The 401

[Dengler Avenue]

And now 12 lanes through Cambridge just feel a bit... lol funny.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Oh boy that median barrier looks thick. How wide is it?

It's tapering out wider at the point to go around the bridge pillars. It's a regular wall prior to and beyond that.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by haljackey

In London, one day maybe 10 lanes max from Highbury or VMP to the 402. Wellington Road can accommodate this since it isn't sloped at the sides just like Highbury.

Highbury is supposed to be replaced, as is the rail overpass/Pond Mills Rd combination bridge to the west of Highbury. That whole thing is going to be painful when they get around to doing it. When I saw the notices online for the Pond Mills rail bridge a couple years ago, it said 3 construction seasons. Not sure how long the Highbury overpass is going to take but with the rebuild of Highbury itself south of Hamilton Rd, it would be great to coordinate these projects while a lot of traffic is taking alternate routes anyway.

[sonysnob]

Again, if I were in charge, I'd construct a continuous auxiliary lane between the Wellington and Highbury interchanges when they do Pond Mills and CN Rail overpass. They might not, but that's what I'd like to see for now.

[haljackey]

On the note of auxiliary lanes, I'd also like to see dedicated exit /entrance ramps paralleling the 401 that access Wellington Road. That way if you're on the 402 and want to access Wellington Road, you don't have to merge onto the 401, and vice-versa. That would cut down on the weaving in the area between these two interchanges.

Right now an extra ramp to do this could be squeezed in under the Digman Drive bridge but if they're going to rebuild it soon, scrap that idea I guess? It would go between the support beam and the overpass edge.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@42.9127616,-...fm6BbD7lAfmeTfoxeiK_Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[sonysnob]

I haven't seen the design, but I'd expect the future Dingman Drive overpass to just have two spans, not the four that the current bridge has.

I don't think it's not a huge deal that there isn't a subcollector lane between the 402 and Wellington, but that said, I don't think that'd be a bad design choice either.

If the 402 and Wellington were a bit closer together, the interchanges certainly would interfere with one another.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by haljackey

On the note of auxiliary lanes, I'd also like to see dedicated exit /entrance ramps paralleling the 401 that access Wellington Road. That way if you're on the 402 and want to access Wellington Road, you don't have to merge onto the 401, and vice-versa. That would cut down on the weaving in the area between these two interchanges.

Right now an extra ramp to do this could be squeezed in under the Digman Drive bridge but if they're going to rebuild it soon, scrap that idea I guess? It would go between the support beam and the overpass edge.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@42.9127616,-...fm6BbD7lAfmeTfoxeiK_Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Where is traffic exiting the 401 to Wellington supposed to merge with 402 traffic exiting to Wellington? Not at the ramp I assume? Keep in mind there is a lot of truck traffic off both highways going to Wellington, and turning left and right as well. You are still going to have some level of weaving traffic unless you have a basketweave type setup and I can't see the volumes justifying that expense.

[Dengler Avenue]

In other news, this is what we missed last night: https://mobile.twitter.com/OPP_HSD/status/1342326056670400512

[Dengler Avenue]

Also, google satellite image now shows the overpass over Ojibway Parkway in Windsor.

[ssiguy]

The 401 between London and Woodstock wouldn't be near as busy if they had built the damn 402 where it was originally planned to go........north of London. It was suppose to be a way to AVOID the 401 instead of merging into it and would cross the city's northern boundary all the way across Oxford County to meet up with the then planned 403 at Woodstock.

London's tony north end backed by very politically powerful Labatt family of course would have none of it. London also got screwed on the 401 which is also not where it was originally planned to go

[Blitz]

If the residents of southwestern Ontario actually cared about maximizing highway safety, they'd be advocating for twinning both Highway 3 to Leamington and Highway 40 around Sarnia. You get far more bang for the buck by twinning a highway than by replacing one style of median barrier with another one.

People have been screaming about that stretch of Highway 3 for as long as I can remember.

The improvements to Hwy 401 between Tilbury and London are more about the new bridge opening in 2024 and the expected increase in trucks that will then use Hwy 401 (instead of Hwy 402 which some of them use now to avoid the bottleneck in Windsor).

[sonysnob]

The completion of the new bridge might mean that traffic on the 401 rebounds to the level of traffic the highway carried in 2006...

[Dengler Avenue]

There was a time when 401 AADT was below 15K? Woah...

[haljackey]

It should also be noted that the way we live and work is changing. The Covid pandemic has showed us a lot of our office work can be done remotely at home.

This, plus the boomers in the Toronto area selling their homes and buying elsewhere, using the money earned for retirement, is going to make smaller cities more important. London is growing like a weed now, and I'd expect growth in places like Chatham to accelerate too.

We may not be commuting as much for work, but the trips we make from one city to another is likely going to increase as friends/family spread out into multiple cities or to access stores or whatever that are only in the big cities. This could lead to the need to strengthen the transportation infrastructure between small and medium cities.

If everything was status quo I'd agree with you that traffic levels on the 401 between London and Windsor won't significantly increase (but likely will see an increase). However with a societal movement that may have not been properly envisioned this may happen.

Regardless however, this 6-laning project is still a 'nice to have' in my mind.

[north 42]

Windsor and Essex County have also been growing very well the past few years (approximately 425k now, and will probably continue to for the near future. Between the population growth and the new crossing, traffic will definitely increase along the 401, so the 6 lanes and concrete median are going to be much needed, for safety reasons as well as volume of traffic.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by north 42

Windsor and Essex County have also been growing very well the past few years (approximately 425k now, and will probably continue to for the near future. Between the population growth and the new crossing, traffic will definitely increase along the 401, so the 6 lanes and concrete median are going to be much needed, for safety reasons as well as volume of traffic.

Traffic would have to double to get even close to the level that traditionally justifies 6 lanes.

Highway 11 between Barrie and Orillia has an AADT at about 50k for example and is a 4 lane RIRO expressway with no real plans for an upgrade, despite having much much lower safety standards than the 401 towards Windsor. Thus my comments of priority.

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by haljackey

It should also be noted that the way we live and work is changing. The Covid pandemic has showed us a lot of our office work can be done remotely at home.

This, plus the boomers in the Toronto area selling their homes and buying elsewhere, using the money earned for retirement, is going to make smaller cities more important. London is growing like a weed now, and I'd expect growth in places like Chatham to accelerate too.

We may not be commuting as much for work, but the trips we make from one city to another is likely going to increase as friends/family spread out into multiple cities or to access stores or whatever that are only in the big cities. This could lead to the need to strengthen the transportation infrastructure between small and medium cities.

If everything was status quo I'd agree with you that traffic levels on the 401 between London and Windsor won't significantly increase (but likely will see an increase). However with a societal movement that may have not been properly envisioned this may happen.

Regardless however, this 6-laning project is still a 'nice to have' in my mind.

Trenton is growing.

Belleville is growing.

Kingston is growing.

While I think all of that is true. I don't see that as justifying the need to widen the 401 through Chatham-Kent with more of a priority than in other sections throughout southern Ontario.

Windsor isn't special. It doesn't need more highway than anywhere else in the province just because it's Windsor.

Also, traffic on the 401 didn't spike on the 401 in either 2015 or 2016 after the extension of the 401 to the EC Row opened. If the new bridge was actually going to pull traffic off of the Bluewater Bridge, there would have been a spike in traffic after the first extension of the 401 opened. There wasn't.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

Also, traffic on the 401 didn't spike on the 401 in either 2015 or 2016 after the extension of the 401 to the EC Row opened. If the new bridge was actually going to pull traffic off of the Bluewater Bridge, there would have been a spike in traffic after the first extension of the 401 opened. There wasn't.

Hard to compare a totally new crossing with direct highway access to an old crossing with still a few miles of city streets until the highway. I'm fortunate that I never have to cross the border in the truck, but most of my cross border friends still cross at Sarnia, even going to Toledo or Cleveland, which crossing at Windsor seems to make more sense. And they said they plan to switch to the new bridge when it's ready.

[CF1Fan]

The bottleneck in Windsor was/is primarily ambassador bridge and the fact that there's still no direct highway access to that bridge. Also, the widening has little to do with Windsor itself.

Regardless of that, I don't think the traffic on that section will increase enough such that it warrants widening of the highway. Either all traffic going to Sarnia would have to get routed to the 401, or population growth in the region would have be huge and you'd still need a substantial portion of the 402 traffic routed to the 401.

In any case, only a 11 km portion is funded at this point. The rest of it is still a long way away.

Which begs a few questions for me.

1) What happened to the reconstruction that was happening in this section that was supposed to happen for the entire stretch between Tilbury and London? Is it completely stopped because they now want to widen the highway, and the sections that haven't been reconstructed will be reconstructed with the widening?

2) What's the plan/timeline to replace the 401/highway 4 interchange? IIRC as per the previous Ontario Southern Highways program it was supposed to happen around 2021 or so. I haven't heard anything in the recent past.

[Dengler Avenue]

1) Good question. Last time I checked the section in late August 2019, I got off at Highway 40. From Highway 4 to Highway 40, aside from 2 spots, the cable barriers were up. I judged by the number of Speeding-Costs-You signs (which went from 4 to 2).