Highways in Canada

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

For the record, 401 does have 6 lanes from Highway 402 to Cobourg (Exit 474), but I do agree (from driver’s perspective) that the stretch between Tilbury and 402 be widened to 6 lanes. Truck volume warrants it.

Well, alternatively, we can also get rid of the speed-limiter law, and allow trucks to pass at 120 km/h. Western Canada and the Maritimes have no such law, anyway.

The problem is not on the 400 seres highways with those limiters. It is on the 2 lane highways throughout much of Northern Ontario.

[sonysnob]

^ ?? How is a speed limiter that limits vehicles to 105km/h a problem on a two lane highway with a 90km/h speed limit. How fast do you really expect a truck to drive on a two lane highway?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

^ ?? How is a speed limiter that limits vehicles to 105km/h a problem on a two lane highway with a 90km/h speed limit. How fast do you really expect a truck to drive on a two lane highway?

I mean removing it is an issue. Without them, those trucks would be doing well over the speed limit. They already drive at the limiter.

[SignalHillHiker]

The Team Gushue Highway extension rising above Rabbittown. They're like 14ish km apart lol

[SignalHillHiker]

A few pictures from the Outer Ring Road on our drive back into the city today.

The highway straddles the border between the Town of Paradise on the left and the City of Mount Pearl on the right. The TCH has no nickname here. People either say "T-C-H" or "Trans Canada".



Paradise straight ahead, Mount Pearl on the right. St. John's and Mount Pearl meet in the valley to the right, way out of view, but most of St. John's is behind the right-most hill (Mount Carson).



Just to the right of here Kenmount Road runs parallel to the Outer Ring Road. The overpass of Kenmount Road above Topsail (the next exit after this one) is the border between Townies (from St. John's, but Mount Pearl is included) and Baymen (everyone else on the island). But this is how arbitrary it is. Everyone straight ahead are Baymen, and just a bit to the right of here, Townies. When my grandmother was growing up, they could hardly understand each other's accents. When my parents were growing up, they didn't mix much. Today it's mostly gone, but you'll still encounter old people who pull a Goebbels with the Jewish photographer face when they learn you're the opposite one from them.



Still passing between Paradise and Mount Pearl, heading toward Kenmount (not the road, but the hill).



Now the Outer Ring Road passes through Pippy Park, so it's a broad stretch of wilderness, one of the largest urban parks in Canada, WAY to the left is Conception Bay South, most of Paradise, Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, etc. Just downhill to the right is suburban St. John's proper.



The part of Team Gushue that's already open.



We took the Allandale exit. There are still a few main ones after this - Portugal Cove (airport), Torbay (main big box area, Costco, etc.), Logy Bay, and then you loop back along the East White Hills to Quidi Vidi. Confederation Building and Memorial University of Newfoundland are technically in Pippy Park. It's dedicated to the governance, culture, and recreation of NLers so it can be used for those sorts of things too.

[Dengler Avenue]

Just wondering, what will make NL twin its portion of TCH?

[SignalHillHiker]

The whole thing? Federal money.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

The whole thing? Federal money.

I’m asking because some area needs to be bypassed (which requires strong political will), some needs to be outright twinned because heck it’s the bottleneck on the island.

But wow, same response as BC and Ontario.

Seriously, whose idea was it to rescind the Trans-Canada Highway Act?

[Dengler Avenue]

I do wonder if NL’s better off twinning 1 then 100 though. People heading from NS to Saint John’s probably won’t wanna go the long way.

[SignalHillHiker]

It'll probably never be twinned here. In fact, I'm not sure about this, but if my memory is correct there was pressure to reverse the twinning in Grand Falls-Windsor recently. And Whitbourne will burn Confederation Building if government tries it again there.

We're fucked. The TCH is the anchor for most of our growing rural communities (Bonavista being the only notable exception). They're all the same - a big box store area, and modern residential subdivisions surrounding. People move down from all our coastal peninsulas and communities to the nearest town on the interior TCH - that they can stomach, without having to live in St. John's. And those TCH towns are where the hospitals and everything have been built. It's a complete devastation of our culture. These TCH towns are just brutally ugly, awful, everyone drives everywhere, it's a shocking difference in the number of obese people even compared to St. John's, which is a car-dependent city for all but a few thousand in the core.

So that's our future out there. Bonavista will still exist, with its thousands of heritage buildings, and two dozen new businesses over the past two years, and artisan beauty product shops, and cafes, and Irish restaurants. But everywhere else outside St. John's will be bungalows and international fast food chains and big box stores. It's truly depressing.

If you ever visit Newfoundland, stop and look around with emphasis in Grand Falls-Windsor, Gander, and Clarenville. Compare that life to Corner Brook, Bonavista, and St. John's. It's horrifying when you realize the people in GFW, Gander, and Clarenville left places that could've been like Bonavista. It seems completely implausible that the same people you see waddling into Walmart in Clarenville were once the trendily-dressed people strolling around Bonavista.

I wish the highway would be twinned and kill these goddamn towns. Let people move back to the largest nearby town ACTUALLY ON THE OPEN COAST.

[Dengler Avenue]

Wow I’ve never heard of such strong opposition to twinning before. :O People are dying from all these head-on collisions though.

Now I can see how costly this business is. It really takes Federal money to do it because losing a few votes won’t hurt for them.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

It'll probably never be twinned here. In fact, I'm not sure about this, but if my memory is correct there was pressure to reverse the twinning in Grand Falls-Windsor recently. And Whitbourne will burn Confederation Building if government tries it again there.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Whitbourne is both off the TCH and the point where the twinned part of the TCH begins.

To answer the question, I'd love to see the TCH twinned, but the cost of twinning about 800 km of road is pretty steep. We can't afford it. Heck, I doubt there's anywhere that can easily afford that.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Whitbourne is both off the TCH and the point where the twinned part of the TCH begins.

To answer the question, I'd love to see the TCH twinned, but the cost of twinning about 800 km of road is pretty steep. We can't afford it. Heck, I doubt there's anywhere that can easily afford that.

I don't see a problem with twinning in regards to access to towns via overpasses which is done already in many places in NL. In the case of Whitbourne wasn't it because businesses on the main route would lose out without access to passing traffic? The traffic counts on most of the TCH doesn't seem to actually warrant twinning. Instead, much of the highway already has numerous passing lanes built especially on uphill grades.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

It'll probably never be twinned here. In fact, I'm not sure about this, but if my memory is correct there was pressure to reverse the twinning in Grand Falls-Windsor recently. And Whitbourne will burn Confederation Building if government tries it again there.

We're fucked. The TCH is the anchor for most of our growing rural communities (Bonavista being the only notable exception). They're all the same - a big box store area, and modern residential subdivisions surrounding. People move down from all our coastal peninsulas and communities to the nearest town on the interior TCH - that they can stomach, without having to live in St. John's. And those TCH towns are where the hospitals and everything have been built. It's a complete devastation of our culture. These TCH towns are just brutally ugly, awful, everyone drives everywhere, it's a shocking difference in the number of obese people even compared to St. John's, which is a car-dependent city for all but a few thousand in the core.

So that's our future out there. Bonavista will still exist, with its thousands of heritage buildings, and two dozen new businesses over the past two years, and artisan beauty product shops, and cafes, and Irish restaurants. But everywhere else outside St. John's will be bungalows and international fast food chains and big box stores. It's truly depressing.

If you ever visit Newfoundland, stop and look around with emphasis in Grand Falls-Windsor, Gander, and Clarenville. Compare that life to Corner Brook, Bonavista, and St. John's. It's horrifying when you realize the people in GFW, Gander, and Clarenville left places that could've been like Bonavista. It seems completely implausible that the same people you see waddling into Walmart in Clarenville were once the trendily-dressed people strolling around Bonavista.

I wish the highway would be twinned and kill these goddamn towns. Let people move back to the largest nearby town ACTUALLY ON THE OPEN COAST.

In that way these towns are really not very different from those on the mainland of North America. However, it's the attitude to town planning that is a problem, with the emphasis placed on big box developments full of parking lots instead of compact main streets. The towns which you like were centered on the traditional fishery, whereas today, people seem to choose more suburban environments like Gander. All these inland towns, including Gander and GFW were all built initially for express purposes, but remain in a consequent role even after the local industry is gone or diminished. Today, tourism and alternative rural lifestyle opportunities may bring new growth into some of the more traditional places.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Whitbourne is both off the TCH and the point where the twinned part of the TCH begins.

To answer the question, I'd love to see the TCH twinned, but the cost of twinning about 800 km of road is pretty steep. We can't afford it. Heck, I doubt there's anywhere that can easily afford that.

The divided highway that begins in St. John's ends just before Whitborne. It's my understanding that it was never supposed to, but their protests that their town would die if it was twinned or routed around them basically stopped the twinning. I believe it was supposed to be twinned to Terra Nova.

[PEI highway guy]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

The divided highway that begins in St. John's ends just before Whitborne. It's my understanding that it was never supposed to, but their protests that their town would die if it was twinned or routed around them basically stopped the twinning. I believe it was supposed to be twinned to Terra Nova.

If the traffic numbers are there, or it is a dangerous winding route it should be twinned, regardless of PUBLIC opinion. A great debate is going on over twining Highway 11 in Southeastern NB and how far North the highway should be twinned. Many are saying it is more about vote buying in Kent County. Political games runs deep in Atlantic Canada, probably the whole country.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by PEI highway guy

If the traffic numbers are there, or it is a dangerous winding route it should be twinned, regardless of PUBLIC opinion. A great debate is going on over twining Highway 11 in Southeastern NB and how far North the highway should be twinned. Many are saying it is more about vote buying in Kent County. Political games runs deep in Atlantic Canada, probably the whole country.

Tell BC to spend a huge amount of cash to blast rocks along TCH already.
Tell Ontario to deal with its TCH already.

But one thing to keep in mind is that NL government can’t afford to go against “public opinion” unless losing votes from those small towns won’t hurt.

Also, specific to Canada, the highway should also be twinned if it’s the only route to go from point A to point B. In Northern Ontario, Eastern Nova Scotia (where 104 and 4 are concurrent) and Newfoundland Island, TCH is known to have numerous choke points, and they have been closed frequently.

As for using infrastructure projects to buy votes, tell me about it.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by PEI highway guy

A great debate is going on over twining Highway 11 in Southeastern NB and how far North the highway should be twinned. Many are saying it is more about vote buying in Kent County. Political games runs deep in Atlantic Canada, probably the whole country.

If people didn't put so much weight and importance on twinned highways they wouldn't be such a powerful political tool. It's blatantly obvious that the provincial Liberals are trying to hold onto power by improving highways in areas they routinely dominate politically, whether or not the highways actually need that work.

In terms of Route 11 in NB the government is literally twinning a highway in a direction of the province that is emptying out and will only have a fraction of the population it has today in the future.

These things are so obvious you could go to Liberal ridings six months after the 2014 election and see all of the main roads being resurfaced and reconstructed whether they needed it or not.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

The divided highway that begins in St. John's ends just before Whitborne. It's my understanding that it was never supposed to, but their protests that their town would die if it was twinned or routed around them basically stopped the twinning. I believe it was supposed to be twinned to Terra Nova.

Interesting, but I can't really find a source for that. It doesn't make sense; the highway doesn't cut through Whitbourne so whether it was twinned or rerouted shouldn't have been an issue for the town. The gas stations littered along the highway there would still get the visitors/customers they need, whether the highway was 4 lanes, or the 3 lanes as it is now.

I think the more likely scenario here was that the TCH had initially been planned to be twinned in sections, starting with Whitbourne to St. John's (the highest traffic section of the TCH on the island), and progressively moving westward, however the feds never provided the funding necessary to continue. I wouldn't necessarily blame the government for not wanting to give up so much money for a small fraction of the countries population.

In an ideal world, the TCH would, at the very least, be twinned to Clarenville since that stretch from Clarenville to Come By Chance is pretty busy. Part of Terra Nova has been twinned, would love to see it all twinned.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by JHikka

In terms of Route 11 in NB the government is literally twinning a highway in a direction of the province that is emptying out and will only have a fraction of the population it has today in the future.

IIRC, the AADT on Highway 11 north to Cocagne is high enough to justify twinning, but the numbers for the highway between Cocagne & Bouctouche are borderline.

Mitigating factors include a lot of seasonal tourist traffic as far north as Bouctouche (Pays de la Sagouine & La Dune de Bouctouche), the fact that Bouctouche is at the limit of the exurban commuter watershed from Moncton, and that this is a dangerous stretch of highway in the wintertime (frequent squalls off the Northumberland Strait).

Nobody is really arguing for twinning the highway north of Bouctouche, but the provincial government is planning some weird highway improvements, like that tunnel project up by Miramichi which are pretty expensive.

The north of NB is in decline, no question, but coastal southern Kent County (as far as Bouctouche) is doing well because of it's proximity to Moncton. There are a lot of commuters and a lot of cottage owners in this area. I think the highway twinning to Bouctouche is justified.