

Looks like Team Gushue Highway won't be completed for another 2 years...

http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...hway-project/1

I don't know if it would speed up construction, but in the interest of protecting what little farmland there is in St. John's and limiting further sprawl in the Southlands and Goulds, the TGH should stop at Topsail Road. Building highways is an expensive way to manage traffic congestion, and the City of St. John's should never have agreed to a new urban freeway.

[BigRedSpecial]

Agreed. Instead they're building a highway right to Bay Bulls. The sprawl is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

[rthomasd]

Originally Posted by goodgrowth

Looks like Team Gushue Highway won't be completed for another 2 years...

http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...hway-project/1

I'd love to see the schedule that says only 2 years to finish it. They don't work if it's too hot (july), too rainy (sept) or winter (nov-apr) if this past year is to go by.

It looks more like 4 more years to me. I wish'd the Telegram reporter would have challenged the Minister on the impossibility of a two year estimate.

[PoscStudent]

CBS mayor Ken McDonald is supporting Doc's idea for a regional transportation board. This is sorely needed and I think transportation is probably the best place for the municipalities to start working together co-operatively. With a premier and transportation minister representing the metro area it also might be easier to get provincial support. While the mayors seem to only be thinking about planning for construction it will hopefully evolve from that.

I was wondering if people, particularly in CBS, Paradise and Mount Pearl, would be anymore likely to use light rail transit over an expanded metro bus service. Without designated bus lanes, metro bus will take forever. I did some quick research and saw that there are cities in the US that are smaller and of similar size to the St. John's metro area that have light rail transit. Some have had it for years while some cities have only had it a few years. A route going through CBS, Paradise, Mount Pearl and into downtown St. John's could be interesting.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by PoscStudent

CBS mayor Ken McDonald is supporting Doc's idea for a regional transportation board. This is sorely needed and I think transportation is probably the best place for the municipalities to start working together co-operatively. With a premier and transportation minister representing the metro area it also might be easier to get provincial support. While the mayors seem to only be thinking about planning for construction it will hopefully evolve from that.

I was wondering if people, particularly in CBS, Paradise and Mount Pearl, would be anymore likely to use light rail transit over an expanded metro bus service. Without designated bus lanes, metro bus will take forever. I did some quick research and saw that there are cities in the US that are smaller and of similar size to the St. John's metro area that have light rail transit. Some have had it for years while some cities have only had it a few years. A route going through CBS, Paradise, Mount Pearl and into downtown St. John's could be interesting.

Light rail would definitely be a great idea as long as you can convince them to ditch their cars. I'd be more than happy to do that if it meant not having to sit in traffic for an hour every morning. Buses won't work without bus lanes, like you said. I've sat on the express morning route from the west end to MUN before, and there's nothing express about it minus the lack of stops. But you're still stuck moving 20 on the crosstown.

Regional transport board is definitely the way to go. The traffic problems are everyone's problem, and it'll take a joint effort to fix it. However, just wait....Mount Pearl won't want anything to do with this. Co-operation isn't in their vocabulary.

[PoscStudent]

One of the problems is that when the current construction on some roads stop people will see less of an issue with congestion, and will forget that it's going to get worse.

I would imagine that once people get in the habit of it they'd be fine. I would imagine a lot of people would feel safer using light rail during the winter.

[delesseps]

Originally Posted by PoscStudent

CBS mayor Ken McDonald is supporting Doc's idea for a regional transportation board. This is sorely needed and I think transportation is probably the best place for the municipalities to start working together co-operatively. With a premier and transportation minister representing the metro area it also might be easier to get provincial support. While the mayors seem to only be thinking about planning for construction it will hopefully evolve from that.

McDonald wants an equal voice for each municipality, which will kill the idea. Without representation by population, the City of St. John's would be mad to give the board any decision-making powers.

[jjavman]

Originally Posted by goodgrowth

Looks like Team Gushue Highway won't be completed for another 2 years...

http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...hway-project/1

This is a travesty and no one seems to ask any hard questions on it. Another 2 Years? I would like to know why no bridge work was done this year at all (not counting those left from last year). The whole construction season was lost for whatever reason. Something else I guess that McGrath dropped the ball on.

The reason given about the permits appears lame to me. They've had 5 years to get those cleared.
I have seen 4 lane overpasses finished in the US in 3 months. Why do construction projects in NL take longer than anywhere else?

For that matter, I still do not understand why the twinning of the TCH ended at Whitbourne. Peckford sold the railway for it; yet NS & NB did not and still benefited from Federal money to get their roads twinned!

[J_Murphy]

http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...-to-streets/1#

St. John’s Coun. Dave Lane admits he does not take the bus much these days now that he lives and works downtown, making most of his destinations walkable.

However, improved public transit has been one of his top priorities since he was elected last fall as a councillor-at-large. On Saturday, Lane joined a friend on a bus ride to the Avalon Mall and live-tweeted the experience through his Twitter account to get a conversation started on public transit in the St. John’s metro area.

“I know a lot of people really care about public transit, and I think it’s important that people know their elected officials care about it, too,” said Lane, who took the bus regularly as a student attending Memorial University.

“The more we talk about it and the more we provide solutions and ideas, the better we’ll be, because transportation is the lifeblood of a city. I think if we have a poor transit system, we’re not really a welcoming city.”

In this case, nice weather Saturday, combined with a relatively low volume of traffic, made the ride fairly routine. However, it did bring concerns he’s heard about the need for more direct routes.

“What I will say about it, though, is that it was a very long and circuitous route. I took it from downtown and it went right through Pleasantville, and after (that) MUN, and then it made its way to the mall. That’s one of the complaints that some people have, is that there aren’t enough express routes.”

Such routes would target high-density areas — educational institutions, shopping destinations and places where lots of people work.

“If we had express routes exclusively going to key points at those locations and increased the number of buses, I think that would make a huge difference, and it would make it easier for people to integrate the bus into their lives instead of having to take a taxi.”

Ideally, Lane says, the bus service should cater to the needs of students and seniors who otherwise might not have the income to own a vehicle. He notes that many new students who cannot afford accommodations in St. John’s are moving to places such as Paradise and Conception Bay South. Neither community has public transportation.

“Students and seniors really need another option, and transit can help them with that,” he said, highlighting as a good move Metrobus’s introduction this year of a community bus to pick up seniors from apartment buildings and assisted living complexes.

On the student front, Lane likes the idea of offering a U-pass paid for as part of their enrolment in a post-secondary institution.

“Metrobus is exploring the

U-pass,” he said. “I think it would be great if other municipalities in the region teamed up on that particular issue, because we need a regional solution on this.”

Lane has been impressed by improvements to the GoBus accessible transit system, making special mention of the new smart card system that offers discounts based on frequency of use.

Beyond Saturday’s ride, Lane hopes to live-tweet a winter bus trip.

“I’ll definitely be taking the bus more often, and not necessarily because I have to. ... Just so I can feel the pain of those who use it, and I think that will not only spread the word, but help encourage me to do even more work to try and see some improvements.”

[delesseps]

Originally Posted by J_Murphy

http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...-to-streets/1#

Route 2 is an odd choice for Lane, since it overlaps with Route 10 and Route 15 Downtown and provides a reasonably direct route from Pleasantville to either mall. Route 10 is a better example. Sending Route 10 directly along Freshwater Road to the Avalon Mall and on to Thorburn Road would knock 15-20 min off of a trip from Downtown or Rabbittown to Kelsey Drive. I'd rather have that and restore Route 17 between downtown and MUN during peak times on weekdays than have Route 10 run every 15 minutes in the afternoon. It's not like there aren't plenty of other buses to take people from MUN or the HSC to the Avalon Mall for connections. The other four routes are normally a lot less crowded than Route 10, too.

[rthomasd]

Originally Posted by jjavman

This is a travesty and no one seems to ask any hard questions on it. Another 2 Years? I would like to know why no bridge work was done this year at all (not counting those left from last year). The whole construction season was lost for whatever reason. Something else I guess that McGrath dropped the ball on.

The reason given about the permits appears lame to me. They've had 5 years to get those cleared.
I have seen 4 lane overpasses finished in the US in 3 months. Why do construction projects in NL take longer than anywhere else?

For that matter, I still do not understand why the twinning of the TCH ended at Whitbourne. Peckford sold the railway for it; yet NS & NB did not and still benefited from Federal money to get their roads twinned!

I"ve been watching the City Council Meeting, and there's some interesting information.

Seems most of the city councillors ( and especially the mayor) are opposed to opening any portion of the TGH extension without changes to the fiscal maintenance agreement, even though they pushed hard for it knowing the costs. Also, I find the estimated snowclearing cost at $1M to be way out of line.
That would be almost 10% of the city's entire snowclearing cost for just one 7 Km road, unbelievable!

Also, mention was made that they will be installing a round-about at Blackmarsh, Capt. Whelan, Redmond's Rd. That's the first I've heard of that.

So, perhaps some of the delay in this highway's construction lies at the feet of the mayor.

[jjavman]

Originally Posted by rthomasd

I"ve been watching the City Council Meeting, and there's some interesting information.

Seems most of the city councillors ( and especially the mayor) are opposed to opening any portion of the TGH extension without changes to the fiscal maintenance agreement, even though they pushed hard for it knowing the costs. Also, I find the estimated snowclearing cost at $1M to be way out of line.
That would be almost 10% of the city's entire snowclearing cost for just one 7 Km road, unbelievable!

Also, mention was made that they will be installing a round-about at Blackmarsh, Capt. Whelan, Redmond's Rd. That's the first I've heard of that.

So, perhaps some of the delay in this highway's construction lies at the feet of the mayor.

It is interesting info, but I doubt that Doc & crew could hold up what is a Fed/Prov. endeavour, given that the province won't even respond to pleas about fair pay on the maintenance issue.

[Horsell]

I caught a few seconds of an interview of Councilor Hickman on the radio yesterday calling for the Provincial Government to speed up completion of whatever parts of the Team Gushue Highway it can.

I didn’t catch everything he said but I think he was calling on them to at least connect in as far as Cowan Heights at Captain Whalen Dr. I have to agree with him on this and don’t understand why it hasn’t been done already.

The three interchanges / overpasses that are nearing completion should be ready by the end of this season so why not start laying pavement in May of 2015. There is no need to wait on the Blackmarsh Rd overpass, which at the rate they are going will be at least two more years. Most of the benefit right now will probably come from opening access to Cowan Heights. Let the folks in Mount Pearl wait a little longer, seeing as how they don’t want to pay for anything.

[rthomasd]

Originally Posted by Horsell

I caught a few seconds of an interview of Councilor Hickman on the radio yesterday calling for the Provincial Government to speed up completion of whatever parts of the Team Gushue Highway it can.

I didn’t catch everything he said but I think he was calling on them to at least connect in as far as Cowan Heights at Captain Whalen Dr. I have to agree with him on this and don’t understand why it hasn’t been done already.

The three interchanges / overpasses that are nearing completion should be ready by the end of this season so why not start laying pavement in May of 2015. There is no need to wait on the Blackmarsh Rd overpass, which at the rate they are going will be at least two more years. Most of the benefit right now will probably come from opening access to Cowan Heights. Let the folks in Mount Pearl wait a little longer, seeing as how they don’t want to pay for anything.

It would be GREAT to have the section open to Cowan Heights, but I don't think that's going to happen soon. There's a lot of work to be done on the ramps for the Redmond's Rd connector, and there's been no talk of how that area will tie into the Blackmarsh/Empire area and the mayor & councillors say no to any part opening till they get a change in the Provincial / City Fiscal transfers.

Also, the two underpasses being done by pennecon aren't finished and won't be finished this season, I don't believe they've poured the deck for the Old Pennywell Rd one yet and it seems to take six months after they've done that to finish the other parts, abutment, siderails, the "year" section, etc.

So, you won't see anything open next summer.

[J_Murphy]

Canadian leisure carrier Air Transat is to serve Newfoundland from the UK for the first time.

A new service from Gatwick to St John’s is being introduced as part of the airline’s summer 2015 schedule.

The twice-weekly service, which has one of the shortest routes across the Atlantic with a flying time of just over six hours, will operate from June 23 until September 2 operated by a Boeing 737-800.

Flights will continue on to Halifax in Nova Scotia, doubling frequency to the city which has previously been served weekly.

The flights will depart from Gatwick every Tuesday and Thursday, and return from Halifax and St John’s on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Air Transat is also increasing frequencies on other routes from Gatwick to Canada next summer, with a second weekly service to Montreal and an additional flight to Toronto, taking frequency to 10 flights a week.

The airline flies year-round from Gatwick, Manchester and Glasgow to Toronto, and from Gatwick to Calgary and Vancouver.

http://www.travelweekly.co.uk/Articl...xt+summer.html