Highways in Canada

[TownGuy]

Originally Posted by middeljohn

In Calgary today...astounded by the number of cloverleaf interchanges I've passed.

Are these old or new interchanges? Aren't cloverleafs antiquated?

[eemy]

I would be very surprised if anyone is continuing to build new cloverleafs. Perhaps they meant Parclos?

The issue with Hwy 400 closing in both directions is that it is built below standards. Once they have the tall wall barrier in place, I expect that we will see that happening far less often.

[eternallyme]

The 401 has seen two more closures today in eastern Ontario.

First, a lot of these accidents are in construction zones. Bad drivers ignoring them is a disaster waiting to happen. Also, many truckers are blaming the speed-limiter law which results in trucks tailgating, and cars end up following too slowly. Although I wouldn't want to see trucks driving at 120-130 either...that can be quite dangerous and frightening too.

Maybe widening the corridors will help? In the case of the 401, having it 6 lanes in eastern Ontario would mean trucks would be banned from the left lane, reducing tailgating somewhat on a busy highway.

[TownGuy]

Those speed limiters are a MAJOR problem on the 401 where it is only 4 lanes. These trucks literally try passing each other going the exact same speed. The only time they get any separation is on grades. It's not unusual to spend 5+ minutes stuck in a line of 30 cars waiting for one truck to pass the other. Then you end up with those morons who try to blow passed everyone in the right lane and cut back into traffic making the issue even worse.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by TownGuy

Those speed limiters are a MAJOR problem on the 401 where it is only 4 lanes. These trucks literally try passing each other going the exact same speed. The only time they get any separation is on grades. It's not unusual to spend 5+ minutes stuck in a line of 30 cars waiting for one truck to pass the other. Then you end up with those morons who try to blow passed everyone in the right lane and cut back into traffic making the issue even worse.

Indeed, even though I understand the big-picture impact and on wider sections they aren't as much as a problem. Widening much of the 401 to 6 lanes would be very beneficial. The only section that really doesn't need any widening is from Prescott to the Quebec border, which has the least traffic of any 401 section.

It is not nearly as bad on other 4-lane freeways in Ontario (such as 400 north of Barrie, 402, 403 west of Hamilton, 416 and 417) due to lower traffic volumes.

[middeljohn]

Originally Posted by TownGuy

Are these old or new interchanges? Aren't cloverleafs antiquated?

No idea. I don't know Calgary enough to know when it was built, just that I passed a few of them (although they're by far the minority, most are either parclos or diamonds).

One that's really unique about Calgary is they have a whole bunch of collector roads that seem to alternate between grade-level and freeway. It's by far the most car-oriented city I've seen in Canada.

[MolsonExport]

^even more than London, Ontario (aka Truckland)? The car-centric aspect of my (current) city is the thing I dislike the most. Car-land has no soul. Dumbcentres, fast food joints, gasoline stations, and crud.

[middeljohn]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^even more than London, Ontario (aka Truckland)? The car-centric aspect of my (current) city is the thing I dislike the most. Car-land has no soul. Dumbcentres, fast food joints, gasoline stations, and crud.

"Walkable" isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I think of London, but at least the city is on a grid. Calgary seems to be on a partial grid, and by that I mean that individual neighbourhoods may have grids, but then most of the streets seem to stop with very few going into the next neighbourhood.

What fascinates me is that you'd think with Calgary and Edmonton being almost identical in size the congestion levels would be similar, possibly with Calgary less so than Edmonton due to a much more extensive freeway network. Yet it's quite the opposite. Edmonton only has three freeways, with the majority of people taking surface roads in their commute, yet Edmontonians still get home faster than Calgarians. I think the reason for that is because Edmontonians have multiple options in terms of which road to take since most roads go through the entire city. Calgary seems to have very few that go through the entire city, so the expressways/freeways are the only options, causing a lot more congestion.

[VIce]

Originally Posted by middeljohn

In Calgary today...astounded by the number of cloverleaf interchanges I've passed.

As far as I know there is only one classic cloverleaf in the city, Barlow and 16th ave (built in 1956 when Barlow was planned to be Hwy 2). Currently it's slated to be turned into a one-lobe parclo. Crowchild and Stoney has a heavily modified cloverleaf with large bridges to eliminate weaving. Other than that, I believe every other major interchange in the city is either a parclo or a cloverstack.

[MolsonExport]

The freeway is way overrated in terms of importance to the general health of the city (and by health, I define that extremely broadly, to take into account the urban fabric, and so forth). High density public transit, arguably, has as great if not greater, impact. Vancouver, for example, is noted for only having a few miles of freeway in the city proper. And perhaps for the better, although not to the car commuter (I was one myself when i lived in that oh so fair city).

[Razor]

How fitting

A friend just sent me this ..

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/08/04/...re_n_5649374.html?utm_hp_ref=email_share

[Metro-One]

Ugh, I do find such articles a little hypocritical.

For several reasons:

First, Denmark itself has quite an impressive freeway network, allowing one to drive to almost any part of the nation via grade separated roadway. In fact, Copenhagen's freeway network is far more extensive than Vancouver's (and Metro Copenhagen is about 500 000 people smaller than Metro Vancouver)

The entire nation of Denmark has a smaller population than Metro-Toronto, yet I am willing to bet it has many more km of freeway than metro-Toronto does.

Now, there is some legitimacy in what they have said, regarding the girth of eastern Canadian freeways, lower density in the city cores, and lack of bike networks.

Still, overall, it is a little lopsided of an article. (They make it sound like Denmark has no road infrastructure and its all bikes, which is very far form the truth, Denmark has a very highly developed freeway network that some parts of Canada (such Vancouver Island or the eastern interior of BC) can only dream of right now).

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^even more than London, Ontario (aka Truckland)? The car-centric aspect of my (current) city is the thing I dislike the most. Car-land has no soul. Dumbcentres, fast food joints, gasoline stations, and crud.

London may sprawl {although I really don't think any more than most mid-size cities} but the downtown and inner city, unlike most, is intact. The city didn't allow any freeways to rip the city apart unlike the vast majority. You can walk anywhere in inner city London and be surrounded by beautiful neighbourhoods, trees, parks, shopping, and restaurants. London's transit system gets quite high per-capita ridership and the downtown is very walkable. If you live within 2 km of downtown you can easily live without a car in London.

Although London has truly horrific traffic for it's size, a bizarre street layout, thin roads, and endless uncoordinated lights, it's still a great city and offers a very enviable standard of living and quality of life for a city of just 400,000.

[ssiguy]

MolsonExport.......

I think when viewing London's sprawl you are getting a bit of a warped view due to the city's size.

You may be shocked by how the city sprawls but that's because you are never very far from it. Even from downtown you can see big box stores 5km from downtown and new sprawling numbing neighbourhoods.

You see Vancouver and Montreal different because you can live in the city of Vancouver or on the Island and see almost no big box stores but that doesn't mean they don't have them.

In Greater Vancouver, Coquitlam, Langley, Surrey, Delta, Abbotsford,etc are nothing but endless sprawl for km after nauseating km with big box developments that go on as far as the eye can see. Richmond and Burnaby to a lesser extent. Thing is that most people in Vancouver don't see it because it is so far away which is not possible in smaller cities like London.

A better comparison for London to Vancouver would be to compare the London area of say Commissioners to Cherryhill to UWO to Adelaide. In other words you see the big box and sprawl because in a smaller city you are naturally closer to it.

Next time you are in Vancouver come look at the areas where most people actually live and you might as well be in Orange county, Laval, or Brampton. I don't think Vancouver's mindless ugly sprawling areas are any worse or better than most cities it's size but neither are London's.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by middeljohn

No idea. I don't know Calgary enough to know when it was built, just that I passed a few of them (although they're by far the minority, most are either parclos or diamonds).

One that's really unique about Calgary is they have a whole bunch of collector roads that seem to alternate between grade-level and freeway. It's by far the most car-oriented city I've seen in Canada.

I can think of one remaining cloverleaf in Calgary, at Barlow and 16th. Lots of parclos.

Calgary's roads alternate between freeway and at grade because of changes made to routings after community protests in the 70's as well as the boom-bust economy which left many projects incomplete.

I would think Kelowna, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, KW, London, Quebec City and maybe even Ottawa are similar in car orientation to Calgary. Calgary has far worse traffic than any city outside the big 3, but that is due to geography (hills, rivers, parks, railway tracks, native reservation) that creates bottlenecks, centralized destinations and likely wealth.

Edmonton commutes are shorter timewise because employment destinations are more dispersed.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Ugh, I do find such articles a little hypocritical.

For several reasons:

First, Denmark itself has quite an impressive freeway network, allowing one to drive to almost any part of the nation via grade separated roadway. In fact, Copenhagen's freeway network is far more extensive than Vancouver's (and Metro Copenhagen is about 500 000 people smaller than Metro Vancouver)

The entire nation of Denmark has a smaller population than Metro-Toronto, yet I am willing to bet it has many more km of freeway than metro-Toronto does.

Now, there is some legitimacy in what they have said, regarding the girth of eastern Canadian freeways, lower density in the city cores, and lack of bike networks.

Still, overall, it is a little lopsided of an article. (They make it sound like Denmark has no road infrastructure and its all bikes, which is very far form the truth, Denmark has a very highly developed freeway network that some parts of Canada (such Vancouver Island or the eastern interior of BC) can only dream of right now).

I agree. I also find some of the comments a bit bogus. For example, all of this is legitimate criticism of modern urban design and its impact on people:

'I am obese. My children are overweight and most of the people who live around here. I am surrounded by fast food chains, car parks and highways. I would love to ditch the car. My neighbourhood doesn't even have sidewalks.'

But you do actually know someone who would say something like this about their own lifestyle to a stranger from a foreign country? Plus, it's attributed to someone in Lévis, a suburb on the south shore of Quebec City. Where most people are definitely not obese.

Furthermore, while it is true open letters like these are published all the time, why is this person important enough that her letter warrants a separate article highlighting it? Is she some kind of urban affairs expert?

[esquire]

^ I suspect that a lot of Canadians are complacent in relation to car culture, otherwise we wouldn't see so many of them out there on the streets.

I know that the situation in other cities may differ, but The Great Winnipeg Dream basically involves starting a successful business and moving out into a great big home on a 40 acre patch of exurbia with a 6-car garage. And if you can't swing that, then you're at least obliged to get as far out into the burbs as you can. Sure, there are exceptions, but by and large that's where new money goes.

People like those "commenters" pay lip service to hating car culture, but what is anyone really doing about it? So many people say that because it's politically correct but then just end up buying a home way out in some distant new subdivision anyway.

[niwell]

This quote seems a bit suspect to me:

"As humans trying to enjoy Canada's major cities (Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa and Halifax) we were treated like second class citizens compared to cars. The air was dirty, and the constant noise from horns and engines was unpleasant.


I'm not sure where these people were going exactly, but unless you are staying exclusively at suburban airport hotels this isn't exactly grounded in reality. I agree with the sentiment but given the tone of the letters I can't help but think they are counter-productive. It comes across a bit as the Euro perception that Canada should be nothing but wilderness.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by niwell

I'm not sure where these people were going exactly, but unless you are staying exclusively at suburban airport hotels this isn't exactly grounded in reality. I agree with the sentiment but given the tone of the letters I can't help but think they are counter-productive. It comes across a bit as the Euro perception that Canada should be nothing but wilderness.

I think unrealistic expectations may have been behind this. It sounds like they were partly expecting some kind of 19th century scene of trappers running through the bush on snowshoes and not 21st century G8 advanced economy urbanization.

The funny thing is that the car-centric suburbia of North America is not that different than what you see in the outer parts of European cities... I mean, even charming old Paris is surrounded by freeways lined by gas stations, big boxes and their Tim Hortons. It's a part of Europe that really only became known to me on my most recent trip there, which was the first time I rented a car on that continent... it's surprising how much it looks like "home" when you get outside of the old towns.

[sonysnob]

^ And even in the older parts of Paris... people drive like they are hunting down pedestrians for sport.