List of Canadian Ring Roads

[haljackey]

You forgot London.

Wait... They forgot London.

[Doug]

[QUOTE=roccerfeller;5425704]Note: not all are "true" ring roads. Afaik, only Winnipeg has a "true" ring road that actually circles the city, and Calgary & Edmonton will have a "true ring roads" soon; additionally afaik, only Edmonton is actively planning to have it be a proper ring road/freeway. If you feel I should add or take away a "ring road" let me know or discuss in the forum!

Calgary's ring road will be a true freeway with speed limits of 100 - 110. There is only one remaining at grade intersection on the in service segments. That intersection at Nose Hill Drive will be grade separated by ~2014. The intent is to complete the full ring, but the SW segment is contingent on a legal agreement with the First Nation's band whose land it will cross and the west segment will likely remain in the drawing board until sufficient demand materializes.

[Simpseatles]

Originally Posted by haljackey

You forgot London.

Wait... They forgot London.

Yep, looks like another thread we will be left out on!

Ours will be built though...by 2099!

[Andy6]

Winnipeg was actually supposed to have two concentric ring roads, the Perimeter Highway on the outside and the Suburban Beltway on the inside. The Beltway was never built, although a version of it is slowly developing into a sort of arterial ring-road as Routes 90 and 165 and Chief Peguis Trail etc. more or less follow various parts of its proposed path.

As early as 1910, a ring road was planned, called Sharp Boulevard after the former mayor, but it was never realized beyond a few blocks of what is still called Sharp Blvd. in St. James and Inkster Blvd. in the North End, which was intended to become another section of it.

And that is the extent of my ring-road lore.

[Distill3d]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Kind of a trivial question, but when does a bypass become a ring road? I am just curious where the line is drawn in the distinctions.

I'd agree, it's splitting hairs really. I guess a ring-road is a "ring" around the city, where a bypass like Langley's is only a crescent? I say they're one in the same given their functions.

[vid]

Thunder Bay Expressway functions like a ring road in that it is used by local and regional traffic, the former using it to get from one part of the city to another quickly and the latter using it to avoid the city for the most part. There is one spur, which connects it to the harbour.

Technically, Thunder Bay's ring road is much longer than described in the second post:



Obviously because of the lake, a ring road isn't very possible here. They did try it, expanding and connecting a few streets along the waterfront and the eastern edges of the city, but those are just four lane arterial roads, not part of an actual ring road system, and they're used differently than the highlighted roads in the map above.

[roccerfeller]

whoa lots of replies! I won't be able to edit all the information for at least another day, but I will update the information when I can....guys thank you for the corrections, clearly there is a lot of misinformation on Wikipedia lol....

keep the comments coming or anything else you feel I should change/add/remove

Good to know regarding each city!

[Marty_Mcfly]

Here's an outline of the Outer Ring Road/Pitts Memorial Drive highways around St. John's. I've also included the Team Gushue Highway and it's proposed extension, which isn't exactly a "ring" highway, just connecting the two portions of the ring highway

[roccerfeller]

Originally Posted by Andy6

Highway 407 would be stretching the definition of Ring Road beyond recognition, I'd say.

I can remove Toronto's if anyone else feels its not a true ring road; it serves as a ring road in a sense though does it not? Its just that there is so much sprawl in GTA its meddled its way around everything.

Perhaps I could extend it beyond Toronto and note it as serving the Toronto GTA

Originally Posted by Dwils01

Hwy 407 is planned to connect to Hwy 35/115 north of Bowmanville in Clarington. They are starting the first phase which will make it go to Simcoe Street in Oshawa.

The planned length will be about 43.7km bringing it to a total length of 150.9km.

Thank you, its been added

Originally Posted by Dmajackson

Just some minor corrections;

Moncton - Route 15 is correct but the length is way off. Using exit numbers it is 9km from rotary to rotary which is the extent of the ring portion around the city.

Halifax - The Circ is correct for Dartmouth. I don't know if you included it in the length but it should include the MacKay Bridge. This extends the ring around the urban core. There are plans for a third bridge between the Woodside Terminus and the South - End of Halifax (around HalTerm).

Charr'town - There is a ring road though not as impressive as in larger centers. It is Route 1 (Trans Canada) that rounds the northern section of the city. It's name is the Charrlottetown Perimeter Highway.

Also these might stretch the defenition slightly but I'll let you use your judgement;

Fredericton - This tiny city has two seperate rings. South of the river there is Highway 8 (Fredericton Bypass). This connects the Trans Canada to Highways 10 and 105 to the east (when the bridge reopens at least). To the north of the city there is the Ring Road which is Highway 105. This connects downtown around the northern limits to the west.

Oromocto - This even smaller city has the Trans Canada bypass it to the south (for connection to Highway 7). This was probably not planned as a ring road but it definitely looks like one.

Excellent thank you very much for this, I did not take a look at the last two cities, however if you feel they are ring roads I will add them. I'm not the sole determinator of what is and what is not a ring road

Also, if you have the lengths, I can add those in

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

The Outer Ring Road in St. John's is about 20km in length, and its terminus in East White Hills marks the end of the Trans Canada Highway. It's one of two highways which "circles" the city, the other being Pitts Memorial Drive, or locally called the "harbor arterial" which runs from an exit off the outer ring road and along the southern edge of the city near Mount Pearl, Waterford Valley, Kilbride, and terminates directly into downtown St. John's. This highway is about 20km long as well.

Thanks, added

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Route 15 in Moncton is also called Wheeler Boulevard which is a great name for a four lane divided expressway with a maximum speed of 100 km/hr.

You can't get much more European than the Moncton ring road. It's bounded on either end by giant roundabouts (the Hall's Creek and Causeway traffic circles).

DMAJackson is correct, it's only about 10 km long, but only encloses the northern perimeter of central Moncton. It connects in the east at the Hall's Creek traffic circle to Veteran's Highway, which is also NB Route 15. The entire urban extent of Route 15 is about 20 km.

Thanks, I updated that btw its tough to note the discrepancy between what serves as Moncton's ring road and what serves as just highway; we have the highway thread already so I'm trying to focus solely on the ring road part. However if you feel I should add to it, let me know what I should add and ill change it

Originally Posted by flar

The LINC, which runs east from Highway 403, was completed in the 1990s, the second phase is the Red Hill Valley Parkway, which was completed in 2007 and runs north to the QEW. The QEW then meets back up with the 403, completing a ring around Hamilton-Burlington. The entire route is real controlled access freeway with full interchanges. The ring is directly linked to several other controlled access highways: to the 403 west to Brantford, the QEW to Niagara, the QEW/403 to Toronto, the terminus of the 407, highway 6 north to Guelph, and Burlington Street, the double decker highway spur into the industrial harbour area.

Wow, awesome flar! I changed it, lemme know if it works now

Originally Posted by Distill3d

Portage La Prairie, MB has the Highway 1 by-pass that runs south of the city to avoid it. Highway 1 also runs through the center of town.

Similarly, Langley (city), BC uses #10 as a semi circular by-pass as well. It begins at 56 avenue and 192 Street in the west and ends at 56 avenue and what is essentially 210 Street (aptly named Langley ByPass) in the east. Its mainly used by truckers to avoid Langley City's core. I'm willing to say its the only "ring road" in BC.

Thanks! I added both, you don't by any chance happen to know the lengths do you? of each?

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Kind of a trivial question, but when does a bypass become a ring road? I am just curious where the line is drawn in the distinctions.

Yeah, BC does not really have any true ring roads, of course one major factor is the geography of all our largest cities in BC (Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna for example) do not allow the construction of true ring roads. Here, they would more become bypasses. Vancouver could have a semi ring road if the 99/91 were properly connected to the #1.

Good question, I started with a list from what Wikipedia determined to be ring roads in Canada, then I did additional research via google and municipal websites though only Alberta's had everything laid out very nicely. Saskatoon did as well, but I was unable to locate lengths (thank Mike474!)

Originally Posted by le calmar

The ring road in Sherbrooke is a work in progress, but when the green section now under construction is complete, it will cover 75% of the urban area.

Thank you for this! Nice pic as well; looks great. Do you know the lengths planned and how long it currently is?

Originally Posted by freeweed

Calgary's Ring Road is only planned to be 10% longer than Winnipeg's Perimeter Highway?? That seems impossible given that Calgary is much larger and supposedly much sprawlier. There's not much development (yet!) outside of the ring road, and Winnipeg's is seeing more and more development push up against theirs. I guess there's still a ton of vacant land I forget about.

Yeah the actual city space of Winnipeg is smaller than Calgary and Edmonton, and you can note from satellite images that in both Calgary and Edmonton's case, development is right to the brim of the ring road or even moving beyond it. In Winnipeg's case, only the west side and south side really truly have development pushed to it or beyond it. There is a ton of vacant space all around as well. NW will turn into CentrePort which will push to the perimeter, and SW will turn into residential, as will NE, E, and SE. But it will take a while before Winnipeg pushes to the perimeter boundaries all over; it would need to approach Edmonton's CMA population for that level of sprawl to conceivably happen.

Originally Posted by Architype

The St. John's Outer Ring Road length (Northern section) is listed as 20 km.

http://www.releases.gov.nl.ca/releases/1999/wst/1115n07.htm

From Google earth, the southern portion of the ring road (Pitts Memorial/Harbour Arterial) is about 14.4 km.

From Google earth, the total of the two routes forming the St. John's ring road is about 35 km.

Excellent sir, thanks for this! added

Originally Posted by mike474

A rough google maps calculation says that Circle Drive is currently about 22 kms and the City of Saskatoon says there is 10 kms under construction (although this seems a little high so maybe it counts some re-alignment that overlaps with the existing road). This will complete the loop.
http://www.saskatoon.ca/DEPARTMENTS/Infr...nning/Pages/CircleDriveSouthProject.aspx

There are already plans for a second loop:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=189847&page=52
see the sixth post

Awesome....thank you for this, I spent a lot of time on this stretch last week! i added it! let me know if it looks good...also, do you know anything about Regina?

Originally Posted by Acajack

There is a proposal for a ring road or bypass highway to the south of Ottawa between Highway 417 (coming in from the southeast and Montreal) and Highway 416 (from the southwest and the 401 and Toronto). Currently almost all crosstown traffic and traffic in transit through Ottawa goes through the centre of the city (about 3 km south of downtown on the 417 (Queensway).

I am not sure the direct highway link to the south between the 416 and 417 will ever happen, but until then the closest thing to a ring road bypassing the urban core is Hunt Club Road, which is a four-lane divided suburban arterial with numerous signalized intersections.

Hunt Club connects directly with the 416 in the west, but it doesn't link up directly to the 417 in the east - yet. Construction work is underway but in the meantime it's not that hard to get to and from the 417 there either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunt_Club_Road

Do you suggest this functions as a Ring Road? If so, I will add it. Let me know

Originally Posted by Acajack

The A-30 when completed will be the true Montreal bypass since it will link up to the main routes coming from Ottawa (417-40) and Toronto (401-20) going east.

The A-640 is not that useful to most through traffic trying to get around Montreal, since there is a missing link across the Lac des Deux-Montagnes from near Oka towards the Hudson/St-Lazare/Pointe-Fortune area. The A-640 is mostly useful for people from Ottawa-Gatineau trying to get to Quebec City and points in Atlantic Canada. I use it all the time for this purpose.

Sounds good, I removed the A-640 then; do you know the planned length or lengths by any chance?

Originally Posted by feepa

\

Outside of the mentioned Anthony Henday drive, pictured above, Edmonton and the Alberta Capital Region are currently planning for the region's second ring road. It would consist of rougly Hwy 37, Hwy 21 and Hwy 60 and about hwy 19 in the south (though that's still quite up in the area)
Also, Edmonton has a inner ring road - not to full freeway standards (most of it limited access), but most consider it the inner ring road, and it consists of Yellowhead freway, 170th Street, Whitemud and 75st/Wayne Gretzsky Drive

Yes, thanks for this link, that website is the most helpful I found. Great pics, everything is laid out nicely...I got the planned length numbers from there, for both Edmonton & Calgary. Wikipedia also has some great pages on these two projects.

Originally Posted by whiteford

there is considerable development on the outer sides of both the Calgary and Edmonton ring roads. they do not envelop the entire city in both cases. for that to happen a much larger ring would be needed in both cities. that is why the ring road in Calgary is near the same size as the Winnipeg perimeter highway. also the ring road in Calgary does not form a complete ring.

there ya go freeweed although, Calgary's will be completed I believe, from the information I found.

Originally Posted by haljackey

You forgot London.

Wait... They forgot London.

Please extrapolate

[QUOTE=Doug;5426726]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

Calgary's ring road will be a true freeway with speed limits of 100 - 110. There is only one remaining at grade intersection on the in service segments. That intersection at Nose Hill Drive will be grade separated by ~2014. The intent is to complete the full ring, but the SW segment is contingent on a legal agreement with the First Nation's band whose land it will cross and the west segment will likely remain in the drawing board until sufficient demand materializes.

Awesome...I wish MB did that to the PTHWY...thanks for the info!

Originally Posted by Andy6

Winnipeg was actually supposed to have two concentric ring roads, the Perimeter Highway on the outside and the Suburban Beltway on the inside. The Beltway was never built, although a version of it is slowly developing into a sort of arterial ring-road as Routes 90 and 165 and Chief Peguis Trail etc. more or less follow various parts of its proposed path.

As early as 1910, a ring road was planned, called Sharp Boulevard after the former mayor, but it was never realized beyond a few blocks of what is still called Sharp Blvd. in St. James and Inkster Blvd. in the North End, which was intended to become another section of it.

And that is the extent of my ring-road lore.

Hahaha nice Andy, nice. good info too. I have heard there is a focus to finish the "inner" portion. You'll see chat about that start up again when CPT extension is finished and the Bishop interchange/Kenaston Extension is completed, and your knowledge of such lore will be needed again

Originally Posted by Distill3d

I'd agree, it's splitting hairs really. I guess a ring-road is a "ring" around the city, where a bypass like Langley's is only a crescent? I say they're one in the same given their functions.

Yeah, exactly, it makes it tough, but I put it up - BC needs some representation!

Originally Posted by vid

Thunder Bay Expressway functions like a ring road in that it is used by local and regional traffic, the former using it to get from one part of the city to another quickly and the latter using it to avoid the city for the most part. There is one spur, which connects it to the harbour.

Technically, Thunder Bay's ring road is much longer than described in the second post:

Obviously because of the lake, a ring road isn't very possible here. They did try it, expanding and connecting a few streets along the waterfront and the eastern edges of the city, but those are just four lane arterial roads, not part of an actual ring road system, and they're used differently than the highlighted roads in the map above.

That sure is long! though I am more concerned with what services Thunder Bay mainly; from my basic googling it was ~15km. Though, if you feel I should change it, let me know to what and I will do so

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

Here's an outline of the Outer Ring Road/Pitts Memorial Drive highways around St. John's. I've also included the Team Gushue Highway and it's proposed extension, which isn't exactly a "ring" highway, just connecting the two portions of the ring highway

Ahh wow, that sure is a lot clearer! Thanks for this! Appreciate it. Let me know how its lookin' now.





Maybe I should also add images? Hmmm...

[kool maudit]

why do you need a bypass around st. john's? where are you going from there?

[Architype]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

why do you need a bypass around st. john's? where are you going from there?

There are several thousand people living to the north of the northern bypass. Due to the shape of the urban area and poor planning over decades the city's network of existing streets has few thoroughfares, mostly 2 lane, and couldn't carry the traffic. The east end near the end of the bypass is a growing area of new suburbs. The southern bypass is a direct connection to downtown from the western suburbs, industrial parks, and beyond.

[SHOFEAR]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

why do you need a bypass around st. john's? where are you going from there?

Make it easier to get to the airport to move to Alberta. Obviously.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

Sounds good, I removed the A-640 then; do you know the planned length or lengths by any chance?

Autoroute 30, as a southern bypass of Montreal Island, will be about 85 km in length from its starting point at the west at A-40 (from Ont. 417), then junctioning soon (5 km later) with A-20 (Ont 401), then a good bit (70+ km) before meeting with A-20 towards Quebec City and the Maritimes well east of Montreal.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

Do you suggest this functions as a Ring Road? If so, I will add it. Let me know

There is some debate in Ottawa as to whether Hunt Club Rd. functions as a ring road. Some people say yes, some people say no. This includes politicians on either side of the debate. Given that the province of Ontario is embarking on significant widening projects for Highway 417 through the heart of the city, I'd say Hunt Club is the closest thing Ottawa will have to a southern ring road (north of the city is Quebec - no true ring road there either) for the foreseeable future.

[Distill3d]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

Thanks! I added both, you don't by any chance happen to know the lengths do you? of each?

Langley is 5KM in length (give or take)

Portage La Prairie, MB is 11.5 KM (I had my girlfriend's father measure it in his truck, so I'll say give or take half a KM)

[freeweed]

The Portage bypass is anywhere from 11-13km, depending on if you include the rather long offramps in your calculation. If you go from the extreme ends (ie: where the highway and the road into Portage first meet), it's just about 14km in total. Source: Google.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

why do you need a bypass around st. john's? where are you going from there?

The highways are more for handling the traffic flow to and from other parts of the city seeing as most of the roads within the city are unable to handle the volume of traffic it sees. There are very few thoroughfares throughout the city (Torbay Road, Topsail Road, Prince Phillip Parkway/Columbus Drive, and Kenmount Road of which is severely over capacity even with the highway), and hence traffic easily backs up. Even with the highways, traffic problems still arise, but I imagine they'd be much worse if the TCH still terminated on to Kenmount Road.

[le calmar]

More details about the ring road in Sherbrooke (by the way I don't understand what you mean by "ce qui est c'est nom"?)

Autoroute 610: 10,4 km
Autoroute 410: actual length 5,3 km + 12,9 km extension to be opened in 2013 = 18,2 km
Autoroute 10-55: 2,5 km


TOTAL: 18,2 km actual length
31,1 km total length in 2013


And Autoroute 640 is definitely a part of the Montreal ring road IMO. The only think it lacks is a bridge over the Ottawa and St.Laurent river . It's not going to happen anytime soon (although a new bridge to the East of the Montreal island is a project we sometimes hear about, but forget about any western bridge and extension projects in the Kanesatake reserve) but with the A30 extension the ring road will be about 90% complete.

[Nathan]

Originally Posted by roccerfeller

...
Awesome....thank you for this, I spent a lot of time on this stretch last week! i added it! let me know if it looks good...also, do you know anything about Regina?

...

Regina's Ring Road + Lewvan Drive:



The half circle portion (Ring Road): 17.7kms
Straight Portion Connecting the North and South parts of Ring Road (Lewvan Drive/Pasqua Street): 8.8kms

Total Length: 26.5 kms

(All lengths appoximated using googlemaps.

There is a Transportation Hub that is being constructed on the west side of the city by the airport (CP Rail, Loblaws, and Yanke (trucking company) are already in on the project). Part of this development is a West Bypass of the city linking Highway 1 and Highway 11 (the highway that links Regina and Saskatoon). This bypass will run on Pinkie Road, which on the map, is the road that starts in the south just to the right of the scale reference along the edge of the city on the top left up out of the screen. Work on this is currently being done.

There is also talk of an East bypass as Highway 1 runs through the city on Victoria avenue and continues along Ring Road going out of the city. This would create a second layer to Ring Road quite a bit East of the city. This is in the long term plans (nothing really solid yet), but might have to be expedited with the growth that is occurring.

[artvandelay]

Originally Posted by Marty_Mcfly

Team Gushue Highway

Wow, only in Canada would a curling team get a highway named after them.