Highways in Canada

[ssiguy]

Before we start the NDP bashing, let us not forget that the 10 lane bridge proposed by Christ Clark was to be a tolled one. When asked about what the toll level would be they said they didn't know apparently because they didn't know the final price-tag. It would have been at least $4 one way AND the Liberals already had tolls on the Port Mann and Golden Ears, and the new Pattula bridge was also to be tolled. This would leave only one toll free bridge, the Alex Fraser, going SoF and it is permanently clogged.

The NDP got rid of all the tolls and the new Pattula and potential Massey Tunnel replacement are to be toll free. Under the NDP commuting costs have gotten a hell of a lot cheaper which is very important in an oppressively expensive city.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Before we start the NDP bashing, let us not forget that the 10 lane bridge proposed by Christ Clark was to be a tolled one. When asked about what the toll level would be they said they didn't know apparently because they didn't know the final price-tag. It would have been at least $4 one way AND the Liberals already had tools on the Port Mann and Golden Ears, and the new Pattula bridge was also to be tolled. This would leave only one toll free bridge, the Alex Fraser, going SoF and it is permanently clogged.

The NDP got rid of all the tolls and the new Pattula and potential Massey Tunnel replacement are to be toll free. Under the NDP commuting costs have gotten a hell of a lot cheaper which is very important in an oppressively expensive city.

How are commuting costs cheaper if congestion is worse than ever?

The Pattullo Bridge is currently four lanes and was built in 1937. The NDP at the beginning of the year announced a ~$1.37 billion contract to replace it with another four lane bridge that can be expanded to a whopping six lanes in the future (read never). But it will have space for pedestrians and cyclists. It's stupidity like this which results in the B.C. NDP getting bashed. The bridge should probably start off with eight lanes.

The tunnel replacement plans I've read here sound equally stupid. Is perpetual girdlock their solution to Vancouver's transportation problems?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

If it wasn't for needing the support of the Green Party to stay in power I wonder if Horgan's gang would have cancelled the great bridge project and screwed around so much on the tunnel replacement? At some point very soon a provincial government in B.C. is going to have to admit that freeways are needed in Vancouver and just build them despite any objections from the usual suspects. If they don't do it the feds should to keep our economy moving.

The problem in the GVA as apposed to the rest of the country is that land there is very limited. Do you build housing, farmland, or roads? You have ocean, another country, and mountains that lock you in.

In other place in Canada, and in the USA, the freeways that were built were at the destruction of communities. Look up Africvile in Halifax and The Big Dig in Boston.

Vancouver is seen as the Tree Hugging Hippie capital of Canada. Ironically, their commuter rail has not been expanded since it opened, more than 25 years ago. Road projects will always be done to a lower standard than the rest of the country.

And then, you have earthquakes. Tunneling underwater already poses a challenge. Making it earthquake proof is even more expensive.

So, in Vancouver, you have the results of some major challenges all showing up on their highways.

Originally Posted by Corndogger

The Saskatoon freeway project looks great for a city of that size. How does the MB government and the City of Winnipeg keep getting away without building any freeways for that city/region? If SK can build freeways for two cities then surely MB can build a couple for Winnipeg.

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Before we start the NDP bashing, let us not forget that the 10 lane bridge proposed by Christ Clark was to be a tolled one. When asked about what the toll level would be they said they didn't know apparently because they didn't know the final price-tag. It would have been at least $4 one way AND the Liberals already had tools on the Port Mann and Golden Ears, and the new Pattula bridge was also to be tolled. This would leave only one toll free bridge, the Alex Fraser, going SoF and it is permanently clogged.

The NDP got rid of all the tolls and the new Pattula and potential Massey Tunnel replacement are to be toll free. Under the NDP commuting costs have gotten a hell of a lot cheaper which is very important in an oppressively expensive city.

Honestly, tolls are not the worst idea. IF, and it is a big "if" they were to expand the WCE into more lines to more places, having a $4-$5 toll on each bridge or tunnel might actually keep congestion down, and it would push people to the WCE which would be cheaper for most people.

[VantageHD]

Does anyone know the breakdown of funding for the new puttello bridge? Curious how much the province is contributing compared to municipalities.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by VantageHD

Does anyone know the breakdown of funding for the new puttello bridge? Curious how much the province is contributing compared to municipalities.

The consortium building the bridge is providing partial funding for its construction. I can't find a news story that provides any breakdowns but if the province awarded the contract I assume that they'll be paying for everything.

[SaskScraper]

Originally posted by The Bess
Saskatoon Phase 1 summary, Phase 2 discussions starting soon.

https://saskatoonfreeway.org/phase-1/

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

$7.5 Billion over the next two years is a large stimulus in Saskatchewan road projects, especially considering the multi $Billion spent on Regina Bypass just opened last year.

That said, it looks like the Saskatoon's M25 orbital freeway project Phase 1 planning is complete and Phase 2 is next on focus for land acquisition planning & freeway design.







• Video Link



Highway 12 and highway 16 interchanges look very similar to each other, just different under/over variation in flyover ramps.

• Video Link

• Video Link

Originally Posted by Corndogger

Looks impressive. Too bad they didn't spend a few bucks more and animate the movement of vehicles so we could see from a driver's perspective how this will look.

ya, I'm not sure why they didn't do more animated Interchange videos.

The Regina Bypass videos showed movement of vehicles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eORpb47bUg0


Saskatoon's revamp of SouthEast Cloverleaf video shows movement of vehicles and driver perspective through one of the tunnels etc.

• Video Link

Originally Posted by craner

I didn’t know the whole history of the Massey tunnel replacement / bridge cancellation in Vancouver. Just another example of utter incompetence by the BC NDP government when it comes to transportation projects. Utter stupidity !

Liking the looks of the Saskatoon freeway - is there a timeline for construction to start? 10 years, 20, 30 ?

10 years, Phase 2 Functional Study is set for completion later this year, Phase 3 for completion in 2021. Construction start is projected for later this decade.

[flipper316]

Originally Posted by SaskScraper

$7.5 Billion over the next two years is a large stimulus in Saskatchewan road projects, especially considering the multi $Billion spent on Regina Bypass just opened last year.

That said, it looks like the Saskatoon's M25 orbital freeway project Phase 1 planning is complete and Phase 2 is next on focus for land acquisition planning & freeway design.







• Video Link



Highway 12 and highway 16 interchanges look very similar to each other, just different under/over variation in flyover ramps.

• Video Link

• Video Link

So jealous. Wish BC wasn't so anti highway.

[VantageHD]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

The consortium building the bridge is providing partial funding for its construction. I can't find a news story that provides any breakdowns but if the province awarded the contract I assume that they'll be paying for everything.

Ya that was pretty much what I could find as well. This is what bothers me with this project. The province is paying for a billion dollar plus bridge to connect 2 cities. I guess it comes down to ownership and would imagine the Province has the title, but surely the 2 city's on either side are contributing in some way. Really curious on this one since the NDP scaled back a project outside of Kamloops and then announced this.

[hipster duck]

I'm more sympathetic to highway expansion projects than most urbanists, but that Saskatoon proposal seems like overkill. Can't SK think of better ways to spend $7.5B on infrastructure? Was nothing learned from the Regina Bypass?

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by VantageHD

Ya that was pretty much what I could find as well. This is what bothers me with this project. The province is paying for a billion dollar plus bridge to connect 2 cities. I guess it comes down to ownership and would imagine the Province has the title, but surely the 2 city's on either side are contributing in some way. Really curious on this one since the NDP scaled back a project outside of Kamloops and then announced this.

Who controls the road that the bridge is part of? If it's the province then they would be paying the entire bill unless there was some deal made with the cities. There's two major freeway projects (part of the same freeway) under construction in Calgary right now but are being paid for by the province because it's part of the provincial highway network. Calgary will benefit immensely but only has to pay to tie in some roads to the freeway and upgrade a few of them. I think it works out to about $200 million worth of work which is a good deal when we'll be getting about $2.5 billion worth of additional freeway capacity.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I'm more sympathetic to highway expansion projects than most urbanists, but that Saskatoon proposal seems like overkill. Can't SK think of better ways to spend $7.5B on infrastructure? Was nothing learned from the Regina Bypass?

I disagree. Better to plan for the future and to do so when the land is available. I don't think this project has anything to do with the $7.5 billion current investment in infrastructure other than some early planning.

As for the Regina Bypass, they need to build a complete loop and make it a true freeway! Hopefully Saskatoon doesn't make the same mistake.

[SaskScraper]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

I disagree. Better to plan for the future and to do so when the land is available. I don't think this project has anything to do with the $7.5 billion current investment in infrastructure other than some early planning.

As for the Regina Bypass, they need to build a complete loop and make it a true freeway! Hopefully Saskatoon doesn't make the same mistake.

Eventually the beltway will be needed as the current Saskatoon city infrastructure doesn't have the capacity to have the added future highway through-traffic with Saskatoon's population expected to hit half million in the next two or three decades. The City/Province is securing the land now to allow for a more streamlined implementation of the build before the city grows to a point that will obstruct formulation of the freeway.

The Freeway is mostly to allow highway traffic to skirt the city without having to enter into the city's regular commuter traffic, particularly on the inner Circle Drive expressway. Trans Canada Highway #16 currently has to snake it's way through the city but with the planned Freeway, truck traffic will be able circumvent non-stop at highway speed without impacting city traffic.



The Saskatoon Freeway is going to be built for free flow 110/km traffic right from the start just like the Regina Bypass with no traffic lights but unlike Winnipeg's Perimeter Highway that is overpassing each at-grade interchange one at a time since it's inception in the 1950's.

Saskatoon's first 3 phases don't enclose the city loop completely but like Regina's Bypass, there are plans to eventually complete the orbit with a 4th phase in the future.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

I disagree. Better to plan for the future and to do so when the land is available. I don't think this project has anything to do with the $7.5 billion current investment in infrastructure other than some early planning.

As for the Regina Bypass, they need to build a complete loop and make it a true freeway! Hopefully Saskatoon doesn't make the same mistake.

Even if the province doesn't do it all in one shot, why not reserve the corridor?

It makes a project much more hugely complex when there's no future planning done since you have to expropriate and demolish.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I'm more sympathetic to highway expansion projects than most urbanists, but that Saskatoon proposal seems like overkill. Can't SK think of better ways to spend $7.5B on infrastructure? Was nothing learned from the Regina Bypass?

I agree - it appears they have put in full size grade separated interchanges in for what are essentially goat trails, in terms of traffic volume. If Calgary had applied the same standards to its ring road then virtually every interchange would have been a "systems interchange", as they call it.

[MolsonExport]

why does an urban area of barely 300,000 need a ring road with interchanges?
why not build a subway instead? 8 lines ought to do it.

I am not sure why you would want traffic to cross Saskatoon/Saskatchewan even more quickly than currently, negating the need for stops. Seems like a huge amount of money that will benefit a handful of people on the periphery, and long-distance truckers.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

why does an urban area of barely 300,000 need a ring road with interchanges?
why not build a subway instead? 8 lines ought to do it.

I am not sure why you would want traffic to cross Saskatoon/Saskatchewan even more quickly than currently, negating the need for stops. Seems like a huge amount of money that will benefit a handful of people on the periphery, and long-distance truckers.

It feels like a project made for truckers and those with pickups.

[scryer]

Come through, Saskatoon !

Originally Posted by flipper316

So jealous. Wish BC wasn't so anti highway.

Ok.. with Vancouver you can clearly see why it's anti-highway; so I'm assuming that you don't mean highways within the city? Outside of the lower mainland, I would dare to say that BC has got some of the most difficult geography to work with when it comes to the development of anything really; especially long distance transportation infrastructure.

We have an abundance of lakes, mountains, and rivers all requiring bridges and/or tunnels to pass through so the provincial government really has to assess what the best approach is since we don't have the open space to lay down cloverleaves and call it a day. Our highway infrastructure becomes colossally more expensive in comparison to other provinces because of our geographical limits.

Of course I agree that there are a plethora of examples where BC should have opted for more effective highway design and there are examples where BC needs to upgrade its highways. But the cost of implementing these solutions comes at a much higher price than it would in any province east of us.

On a municipal level, if you look at our highway infrastructure in some of the cities in the Interior like Kelowna or Kamloops you can see that they are cities established in the bases of mountains and that also border lakes and rivers. We can't exactly put in a series of interchanges across the Okanagan lake without the cost outweighing the benefit . On the flip-side this encourages city developers to highly prioritize active and public transportation infrastructure since it's difficult to lay down the concrete.

Do I like the current Patullo Bridge replacement? Not really . I think that it should be 8 lanes of traffic right from the jump because there is indeed a time and a place to develop infrastructure for vehicles and this is one of those opportunities.

So yeah, give BC a bit of a break here . We have to dig into mountains, level hills, and build bridges/tunnels. That's not to suggest that I don't think that we should continue improving our highway infrastructure though.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I'm more sympathetic to highway expansion projects than most urbanists, but that Saskatoon proposal seems like overkill. Can't SK think of better ways to spend $7.5B on infrastructure? Was nothing learned from the Regina Bypass?

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I am not sure why you would want traffic to cross Saskatoon/Saskatchewan even more quickly than currently, negating the need for stops. Seems like a huge amount of money that will benefit a handful of people on the periphery, and long-distance truckers.

Well it's better to over-build than to under build when it comes to most transportation infrastructure projects IMO.

I don't think that Saskatoon is over killing this at all, rather the province is anticipating the need to move more goods more conveniently. Saskatchewan has a huge advantage in learning from its prairie neighbour's mistakes in infrastructure development. From the outside looking in, Saskatoon is really stepping up to the plate and developing a strong piece of infrastructure correctly the first time (*nervous glance to Winnipeg's Perimeter Hwy*) to serve its future economy. And with a development like this: Saskatchewan is saying that it is open for future business.

Don't underestimate how much truck traffic that the M25 orbital freeway will serve. Those trucks move Canada's economy and getting them across the country conveniently benefits us all. Truck traffic from BC's ports pass through Saskatchewan to get to the East and vice versa. Of course I would rather see a freight hyperloop for non-dangerous goods as a means to address freight transport but I was born in the wrong time for that to happen.

[sonysnob]

I agree.

50 years ago, when the 401 was built 20km south of London it might have seem far-fetched, but nobody today would ever question the wisdom of that decision making. Saskatchewan is making the right forward-thinking decision to build a proper road network for through traffic to by-pass it's growing urban centres.

[MonctonRad]

I agree as well. Even in little old Moncton, a little bit of prescience can go a long way.

Back in the 70s when the TCH bypass was built around the city, it seemed to be in the boonies, and was only used by through traffic trying to avoid the city. In the meantime, the city has grown and in places has leapfrogged the TCH. The highway is being increasingly used by commuters as well, and is starting to develop an actual rush hour.

You don't necessarily build a highway for current needs. You have to think of what might be necessary in 50 years time.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I agree as well. Even in little old Moncton, a little bit of prescience can go a long way.

Back in the 70s when the TCH bypass was built around the city, it seemed to be in the boonies, and was only used by through traffic trying to avoid the city. In the meantime, the city has grown and in places has leapfrogged the TCH. The highway is being increasingly used by commuters as well, and is starting to develop an actual rush hour.

You don't necessarily build a highway for current needs. You have to think of what might be necessary in 50 years time.

I’ve always wondered why TCH and N.B.-15 are so close to one another on the north end without actually being connected though. Also, the cloverleaf interchange between the two by the airport needs upgrading. I think a flyover from TCH Freddy-bound to N.B.-15 Moncton-bound will be nice.