Highways in Canada

[MalcolmTucker]

[del]

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The count must be a bit off, single lanes should easily handle the volumes stated for Prince Phillip Drive, maxing out at 1881 vehicles.

I believe it's an average hourly rate. The intersection of Allendale and Prince Philip sees about 20,000 cars a day. The study suggests that by 2025 all these intersections will be beyond capacity with no fixable options with MUN and HSC's continued expansion.

Prince Philip, from Allandale to Columbus/Thorburn, and then Columbus pretty much all the way to Topsail Road are complete stand-till zones between 4:00-5:30, especially 4-4:30 when the staff change at HSC happens. They only have one street to get onto, Prince Philip.

A lot of the other stuff in the report is "nice to have, but not necessary", though Elizabeth avenue upgrades would be real nice considering people use it as an alternative to Prince Philip, so it becomes pretty congested as well, though it has the disadvantage of being only 2 lanes as compared to 4-6.

[MalcolmTucker]

[del]

[SignalHillHiker]

What is the daily rate for Columbus and Prince Philip at Thorburn? I imagine that has to be busier than the Parkway at Allandale. Is that even that busy of an intersection? I never notice it bad there, unless I'm trying to turn left onto the block of Allandale between the Parkway and Elizabeth Avenue.

Malcolm, it is a little bit of a single lane issue. Most traffic is turning right at the end of Prince Philip so that lane backs up probably half a kilometre longer than the left lane.
If I drive to my parents place after work, and don't take the Outer Ring, this is my route:



So, #1 is Allandale. I almost never have to wait more than a light or two to get through there.

Once I'm through Allandale, that's when it really backs up. It can be slow-moving from there to #2, Westerland. You might move a few car lengths every light for 20 minutes, or you might only have to wait two or three lights.

Once you're through #2, it's WIDE open for a little bit. Even during rush hour you can usually hit the 70 km/hr speed limit.

But that comes to an end in the right lane ONLY as you approach #3, Clinch Crescent. This is where the HSC employees are filing out. The right lane remains so packed and slow that no one in it ever presses the gas again, just lifts their foot off the brake to move.

As you get around #4, getting close to the Columbus/Prince Philip/Thorburn intersection, all lanes become slow and backed up. That's where you will always have to wait a couple of lights, usually many more, before going through unless 100 cars in a row are just taking the right-most ramp onto Thorburn with no light to contend with.

Then you're on Kenmount, which is worse.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

A single lane should handle just short of 2,000 vehicles per hour.

I'm gonna take a look at the report again. If Prince Philip were single-laned in each direction I'd be stuck in 8am traffic until noon. I've been a big advocate for a third lane in each direction, but to be honest I'm sure that would just become congested too.

[MalcolmTucker]

[del]

[vid]

Thunder Bay has signalized intersections that serve 40,000 vehicles per day without causing backups so I don't see how there would be serious issues with those when there are more lanes than ours have with half as much traffic?

If the problem is turning movements then that's easy to solve with a roundabout because they don't have to stop to make those movements. Traffic is always flowing with a roundabout.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

I'm gonna take a look at the report again. If Prince Philip were single-laned in each direction I'd be stuck in 8am traffic until noon. I've been a big advocate for a third lane in each direction, but to be honest I'm sure that would just become congested too.

I think the problem there is only during a short time at rush hours, that's my experience, so the total vehicles per day may be lower than expected. The rush hour congestion is because of the concentration of large public employers in the same suburban area (university, provincial government, hospital, colleges), all of which have large parking lots and mostly similar hours, in a city where few can use public transit or walk. That's different from traffic in Vancouver which is pretty heavy most days from early morning to around 8PM. I agree with the post above which states the bottleneck intersections with frequent turns are the cause of the congestion, and it's not the result of too few traffic lanes.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

You clearly have not experienced the Armdale Rotory in Halifax. I purposely avoided it at all costs when I lived there.

According to Wikipedia, it handles about 60,000 cars on a normal weekday now. I lived not far from it on the mainland side for a couple of years and traffic was normally backed up a lot around it; if anything went wrong you could be stuck waiting for 45 minutes. Not sure what it's like these days. The Micmac rotary, which was replaced by highway interchanges decades ago, was supposedly really bad too. I think this had more to do with the old traffic rules governing the rotaries and the amount of traffic they had to handle than any unavoidable flaws specific to traffic circles. Halifax traffic is worse than in most North American cities of similar size because of the geography and a lack of willingness to build expensive infrastructure. The mainland south area of Halifax is cut off by water, Dartmouth is broken up by lakes, and there are a lot of rocky outcroppings around the city that either rule out a lot of routes or require expensive blasting and tunnelling. That is why Dartmouth has a 10-lane or so section of highway. Options for building traffic corridors are limited.

Traffic circles are in vogue again. There are a dozen or so new ones around the Halifax area. There are some newer ones in Vancouver too.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by Architype

I think the problem there is only during a short time at rush hours, that's my experience, so the total vehicles per day may be lower than expected. The rush hour congestion is because of the concentration of large public employers in the same suburban area (university, provincial government, hospital, colleges), all of which have large parking lots and mostly similar hours, in a city where few can use public transit or walk. That's different from traffic in Vancouver which is pretty heavy most days from early morning to around 8PM. I agree with the post above which states the bottleneck intersections with frequent turns are the cause of the congestion, and it's not the result of too few traffic lanes.

8am to 930 am, and then again from 4pm to 530 pm are nightmare times for the parkway and Elizabeth Avenue. Any other time of the day, traffic on both are manageable; Prince Philip can still be busy at many times during the day, but traffic still flows at the speed limit, and delays are essentially nil.

Turns at Allendale and Thorburn onto Prince Philip cause delays; right turns are signalized from Allendale onto PPD to reduce accidents, and left turns are prohibited from Freshwater onto Columbus, and signalized from Thorburn onto PPD; so unless you get through the intersection in the 20 seconds left turns are allowed from Thorburn, you're going to be waiting about 3 minutes before the lights change. I understand that Columbus/PPD traffic is a lot higher than the traffic coming onto the crosstown, however the wait can be a bit much at times.

Overall, I think the proposed roundabouts will improve traffic flow at these intersections, but the real challenge will be ensuring that the city drivers are capable of driving through a multi-laned, high-traffic roundabout.

[SignalHillHiker]

"Roundabouts don't fall on your head during windstorms."

[harls]

Looks like Highway 417 is planned to be extended from Arnprior to Renfrew (about 22 km)

Highway 417 is remaining on the province's radar, as Ontario approved planning for the next section of roadway.

On Tuesday, Renfrew County's operations committee received a copy of a letter from the Minister of Transportation Steven Del Duca sent to local MPP John Yakabuski in which the Minister stated that the province remains committed to the four-laning project.

“I am pleased to advise you that the ministry did secure approval to proceed with detail design for the next phase of expansion of Highway 17 from Scheel Drive to three km west of Bruce Street (Town of Renfrew),” he wrote.

http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/2017/08/08/hwy-417-proceeding-once-again

[wave46]

Originally Posted by harls

Looks like Highway 417 is planned to be extended from Arnprior to Renfrew (about 22 km)



http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/2017/08/08/hwy-417-proceeding-once-again

I'm not surprised, however I imagine that the terminus of the 417 will remain at Highway 60 for sometime thereafter. Fairly significant work would be required to cross the Bonnechere river and an alternate route around the Cobden area will have to be developed for further westerly expansion.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by wave46

I'm not surprised, however I imagine that the terminus of the 417 will remain at Highway 60 for sometime thereafter. Fairly significant work would be required to cross the Bonnechere river and an alternate route around the Cobden area will have to be developed for further westerly expansion.

However, they could work on the section along Pembroke and Petawawa. The highway already bypasses the area.

[harls]

Originally Posted by wave46

I'm not surprised, however I imagine that the terminus of the 417 will remain at Highway 60 for sometime thereafter. Fairly significant work would be required to cross the Bonnechere river and an alternate route around the Cobden area will have to be developed for further westerly expansion.

The article quoted 'three kms west of Bruce Street', so that would be across the river.. but yeah.. who knows for sure at this stage.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

However, they could work on the section along Pembroke and Petawawa. The highway already bypasses the area.

The MTO has been doing it piecemeal east-to-west, as volume tends to pick up the father eastwards one heads. I imagine that the MTO's next project will be the Cobden bypass - I think that would yield the most improvement in travel service for the cost.

[Taeolas]

So for Canada Day, I drove to Ottawa, and decided to take the North shore route instead of the usual TCH route through Quebec.

That meant taking the A-50 from Montreal to Gatineau. I didn't look at Google Maps closely and assumed it was 4 lane freeway all the way through; but to my surprise it isn't.

Driving the route (a beautiful drive), it is obvious they planned for it to be a full freeway. Most if not all the overpasses were designed to go over 4 lane highway, but only 1 highway was ever built.

What is the story behind this? Did money run out? Was it politics? Or did Ontario get there first, and Quebec decided it wasn't worth it? The 417 route was obviously a lot easier to build, with fewer bridges, fewer mountains to cut through and fewer rivers and valleys to bridge.

In any case, the A-50 route was a great route to drive, with a lot of scenic hills and valleys, and just enough passing lanes that the 2 lane highway wasn't too much of a nightmare to drive on. All of the bridges over nothing (including cases where the bridge is notched into a hill for the future lanes that were never put in. ) are a neat curiousity to see too as you drive along it.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

So for Canada Day, I drove to Ottawa, and decided to take the North shore route instead of the usual TCH route through Quebec.

That meant taking the A-50 from Montreal to Gatineau. I didn't look at Google Maps closely and assumed it was 4 lane freeway all the way through; but to my surprise it isn't.

Driving the route (a beautiful drive), it is obvious they planned for it to be a full freeway. Most if not all the overpasses were designed to go over 4 lane highway, but only 1 highway was ever built.

What is the story behind this? Did money run out? Was it politics? Or did Ontario get there first, and Quebec decided it wasn't worth it? The 417 route was obviously a lot easier to build, with fewer bridges, fewer mountains to cut through and fewer rivers and valleys to bridge.

In any case, the A-50 route was a great route to drive, with a lot of scenic hills and valleys, and just enough passing lanes that the 2 lane highway wasn't too much of a nightmare to drive on. All of the bridges over nothing (including cases where the bridge is notched into a hill for the future lanes that were never put in. ) are a neat curiousity to see too as you drive along it.

The reason given for not four-laning it was that traffic volumes did not justify a full expressway over the entire distance.

Of course, as is always the case the real reason was money.

[Innsertnamehere]

The A-50 is less than 5 years old. The 417 beat it by about half a century.

[FrAnKs]

^ to justify a Full dual Carriageway, an Autoroute needs a minimum AADT (Annual Average Daily Traffic ) of 10 000. According to the latest maps on the MTQ website, several sections reached that level or are very close to reach it.

Have a look by zooming very close on A50 to see the AADT numbers :
https://www.donneesquebec.ca/recherche/f...rce/2bd6ea5d-ba7f-44d5-afcd-4ca968897c1d

According to this, A50 between A15 and Grenville-sur-La-Rouge is already over 10 000 aswell as between Gatineau and Thurso. You also get 9900 until Plaisance.