London Construction - Development News Thread #1

[jammer139]

Victoria bridge plans in the works to replace it.

If they do hopefully widened to 4 lanes plus bike lanes and sidewalks.

http://lfpress.com/news/local-news/14-million-replacement-for-victoria-bridge-mulled

[Djeffery]

I don't think we will ever see Ridout widened so I don't think they need to make the bridge wide enough for 4 lanes. What exactly is a "multi-use pathway" though? Sidewalk on one side, and a bike lane on the east side and a multi use pathway on the west side. I'm going to guess that with Thames Park on the west side that the sidewalk will be on the west side, so what will this pathway be for?

[jammer139]

That would be short sighted to assume we only will have a 2 lane Ridout. Bridges are big ticket infrastructure projects with expected life spans of 50-100 years.

Building a 2 lane bridge today when 25 years from now we need 4 lanes is a classic example of not having any vision or planning fore thought. Use the extra $2M and build it 4 lanes and forget the fancy arches.

http://lfpress.com/news/local-news/committee-has-reservations-about-top-end-bridge

This is exactly the reason we don't have any routes for ring roads, light rail corridors, bike lanes, bus lanes etc etc.

Former urban planners and politicians didn't see the future and look only at today. They never consider planning right of ways, future land use or environment 50-100 years into the future.

Look at the countless examples of building on river flood plains around the world. London is also guilty of this with the building on flood plain around the north branch of the Thames on Highbury. I would never buy a home there as it is only a matter of time before the once in a hundred year storm results in a failure of the Fanshawe dam or emergency release of water to prevent the failure.

[haljackey]

Ridout isn't a major arterial road south of the Thames River. Having the bridge as 4 lanes seems excessive in my mind. It's a residential street and still has stop signs on it.

The community would never allow the road to be 4-laned and to be honest I doubt it would ever happen.

[Spicol]

The ship has long since sailed on Ridout growing to 4 lanes south of Horton. Many buildings are quite close to the road and there wouldn't be enough physical space without major expropriations.

[jammer139]

You have just proven my point about lack of vision. Too many people can't conceive of any future change other then the status quo. This feeds the NIMBY mindset we see all too often in London.

50-75-100 years from now the Richmond and Ridout corridors could be filled with 40-80 story highrises overlooking the river.

There was alot of talk not too many years ago about moving London Hydro to make way for a massive residential development on the bank of river.

Whose to say Labatts and all their land will still be there 20 years from now?

There were alot of folks who likely believed Kellogg's would never leave or McCormicks or GM Diesel.

Change Happens. A 2 lane bridge is short sided. Infrastructure projects like bridges need to be thinking about 50+ years out not about today.

[Djeffery]

Pie in the sky. Ridout isn't going to be lined with highrises like that. Wellington will be long before Ridout. And by that time, this bridge will be due to be replaced anyway. That bridge isn't going to be the impediment to big city urban development south of Horton. It will be the easiest thing to be replaced should the early 22nd century London city council decides that's the next best infill development area.

[jammer139]

Ridout already has high rises.

Tricar even has plans for a 22s just a few block south of the bridge.

Ridout being 4 lanes from Grand Ave north to York makes total sense today.

Traffic is already bad today and only going to get worst as the years roll along. Imagine in the year 2100.

No Vision, No Planning and No Progress

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Pie in the sky. Ridout isn't going to be lined with highrises like that. Wellington will be long before Ridout. And by that time, this bridge will be due to be replaced anyway. That bridge isn't going to be the impediment to big city urban development south of Horton. It will be the easiest thing to be replaced should the early 22nd century London city council decides that's the next best infill development area.

[PeteM]

No Vision, No Planning and No Progress

I'm happy that London's vision for Ridout doesn't include 4 Lanes in that area because that would be a wildly misguided allocation of funds. I'm in this area all the time and have never thought that stretch of road was busy volume wise. In fact it's not much busier than it was 20 years ago.

That would be like a bait n switch for unfamiliar people leaving downtown from 4-lane roadway to residential street where they'd have to jump over to Wellington or Wharncliffe at Commissioners anyways.

[haljackey]

Ya I couldn't see Ridout 4 lanes past Grand.

A good workaround is to build the bridge replacement as 2 lanes, but be flexible so that the sidewalks / bike paths could possibly be cannibalized in the future to put in 2 more lanes. That would mean building the bridge to handle a higher maximum weight ($$$), or retrofitting in the future.

Then, a separate parallel bridge for pedestrians and cyclists could be built.

If you're going to 4 lane Ridout, may as well start a study for a CN rail underpass too .
-Maybe with high speed rail funds? If that ever happens? lol

[jammer139]

Sounds like the votes are in on the bridge proposal and our mayor wanna-be Tanya is quoted as saying she supports the extra spending for 1st class infrastructure. Hide your wallets folks if we get a tax, borrow and spend NDPer as mayor.

[Djeffery]

So unnecessarily spending more for a wider bridge that isn't needed is fine, but a nicer looking bridge is a waste?

[jammer139]

$2.5 million EXTRA for arches would likely cover the extra width costs. Spending money wisely is the key to get the most ROI.

I would vote for the extra width and suspect most Londoners would as well.

Maybe those who want an art piece should start a GoFundMe to see if they can raise the money. If successful then by all means go nuts and build a replica of the London Bridge or Golden Gate Bridge.

[Djeffery]

It's a bridge, what kind of ROI is any bridge that isn't toll going to create? The roads around it aren't going to be widened, possibly ever, so why overbuild it?

[jammer139]

Your assuming they won't be widen. Think about the future not today.
Infrastructure like bridges last 50-100 years.

It's thinking that nothing will change in the future that results in stupid infrastructure projects like 2 lane roads that barely have room to be widen, sewers that have to be replaced because they can't handle the future capacity. The list goes on and on.

It's thinking that we don't want anything to change and it will stay just like it is now.

Think about only today and who cares about the future?

That is part of the DNA of NIMBYism.

Traffic on Ridout St. has increased and will continue to increase. Let's replace a 2 lane bridge with another 2 lane bridge for the next 100 years. Keeping it two lanes will stop the traffic from increasing mindset.

Good grief how utterly stupid and lacking in vision.

Originally Posted by Djeffery

It's a bridge, what kind of ROI is any bridge that isn't toll going to create? The roads around it aren't going to be widened, possibly ever, so why overbuild it?

[Djeffery]

Nope, sorry, not buying what you are selling, even with the insults. No way the city is going to destroy that neighbourhood so people can get to White Oaks easier. And if they did decide to do that 50 years from now, they would replace any bridge built today.

[jammer139]

50 years or less from now there will high rise towers along Ridout to Grand Ave.

Would not be surprised to see the Hydro/PUC lands and Labatts gone and replaced with towers as the urban core expands south towards the river.

Won't be around to see it but but that is what will happen.

[Djeffery]

Even if they put another Cherryhill Village on the top of that hill (which wouldn't fit anyway), you don't need a 4 lane bridge there. And any potential development of the Hydro and Labatt lands doesn't matter since it's already on the north side of the river.

[BIGGUY2891]

I'm all for encouraging our leaders to be thinking about the future when they allocate tax dollars, but all variables should be considered. If we're going to have a discussion on what road capacity will be required in the future, we shouldn't base it only on population growth. Semi-autonomous automobiles are sharing our roads now and the tech and auto giants of this world have invested billions of dollars into R&D to make our vehicles completely autonomous.

Fully autonomous vehicles can safely travel closer together and faster than human driven vehicles. The penetration forecast is that sales of autonomous vehicles will overtake that of human operated vehicles in 22 years. This will have a major impact on how our traffic moves.

Do we need to invest billions to expand road capacity for 50 years from now when traffic flow could become exponentially more efficient in 30 years? Would our governments be willing to spend billions of public dollars to solve future congestion or embrace the private sector that is spending billions to solve it for us?

[jammer139]

no idea where your getting Billions of $ from.

We're talking about spending $2.5 Million extra for fancy arches on a two lane bridge reconstruction VS rebuilding it 4 lanes wide to accommodate the extra traffic that will be using it over the next 50-100 years. It is already 4 lanes immediately north of the bridge now if you haven't noticed. If you have to replace it at least make it better then it was before.

There are people who don't want to believe that change will happen. That everything will stay just like it is for the next 50+ years along Ridout St. That London will not change or progress or grow.

They are simply short sighted and have no vision.

Yeah maybe we will have personal teleportation devices and we won't need vehicles or roads anymore too.

Originally Posted by BIGGUY2891

I'm all for encouraging our leaders to be thinking about the future when they allocate tax dollars, but all variables should be considered. If we're going to have a discussion on what road capacity will be required in the future, we shouldn't base it only on population growth. Semi-autonomous automobiles are sharing our roads now and the tech and auto giants of this world have invested billions of dollars into R&D to make our vehicles completely autonomous.

Fully autonomous vehicles can safely travel closer together and faster than human driven vehicles. The penetration forecast is that sales of autonomous vehicles will overtake that of human operated vehicles in 22 years. This will have a major impact on how our traffic moves.

Do we need to invest billions to expand road capacity for 50 years from now when traffic flow could become exponentially more efficient in 30 years? Would our governments be willing to spend billions of public dollars to solve future congestion or embrace the private sector that is spending billions to solve it for us?