Highways in Canada

[wave46]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

What they should do is upgrade the sections near towns and the busy areas to 4 lanes. Then connect them with 4 lanes. Those quieter places, add passing lanes more often.

Again, divided highways are not just for traffic volume, but traffic safety. Drive in a whiteout on a 2 lane and then on a 4 lane. You tell me which feels safer to you.

I know which feels safer. I've driven the highways I've mentioned, along with other smaller 2-lane highways in Northern Ontario, such as highway 144.

Overall, I agree with you, but the pragmatic realities of spending billions of dollars on highways few people will use is hard to justify. I imagine the MTO looks at where the accidents are happening and hopefully is improving those stretches. If I had one area to improve upon, I would strongly advocate for more passing lanes on highway 11 between North Bay and New Liskeard because of the hilly nature of the terrain and the truck traffic. A center divider in those areas would be appreciated where it could be reasonably implemented so that it would prevent foolish passing or cross over accidents.

[eternallyme]

Another factor is the perception of unfairness. If rural regions are seen getting nothing while big cities get huge transit upgrades, it could exacerbate resentment among rural regions (and Western Canada as a whole potentially as well, like in the 1970s and 1980s), and result in alienation and separatist movements - either to form other provinces or other countries. We are seeing it elsewhere in the world with Brexit, Trump, Wilders, Le Pen, etc.

[FFX-ME]

Twinning the 17, at least from Soo and Ottawan and MB to Thunder bay would be great. Too many people go through the US when travelling across Canada. This would make the Canadian route more attractive and support industries along the way by giving tourism/service money.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Bergen was just the first example I saw on a map. I could name many others. Like Hastings, New Zealand. Or Jyvaskyla, Finland. Or Inverness, Scotland​. All of which are significantly closer to a major city than Sault Ste. Marie. A 300+km freeway/expressway between two cities the size of Sudbury and the Soo would be quite unusual. Cheaper solutions like passing lanes or a 2+1 setup are more common

The value of a cross-country expressway costing tens of billions of dollars as a nation building exercise is dubious. Other large, sparsely populated nations like Australia, Brazil and Russia don't seem too​ worried about it. Or even many wealthy small countries.

First off, Austraila is a horrible example. They do not get snow. They do not get white outs.

2+1/passing lanes are good. Convert all rural sections of 11/17 Between MB, Ottawa and the Soo to a Super 2. Then, upgrade the Super 2 to 4 lanes in the higher traffic areas. Continue to add to the 4 lane sections until it is all 4 lanes.

No one is suggesting it needs to all be done now. We are suggesting to do it incrementally and pragmatically.

Originally Posted by wave46

I know which feels safer. I've driven the highways I've mentioned, along with other smaller 2-lane highways in Northern Ontario, such as highway 144.

Overall, I agree with you, but the pragmatic realities of spending billions of dollars on highways few people will use is hard to justify. I imagine the MTO looks at where the accidents are happening and hopefully is improving those stretches. If I had one area to improve upon, I would strongly advocate for more passing lanes on highway 11 between North Bay and New Liskeard because of the hilly nature of the terrain and the truck traffic. A center divider in those areas would be appreciated where it could be reasonably implemented so that it would prevent foolish passing or cross over accidents.

This is exactly my point with safety. Driving the 400 in a whiteout is safer than 11/17 where it is 2 lanes.

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

Twinning the 17, at least from Soo and Ottawan and MB to Thunder bay would be great. Too many people go through the US when travelling across Canada. This would make the Canadian route more attractive and support industries along the way by giving tourism/service money.

We all wonder why things close. This has a big deal to do with it. If it is faster, then people will take it.

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Another factor is the perception of unfairness. If rural regions are seen getting nothing while big cities get huge transit upgrades, it could exacerbate resentment among rural regions (and Western Canada as a whole potentially as well, like in the 1970s and 1980s), and result in alienation and separatist movements - either to form other provinces or other countries. We are seeing it elsewhere in the world with Brexit, Trump, Wilders, Le Pen, etc.

There is a feeling of alienation in Northern Ontario from Queens Park. There is even talk of separating Ontario into 2 provinces. Want those things to stop, give us safe highways. a barrier to divide the lanes from each other is safer, especially in bad weather.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Inverness is getting a motorway to the rest of the UK by 2025.

http://www.transport.gov.scot/project/a9-dualling-perth-inverness

As I said, Inverness is much closer to a major city than Sault Ste. Marie is. Inverness is 270 km from Glasgow while Sault Ste. Marie is 700 km from Toronto. Inverness also has frequent passenger rail service, which typically gets significant investment long before motorways are contemplated.

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Another factor is the perception of unfairness. If rural regions are seen getting nothing while big cities get huge transit upgrades, it could exacerbate resentment among rural regions (and Western Canada as a whole potentially as well, like in the 1970s and 1980s), and result in alienation and separatist movements - either to form other provinces or other countries. We are seeing it elsewhere in the world with Brexit, Trump, Wilders, Le Pen, etc.

Perception and reality are often two different things. This year northern Ontario is getting almost 6 times more highway spending per capita than southern Ontario.

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

Twinning the 17, at least from Soo and Ottawan and MB to Thunder bay would be great. Too many people go through the US when travelling across Canada. This would make the Canadian route more attractive and support industries along the way by giving tourism/service money.

Multi-lane highways are very expensive to build and maintain, and in remote areas they're highly subsidized. The extra economic activity from the traffic boost wouldn't cover the construction and ongoing maintenance costs.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

First off, Austraila is a horrible example. They do not get snow. They do not get white outs.

2+1/passing lanes are good. Convert all rural sections of 11/17 Between MB, Ottawa and the Soo to a Super 2. Then, upgrade the Super 2 to 4 lanes in the higher traffic areas. Continue to add to the 4 lane sections until it is all 4 lanes.

No one is suggesting it needs to all be done now. We are suggesting to do it incrementally and pragmatically.

Funny how you focus on Australia and ignore the other example I gave where they get lots of snow (Finland). But very well, let's talk about Australia. They're doing exactly what a cold and snowy country should be doing: directing intercity transportation away from roads altogether. Roads are notoriously unreliable and dangerous in the winter. Australia has a robust passenger rail system for regional travel and focuses more on air travel for longer distances. Their remote towns comparable to North Bay or the Soo are served by passenger trains, not expressways. Same with Finland. As a result there's less driving and less need to drive through snowstorms.

This is exactly my point with safety. Driving the 400 in a whiteout is safer than 11/17 where it is 2 lanes.

That's a pretty low bar. Freeways in whiteout conditions aren't exactly safe.

• Video Link

That happened just yesterday. And it happens regularly every winter.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Mister F

As I said, Inverness is much closer to a major city than Sault Ste. Marie is. Inverness is 270 km from Glasgow while Sault Ste. Marie is 700 km from Toronto. Inverness also has frequent passenger rail service, which typically gets significant investment long before motorways are contemplated.

Funny how you focus on Australia and ignore the other example I gave where they get lots of snow (Finland). But very well, let's talk about Australia. They're doing exactly what a cold and snowy country should be doing: directing intercity transportation away from roads altogether. Roads are notoriously unreliable and dangerous in the winter. Australia has a robust passenger rail system for regional travel and focuses more on air travel for longer distances. Their remote towns comparable to North Bay or the Soo are served by passenger trains, not expressways. Same with Finland. As a result there's less driving and less need to drive through snowstorms.


That happened just yesterday. And it happens regularly every winter.

Sault St Marie is 240km from Sudbury ON, which is the largest city in Northern Ontario.

Do NOT get me started on passenger rail in this country! The Soo, Thunder Bay, Regina and Callagary all do not have passenger rail, and they are all major cities.

I thought that was on the 401?
Crashes do happen.

How about the fact that a single bridge cause all traffic to stop going E/W last year..... If it were twinned, you could use the one beside it and not have NO traffic crossing.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Perception and reality are often two different things. This year northern Ontario is getting almost 6 times more highway spending per capita than southern Ontario.

They get almost no transit spending though (which is understandable since there is no demand for such outside the cities and even there the demand is modest in comparison), while the Golden Horseshoe gets hundreds of millions, if not over a billion dollars. I'd think less than 0.5% of Ontario's (combined capital and operating) transit budget is spent north of Barrie. Northern Ontario also makes up 90% of Ontario's land mass.

[dmuzika]

Originally Posted by milomilo

There are still parts of Highway 1 east of Calgary that need to be fixed up to proper freeway standards. Even ignoring the countless access road intersections, there is a set of signals immediately east of Calgary, then lights through Strathmore, then lights through Medicine Hat, then in Sask there's lights in Swift Current, Moose Jaw, Regina (for now)...

There's a lot of work to do.

Aside from long-term plans to make the TCH a freeway east of Calgary, there are more initial-stage plans to bypass Strathmore and deal with Redcliff & Medicine Hat. There are only 2 lights left in Medicine Hat, and a proposed interchange would include closing the two minor, signalized intersections. I suspect that if the bypass isn't constructed, the last set of lights in Redcliffe (located immediately west of Medicine Hat) would probably be constructed. Barring a major realignment, there's nothing much you can do in Calgary (especially west of Hwy 2), but something needs to be done between Calgary and Chestermere or Strathmore.

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

There are no lights in Swift Current nor Moose Jaw. Once the Regina Bypass is complete the TCH in Saskatchewan will be light free. In Manitoba there are lights in Brandon, Yellowhead/TCH intersection and several points between Portage La Prairie and Winnipeg. There is uncontrolled access throughout the prairies as well.

As already mentioned, there are no traffic signals in Swift Current or Moose Jaw, but both cities could probably use one more interchange to get rid of some of the uncontrolled, at-grade crossings.

[haljackey]

Info about the Highway 427 extension north of Toronto:
http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2017/03/highway-427-expansion-616-m-design-build-contract-signed



616 million to expand 4km of existing highway, and build 6.6km of new highway.

The extension is shorter than I hoped. I am hopeful it is designed for another potential extension in mind.

[FFX-ME]

They should at least then upgrade the TCH in northern Ontario to a proper 'super 2' so they can increase the speed limit and create better incentives for people to drive in Canada instead of the US and stimulate the Northern economy.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by haljackey

Info about the Highway 427 extension north of Toronto:
http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2017/03/highway-427-expansion-616-m-design-build-contract-signed



616 million to expand 4km of existing highway, and build 6.6km of new highway.

The extension is shorter than I hoped. I am hopeful it is designed for another potential extension in mind.

They could have saved 300-500 million there if they built it 20 years ago. I'd think most of that cost is land acquisition.

[Innsertnamehere]

most of that contract is maintenance. Its DBFM contract, so that price includes plowing, repaving, etc. for the next 30 years. I'd suspect actual construction cost is less than half of that.

MTO builds freeways at around $10 million per km for just the construction, according to the contracts they have issued for the Highway 69 twinning project. This is a bit bigger of a highway with some more complex elements, but I cant see it being more than $20-30 million per km.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

most of that contract is maintenance. Its DBFM contract, so that price includes plowing, repaving, etc. for the next 30 years. I'd suspect actual construction cost is less than half of that.

MTO builds freeways at around $10 million per km for just the construction, according to the contracts they have issued for the Highway 69 twinning project. This is a bit bigger of a highway with some more complex elements, but I cant see it being more than $20-30 million per km.

The terrain Highway 69 travels through is much more demanding, with frequent rock cuts and fills, while the Golden Horseshoe is largely flat to rolling fields.

[Innsertnamehere]

The interchanges are also more frequent here, and more complex. Also the highway is wider, at 8 lanes. As I said, I can't see construction being more than $250 million or so.

[vid]

There is a bit more to the Northern Ontario economy than just truck stops you guys.

If you want to stimulate our economy, how about putting natural resources management into our hands? We had more people and a stronger economy when Europe's wheat was behind an iron curtain and everything had to be put on paper, how about we bring those back?

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Sault St Marie is 240km from Sudbury ON, which is the largest city in Northern Ontario.

Sudbury and the Soo are 305 km apart downtown to downtown. And Sudbury is hardly a major city. It's in no way comparable to Glasgow, which is roughly the size of Vancouver. Of course if your definition of "major" is a city the size of Sudbury, then Inverness is a mere 168 km from Aberdeen and 210 km from Dundee. Either way my point stands.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I thought that was on the 401?
Crashes do happen.

There was a pileup on the 401 near Kingston on the same day. Of course crashes do happen, but with cars they happen with alarming frequency compared to other modes, with fatality rates to match. If safety is the goal, increasing our reliance on the most dangerous form of transportation is an odd way of doing it.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

How about the fact that a single bridge cause all traffic to stop going E/W last year..... If it were twinned, you could use the one beside it and not have NO traffic crossing.

Yes, which is why I mentioned alternate routes around choke points like that bridge. But that's not an argument for building a freeway across the entire north.

Originally Posted by eternallyme

They get almost no transit spending though (which is understandable since there is no demand for such outside the cities and even there the demand is modest in comparison), while the Golden Horseshoe gets hundreds of millions, if not over a billion dollars. I'd think less than 0.5% of Ontario's (combined capital and operating) transit budget is spent north of Barrie. Northern Ontario also makes up 90% of Ontario's land mass.

If a 4 lane highway were to be built across the entire north, the difference in per capita highway spending would be even greater. But even with current spending patterns, there's room for billions in annual transit construction in the south and still have an equal share between the two regions.

[vid]

About 50% of what Thunder Bay Transit spends on its transit system over the next two years will actually be federal and provincial funding, for new buses, a new transit hub, implementation of a new bus route system (nearly a decade in the making now), and possibly the upgrading of our main transit line into an electric transitway, so to say we don't get public transit funding isn't accurate. It actually exceeds the funding the city gets for roads from those levels of government right now. We've had to cancel road expansion projects because the federal Liberals have stopped funding them in favour of transit.

And Mister F is completely correct in stating that a freeway won't prevent a detour is a structure collapses. The original plans for the Nipigon highway didn't include two separate bridges, and if that bridge ever had to close, it would again sever the country even though it's essentially built to freeway specifications. That's why they're building an alternate bridge for local traffic and detours.

Had they really twinned that stretch and built two completely separate bridges, the alternate corridor wouldn't be necessary, but that's not how they do things. Northern Ontario needs a fancy bridge to wow the 5,000 people who drive down that highway every day.

[jmt18325]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

How about the fact that a single bridge cause all traffic to stop going E/W last year..... If it were twinned, you could use the one beside it and not have NO traffic crossing.

The ironic part - the closed link was caused by the first two constructed lanes of a twinned bridge.

[Mister F]

Okay to expand on the point about northern alienation, let's look at some numbers. According to the Ontario highway programs that MTO puts on their website every year, northern Ontario is getting $541 million in road spending this year while the south is getting $1.6 billion. That's about $130 per person in the south and $740 per person in the north. If the south got the same per capita as the north, that would leave over $7 billion in transit spending in the south every year. Suddenly that billion+ in the Golden Horseshoe that eternallyme was talking about doesn't seem like such a big deal.

Now of course that's not even close to a fair analysis and I'm not arguing that it should actually work that way. The north is a completely different animal and will always cost more to service. That's just the way it is. But let's just keep things in perspective when being tempted to think that your region gets a raw deal.

[vid]

Divide that funding by highway miles, though. I think Thunder Bay District alone has more highway miles in it than all of Southern Ontario. A lot of that funding is going toward maintenance and infrastructure upgrades on secondary highways in this region, something that in Southern Ontario is funded by upper and single tier municipalities.

It's a consequence of the region being so sparsely populated. I'm sure Manitoba spends more on highways per-capita than Southern Ontario as well.

The other downside is that since Southern Ontario contractors started winning the bids for highway construction up here, we've seen delays. Most of the single-season projects have been dragging into the following spring and it's strange that this is happening because our construction season is now about 6 weeks longer thanks to climate change.