Ontario Highways

[Dengler Avenue]

I mean, building the missing ramps will definitely make it easier for me to visit my friends who live in Port Credit.
I’m sad to see the service roads from Port Credit eastward go as QEW will be widened though. I haven’t driven there during rush hour often, but I’d think that they’d make for good alternative routes during congestion. The bridges will be choke point. North of QEW, there are basically no alternative E-W corridor until one reaches Dundas Street, which is quite far. (Lakeshore Road through Port Credit isn’t fun to drive on.)

[swimmer_spe]

I am a little confused on the missing ramp. Can someone tell me from where to where it would be? For instance, using the 400/401 as an example, from Barrie to London is from 400 N to 401 W. Right now, from what you all are saying, it sounds like it already is there.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I am a little confused on the missing ramp. Can someone tell me from where to where it would be? For instance, using the 400/401 as an example, from Barrie to London is from 400 N to 401 W. Right now, from what you all are saying, it sounds like it already is there.

From 403 W (S) to QEW E, and from QEW W to 403 E (N)

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

From 403 W (S) to QEW E, and from QEW W to 403 E (N)

So, from Milton to/from Toronto?

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

So, from Milton to/from Toronto?

From Milton to/from Port Credit, I’d say.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

From Milton to/from Port Credit, I’d say.

But, still the same as the way I said it?

Port Credit is not an officially marked place on signs or maps.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

But, still the same as the way I said it?

Port Credit is not an officially marked place on signs or maps.

Go see the JCT yourself and figure what’s missing…

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Go see the JCT yourself and figure what’s missing…

Now that I understand the direction everyone means, I know now what is missing. Good to know it is still planned to one day happen.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Now that I understand the direction everyone means, I know now what is missing. Good to know it is still planned to one day happen.

Who knows. Maybe one day MTO extends the HOV on QEW towards 427 and adds the 2 ramps while they’re at it.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Who knows. Maybe one day MTO extends the HOV on QEW towards 427 and adds the 2 ramps while they’re at it.

One day? I fully expect all 400 series highways within 100km of Toronto has a plan and a timeline for it to have HOV lanes added. I fully expect that from the Lakeshore Blvd exit to here (where the HOV lanes head west) will be done within 10-20 years.

[Djeffery]

You say that like "10-20 years" sounds better than "one day", especially since yours is just a guess too.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

You say that like "10-20 years" sounds better than "one day", especially since yours is just a guess too.

Well, mine is more finite. It is also a realistic answer.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I mean, building the missing ramps will definitely make it easier for me to visit my friends who live in Port Credit.
I’m sad to see the service roads from Port Credit eastward go as QEW will be widened though. I haven’t driven there during rush hour often, but I’d think that they’d make for good alternative routes during congestion. The bridges will be choke point. North of QEW, there are basically no alternative E-W corridor until one reaches Dundas Street, which is quite far. (Lakeshore Road through Port Credit isn’t fun to drive on.)

I don't know how many people do use those service roads to bypass traffic. It's been years since I drove on them but I recall them being fairly slow.

The Dixie Rd. overpass is quite old, so it will have to be replaced at some point anyway. Cawthra is newer but would need to be rebuilt to allow for widening. Hurontario passes under the highway, so it's a matter of adding width to the overpass (when it was rebuilt not long ago allowance was made for some expansion next to the westbound lanes and there's a wide shoulder south of the eastbound ones). Other than that, it's just the pedestrian bridge connecting to the plaza between Dixie and Cawthra that would need to be replaced.

The biggest issue may be buying up all those houses and other properties along the service roads. There must be at least a couple hundred of them, and a substantial widening cannot happen without removing the roads and thus access to those lots. Perhaps it need only be done on one side of the highway though.

MTO is currently adding a new bridge over the Credit River and making infrastructure improvements on either side, so that bottleneck will be gone in a few years: https://qewcreditriver.ca/

[sonysnob]

Cawthra is wide enough for an 8 lane QEW to pass beneath the overpass.

The province is willing to purchase the properties along the North Service Road to facilitate a widened QEW through southern Mississauga but the City hasn't come out in favour of the widening in recent years.

The next new HOV lanes to begin construction will be along the 400. The MTO has started calling construction contracts for work north of King Road northerly to just north of Highway 9.

[Innsertnamehere]

The Dixie Road bridge is getting replaced starting this coming summer. As a part of that work the westbound 4th GP lane will be extended from Dixie to Cawthra, which should help a bit with congestion in the evening rush hour.

Regarding the service roads, the only one I have found to be notably faster than sticking to the highway is eastbound exiting at Erin Mills, which leads straight onto south service road, and re-entering the highway at Mississauga Road. It can save a bit of time in rush hour.

Following the completion of the Dixie Road interchange, I believe only a handful of houses will need to be demolished along North Service Road between Cawthra and Hurontario in order to extend the HOVs through to the 427. The Credit River Bridge project is specifically leaving space for them and the Dixie Road interchange has left it's innermost GP lane as extra-wide in order to allow the conversion of it to an HOV if so desired.

@sonysnob - I believe the 400 HOVs to Highway 9 are supposed to start this year, correct? I wonder how many construction seasons they will take.. there is no bridge work involved I believe, it's just corridor widening. I can't see them being done later than 2024.. could a 2023 completion be possible as well? It's only really about ~6-7km of carriageway widening required at this point.

[sonysnob]

The 400 construction is scheduled for four seasons -- which is longer than I would have anticipated.

There isn't any bridge construction work, however I would expect to see the full length of the concrete median barrier replaced. Fairly significant grading is required through the moraine, and there will be at least partial illumination at the HOV ingress and egress locations. I know that the MTO gave a lot of thought about how best to illuminate the HOV ingress/egress locations during the design phase, but I don't know exactly what was decided.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

Cawthra is wide enough for an 8 lane QEW to pass beneath the overpass.

The province is willing to purchase the properties along the North Service Road to facilitate a widened QEW through southern Mississauga but the City hasn't come out in favour of the widening in recent years.

I guess I was thinking more about the current "standard" -- there's no shoulder along the median. And adding a lane will help but if they're going to expand why not go all-in for more than 4 each way.

I wonder why Mississauga is against the property purchases. Those don't seem to be "historic" homes. Some are probably former farm houses from way back when... maybe there's just too much resident opposition to the idea. But having a living room window facing a noise barrier can't be too pleasant either.

[Horus]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

The 400 construction is scheduled for four seasons -- which is longer than I would have anticipated.

There isn't any bridge construction work, however I would expect to see the full length of the concrete median barrier replaced. Fairly significant grading is required through the moraine, and there will be at least partial illumination at the HOV ingress and egress locations. I know that the MTO gave a lot of thought about how best to illuminate the HOV ingress/egress locations during the design phase, but I don't know exactly what was decided.

There were lane shifts in place around the Aurora Road exit when I passed through over the holidays. Given that it was a holiday period, it was difficult to determine if that was still an active construction site or if they've shut down for the season

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Horus

There were lane shifts in place around the Aurora Road exit when I passed through over the holidays. Given that it was a holiday period, it was difficult to determine if that was still an active construction site or if they've shut down for the season

The Aurora Road interchange work has been ongoing for a little while now, I believe it's almost done. It's a separate contract from the HOVs though.

4 construction seasons for HOVs to Highway 9 is extremely annoying... why? That means completion isn't until 2026 or so.. very frustrating. I feel like MTO has really artificially slowed a lot of expansion contracts lately for cash flow reasons, I wonder if this is like that as well. I just don't understand how the work required actually needs 4 years to complete.

The 404 HOVs are like that as well, not finishing until later this year but meanwhile construction started in, what, 2017? There is no reason it should take 5 years to add HOVs with only one major structure while the P3 contract for the 401 widening in Milton can be done in basically 3 years for a project that is 100x more complex.

There are a couple of other interchange replacements that are supposed to start this year on the 400 as well.. I believe Essa Road and Innisfil Beach Road are supposed to start, with Dunlop and Highway 88 starting in 2023..

I guess I'm just getting sick of waiting for the 400 HOVs as I use the highway regularly in the summer time to go to cottage country and hate, hate, hate the cottage country traffic. Honestly I find Ontario's road network to generally operate fine, or at least not horridly, outside of the 400 on weekends which is just a rolling disaster that MTO seems to be in no rush to really fix.

[sonysnob]

The 404 is an odd one. It's a two contract job, and the northern contract has been more or less complete since the end of 2020, yet the southern contract, required to actually open the HOV lanes won't be completed until the end of 2022.

I think the potential redevelopment of Buttonville Airport was one of the factors that slowed construction on the 404. The MTO has had several iterations of the design of the 16th Avenue interchange that required land from Buttonville.

At one point Cadillac Fairview owned Buttonville (they still might) and there was a firm date for it's closure, but that date has long since passed. Cadillac Fairview had filed a bunch of Record of Site Condition with the Ministry of the Environment which is required to change the land use from industrial to a more sensitive use, so at one point they were serious about redevelopment, but all of those plans have seem to have fallen by the wayside. At least to my limited knowledge.