The 401

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

And it just keeps getting bigger. It will go from ~65km of 10+ lane highway to ~84km of 10+ lane highway once this widening finishes, and MTO has plans to eventually expand it to over 160km of 10+ lane highway once the widenings in Durham and to Kitchener are eventually completed..

Well except under the 427- only 8 lanes there. That whole choke point between 427 and 409 just seems to get worse and worse. What's with drivers cutting onto the onramps and using the acceleration lanes to jump a few car lengths ahead? That's happening more and more, especially on this stretch (Dixon interchange specifically).

I guess its a monkey-see-monkey-do attitude. The more people see this happening, the more will try it themselves.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by haljackey

Well except under the 427- only 8 lanes there. That whole choke point between 427 and 409 just seems to get worse and worse. What's with drivers cutting onto the onramps and using the acceleration lanes to jump a few car lengths ahead? That's happening more and more, especially on this stretch (Dixon interchange specifically).

I guess its a monkey-see-monkey-do attitude. The more people see this happening, the more will try it themselves.

Not just there, but also through Mississauga

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by haljackey

Well except under the 427- only 8 lanes there. That whole choke point between 427 and 409 just seems to get worse and worse. What's with drivers cutting onto the onramps and using the acceleration lanes to jump a few car lengths ahead? That's happening more and more, especially on this stretch (Dixon interchange specifically).

I guess its a monkey-see-monkey-do attitude. The more people see this happening, the more will try it themselves.

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Not just there, but also through Mississauga

I see it a lot on the QEW through Oakville and Burlington as well. Some drivers try to police it by straddling the lane marker, but the shoulders are wide so it's easy for the leap-froggers to just cut over and pass anyway.

Then you have the people who want to merge, but slow down on the ramp to do it as soon as they can. In heavy traffic it makes more sense to use the entire length of the merge lane. And if everyone would just have the common sense to zipper-merge and not treat it like a competition as a few do, things would be a lot smoother... AVs should remedy this, eventually.

[sonysnob]

Eastbound view of Highway 401 from the Trafalgar Road overpass:


http://www.asphaltplanet.ca/ON/hwy_401_images/401_cl_328_east_EB-t_Nov22_24x16.jpg

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

And it just keeps getting bigger. It will go from ~65km of 10+ lane highway to ~84km of 10+ lane highway once this widening finishes, and MTO has plans to eventually expand it to over 160km of 10+ lane highway once the widenings in Durham and to Kitchener are eventually completed..

And it will be just as congested as ever.

That widening in Kitchener must have started around the time of the Djoser Step Pyramid.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

And it will be just as congested as ever.

That widening in Kitchener must have started around the time of the Djoser Step Pyramid.

If the Djoser Step Pyramid was built in 2020, then yes

Kitchener did have two separate widening contracts right beside each other, constructed sequentially, so it looks like one project.. but the one started years ago has been completed for a while now and is fully open in it's 12-lane glory. The one happening now started 2 years ago and will be done next summer. Just in time for the Morriston Bypass work to start, which will involve widening the 401 around Highway 6..

[haljackey]

Its the bottlenecks on the 401 that cause a lot of the congestion. Sure you got a 12 lane highway in Kitchener now, but it narrows to 6 east of town. You won't really see the full benefits of these widening projects until the entire stretch from Hwy 8 to 410 is complete.

That should make the entire 401 west of the 427 interchange operate fairly well. There you got another merge issue that is much harder to solve. (407/Winston Churchill will become a issue eventually too... perhaps there can be some adjustments if the 413 interchange is built.)

----

I was in Windsor this weekend and the new 6 lane stretch through Tilbruy looks just about ready to open. The merge going eastbound where this ends is quite odd however, you have the right lane ending instead of the left, and a odd lane shift to put everything back in position. I guess it is temporary until the next stretch completes.

[Dengler Avenue]

The merge going eastbound where this ends is quite odd however, you have the right lane ending instead of the left, and a odd lane shift to put everything back in position.

MTO tends to avoid left-hand merges in general.
That said, the presence of a temporary left-hand merge on 401 WB between Milton and 407 is rather odd.
=====
In the long term, a 719-km mega freeway (with 6+ lanes) will be interesting.
(Exit to Highway 416 is actually at KM 719 even though it’s marked as Exit 721A.)

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

MTO tends to avoid left-hand merges in general.

Yes I know but here it just seems so sudden and the lane shift is pretty abrupt/sharp.

Before the current widening occurred the 6 lanes ended at the westen edge of Tilbury by the Flying J gas station. The right lane ended here but thanks to the fact that the freeway is curved in this stretch, it's not too noticeable that traffic is shifting.

Also for truck-heavy routes like this, they pretty much have only 1 lane to use at the merge point as trucks aren't allowed in the leftmost lane. That plus a shift makes things pretty sketchy here if there's a bunch of 18 wheelers together. I'd say the leftmost lane should end in this instance to keep the lanes from shifting (stay straight) but since is temporary I will forgive it for now. Still seems kinda excessive tho.

[sonysnob]

The lane shift east of Tilbury has been like that for a while. It was like that when I last drove home from Windsor in October. It didn't seem all that remarkable when I drove through there. That's how I'd expected the third lane to end.

[MolsonExport]

would it be possible to estimate how much money has been spent on the 401 since its opening? I'd love to see a credible ballpark estimate.

transit projects and HSR are always shot down because of cost, but it is because of the upfront price tag. Highways like the 401 are more insidious as the cost is spread over many decades and hundreds of projects (every lane repaving, every overpass replacement, etc.).

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

would it be possible to estimate how much money has been spent on the 401 since its opening? I'd love to see a credible ballpark estimate.

transit projects and HSR are always shot down because of cost, but it is because of the upfront price tag. Highways like the 401 are more insidious as the cost is spread over many decades and hundreds of projects (every lane repaving, every overpass replacement, etc.).

I'd be curious about how much economic activity would be related to high-speed highway travel.

Does Southern Ontario become an industrial heartland of modernity without a high-speed highway network?

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

would it be possible to estimate how much money has been spent on the 401 since its opening? I'd love to see a credible ballpark estimate.

transit projects and HSR are always shot down because of cost, but it is because of the upfront price tag. Highways like the 401 are more insidious as the cost is spread over many decades and hundreds of projects (every lane repaving, every overpass replacement, etc.).

Highways are a lot cheaper to build than you may initially expect. MTO is building the 400 extension for about $10 million per kilometre.

Even widenings aren't costing that much, The 401 expansion in Cambridge is widening the highway from 6 to 10 lanes for $192 million, or about $48 million per kilometre. The massive 401 widening in Mississauga costs $640 million, or just $35 million per kilometre for a basically brand-new, 12 lane core-collector freeway. The 400 widening between King Rd and Hwy 9 is just $10m/km (though all the bridges and interchanges in that area have already been done, with those included it's probably closer to $40m/km like the other projects).

That price would buy you less than 700 metres of modern subway!

comparatively, the Bowmanville GO expansion is budgeted to cost $730 million for a pretty basic, 3 station, single track, non-electrified GO extension, or $91m/km.

Highway costs are more spread around through smaller contracts, yes, but even if you bring them all together it would still result in significantly cheaper infrastructure. Highways are mostly just some pretty basic gravel and asphalt at the end of the day, there is a lot less complex infrastructure involved compared to transit projects. There are a lot more ongoing maintenance costs for transit projects too, but those works aren't has visible so people aren't as aware of it. The TTC has hundreds of millions in annual spending on just basic system maintenance.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by thewave46

Does Southern Ontario become an industrial heartland of modernity without a high-speed highway network?

I don't think so.

Historical industrial development would have happened as it did (being largely reliant on marine and rail transport) but with so much of the "modern" economic activity being tied to Canada-US trade and truck transportation, you might have seen economic development near a few border crossings and little else in the interior of the province. And those historical industries would look very different today, if they would have survived at all.

The related growth in other economic sectors and population would not have happened either.

Southern Ontario would probably have an economy based largely on agriculture and natural resources. And even those rely heavily on the road network.

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

would it be possible to estimate how much money has been spent on the 401 since its opening? I'd love to see a credible ballpark estimate.

transit projects and HSR are always shot down because of cost, but it is because of the upfront price tag. Highways like the 401 are more insidious as the cost is spread over many decades and hundreds of projects (every lane repaving, every overpass replacement, etc.).

I don't oppose HSR by any means but the economic benefits of it are far, far less than that of the highway network.

The primary benefit of HSR is that it's a greener alternative to air travel.

*edit* The B1M did a really excellent video on High Speed 2 in the UK, which outlines some of the pitfalls of the UK's foray into high-speed rail. It's about a half hour long, and it's really worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSD5ps9bLQ0

[MolsonExport]

just to be clear I am not advocating for HSR/transit > highways.

I would just like to see the former expand at a similar rate. Well at least here in London, where we have shitty train service (half the trains compared to 15 years ago) and no rapid transit.

[thewave46]

The MTO spent about $3 billion on highway expansion and maintenance in 2019/20 for the entire province for a context to what the whole system costs per year. The 401 probably averages expenses in the low hundred million dollar region per year (adjusted) over decades.

One could extrapolate from there, but the error bars would be pretty large unless one is poring over MTO budgets.

It's hard to come up with a final dollar cost, much less adjusting for inflation because one is essentially looking at a series of contracts for construction/expansion/maintenance over the span of the late 1940s to now.

On balance, the 401 probably is a net benefit from an economic activity standpoint.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

transit projects and HSR are always shot down because of cost, but it is because of the upfront price tag. Highways like the 401 are more insidious as the cost is spread over many decades and hundreds of projects (every lane repaving, every overpass replacement, etc.).

To be fair, provincial governments (at least ours) have really upped the transit spending over the past two decades.

And there's a lot of work that goes into deciding whether to spend money on a project. While business cases are published for many proposed transit projects and we don't see the same for most highway proposals, the latter are supported by travel demand forecasts, economic and financial assessments, and other empirical analysis.

Politics is a factor, of course.

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

just to be clear I am not advocating for HSR/transit > highways.

I would just like to see the former expand at a similar rate. Well at least here in London, where we have shitty train service (half the trains compared to 15 years ago) and no rapid transit.

I think the issue with rail funding for a city such as London is that the lowest hanging fruit in terms of interregional transportation spending is generally always a highway project.

High Speed Rail might be really great for specific trips between say, London, Kitchener, and especially Toronto, but it's meaningless for trips between London and Cambridge, or Woodstock, or Tilsonburg, or.... you get the idea. Whereas an improvement to the 401, while perhaps not as beneficial for those specific trips to Kitchener or Toronto, is beneficial to pretty much everyone who uses the transportation network. Spending tax dollars on the 401 is just easier to justify.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

I don't oppose HSR by any means but the economic benefits of it are far, far less than that of the highway network.

The primary benefit of HSR is that it's a greener alternative to air travel.

The highway network tends to be conceptually aimed at long-distance travel. Alas, because of the construction of our cities, we tend to use major highways for commuting purposes within regions.

Relatively few users of the 400-series highway network use it to travel outside the region they inhabit. The best solution for reducing congestion on the 401 might be to improve transit within the most congested areas. That's a multi-decade re-imagining of how we move people though.