401 Interchanges

[MolsonExport]

If so, I am ready to hear about six-laning wonderland road. It has to happen. It cannot fulfil the triple load of local commerce (everything is on that damned street), passing through (en route to somewhere else from somewhere else) and commuter traffic. Buslanes? don't make me laugh.

Plus the population of nw and sw london is growing swiftly. I have absolutely no faith in our retarded mayor, Shoeless Joe Fraudtana, and is almost equally inept council of disciples.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Pimpmasterdac

Highway 100 was downloaded to us by Bob Rae as a consequence of London's mass annexation in 1993. Before that Highway 100 south of the Thames, the entire airport and nearly all of 401/402 were outside our city boundaries.

It was a shit deal for London who still gets peanuts, while mass investments go elsewhere. Highway 100/VMP should still be a provincial highway or should be heavily financed by the province. It was promised to be a freeway by the province, now it seems like it's a pipe dream that will never happen..
---
From what I've read about the Highway 7 extension to 402, that LEDC and London council promotes is a controlled access freeway. Barring some massive investment into highways in Southwestern Ontario, I seriously doubt that would ever happen in a GTA centric provincial government.. As well Arva refused to allow London to plan a ring road through it, so either province would have to pony up or give London more land..

As far as the downloads in the 1990s go, I think Highway 135 was the most justified, as it has served a purely local purpose since Highway 402 was built. Highway 22 likewise. Highway 126 was also justifiable as it was a stub of a local expressway that never materialized, and the rest of Highbury to the north serves a primarily local purpose - however I would also have made Highbury to St. Thomas a provincial highway, connecting it to Highway 3. I would've been inclined to leave Highway 2 alone.

[Blitz]

I'm not sure if widening the main roads actually helps - that seems to be London's answer to everything but traffic is still a nightmare even after the roads are widened. I guess an expressway is out of the question though.

[Pimpmasterdac]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

As far as the downloads in the 1990s go, I think Highway 135 was the most justified, as it has served a purely local purpose since Highway 402 was built. Highway 22 likewise. Highway 126 was also justifiable as it was a stub of a local expressway that never materialized, and the rest of Highbury to the north serves a primarily local purpose - however I would also have made Highbury to St. Thomas a provincial highway, connecting it to Highway 3. I would've been inclined to leave Highway 2 alone.

IMO Many of the highways that were downloaded have good reasoning behind them. Highway 100 & 126 are the ones that basically landed a pile of shit on London's lap. Highbury/126/proposed 402, was suppose to be a regional link from Sarnia to London and eventually further south to St. Thomas expressway as a planned highway/freeway. While London shit the bed hard by not with an in-city freeway when province built the 402, the province abdicated much of its responsibility for regional transportation. St. Thomas and London still don't have more than a 2 lane road connecting each other, which are local responsibilities.

Meanwhile Waterloo region has Highway 7/8 Conestoga, still a designated provincial highway. They've had major upgrades and windenings in the last few years, as well they're planned on linking Highway 7 by freeway to Guelph. Not that Waterloo doesn't deserve it, they certainly do, just that London through councils incompetence, lack of planning or lack provincial importance just gets interchanges on the periphery that MAY someday, do something for the city.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

If so, I am ready to hear about six-laning wonderland road. It has to happen. It cannot fulfil the triple load of local commerce (everything is on that damned street), passing through (en route to somewhere else from somewhere else) and commuter traffic. Buslanes? don't make me laugh.

Wonderland is planned to be 6 lanes, but I don't see it happening soon. There was a lot of work done in the last few years on Wonderland to make it 4 lanes through most of the city. Making it 6 lanes would require even more significant work; new or reconstruction of Guy Lombardo & CP Bridges as well as the CN overpass. The areas south of the Thames would be the first step, city already has ROW for 6 lanes. North of the Thames is where it'll be a bitch.

From 402 to Southdale Rd. London has a complex step up they want for Wonderland that would have on-street parking, wide medians & boulevards and an express-collector system for the 6 lanes. Quite grandiose visions but who knows how it'll ever be.

Wonderland Rd. Pg. 25: http://www.london.ca/Planning_and_Develo...st_AreaPlanMinorRevisions_NOV20_2012.pdf

Originally Posted by Blitz

I'm not sure if widening the main roads actually helps - that seems to be London's answer to everything but traffic is still a nightmare even after the roads are widened. I guess an expressway is out of the question though.

As much as expressways would be great, the ones that exist/planned are too far out to help most commuters. Road widenings help but IMO it would be more beneficial to fix bottle necks & missing links. The rail lines & branches of the Thames River throughout the city are to blame for this, CP & CN rail are too stubborn/cheap to do much other than the minimum required and local NIMBYs fight tooth and nail against any Thames crossings.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by Blitz

I'm not sure if widening the main roads actually helps - that seems to be London's answer to everything but traffic is still a nightmare even after the roads are widened. I guess an expressway is out of the question though.

Road widenings help, but sadly most of them are just for short segments. If you extend a 4 lane road by a few more blocks yet still have it narrow to two lanes afterward you're going to have traffic issues.

If London made most of the arterials 4 lanes things would move smoothly. Additional connections to make them more grid-like would help too.



K/W would be a mess without its expressway system. Their road network is a maze (very un-grid-like) so it would be a pain to navigate without it. London's grid system is one advantage we have over K/W.

One of the main points made in the ReThink London this is to create a new transportation corridor north of the city. It would contain a new CP rail line and a new Highway 7, possibly controlled-access highway.

I'd love to see a controlled-access Highway 7 start at the 402 near Komoka and run north of the city to a VMP extension. Eventually it could connect to the 7/8 via an extension near Statford.

One interesting thing is if Highway 7 begins controlled-access it earns a 400-series highway designation. So we would have our own 407 north of the city. (remember that 407ETR is the official name of Toronto's toll highway, 407 East is the name of the extension currently under construction, so the 407 name is still available. Confusing but it works .)

[haljackey]

Looks like prep work has started for the Wonderland/401 interchange. Drove by on the 401 and noticed markers have been placed in the area. Probably outlining where the ramps will go and whatnot.

Full construction was to start this year but was delayed until 2015. It is 'planned' to be open by 2016 along with the Colonel Talbot and VMP refits. Not sure when Highbury's refit will be done.

[MolsonExport]

I'd wish we would fix our existing in-town infrastructure (WESTERN ROAD/WHARNCLIFFE AND MOST OF ALL, SARNIA RD and HYDE PARKING LOT) before embarking on really expensive "rethink" infrastructure expansion where very few people will benefit (periphery), especially given the incredible sprawl of London which is irreconcilable with our tepid economic/population growth rate.

[Pimpmasterdac]

I agree molson, fixing in-city roads would be more beneficial to Londoners. Widening existing roads however does nothing new from city/provinces view, which is all development. While widening would allow people to travel quicker and more efficiently, but most likely were still going to travel to their destination regardless the time spent. If people have to go to UWO and the roads are shitty, that's way she goes. UWO isn't going to move and people still gotta go there, regardless the atrocious road capacity. Unfortunately we have to wait some decade away for things that should've been done a decade back.

IMO has more to do with future potential though. Wonderland having direct 401 access will all more development out in the extreme southwest. All the other interchange improvements will around super-trucks that are 120m long to traverse them, something that's not available outside the GTA.

Really though we just had a by-election in London and the Liberals, as well as the other parties, didn't offer London anything special. No pet projects, no vote getters. Just the same old shit they spew province wide. Then you look last year the Liberals threw Guelph/Waterloo a new freeway to (unsuccessfully) help grease the votes their way, they're building the TTC to Vaughn. Alot of buzz over these interchanges, that have been announced 4-5 times, yet work is just starting now.

[haljackey]

Also remember that most of the funding for this project comes from the federal and provincial level. It will also fill a missing gap and relieve some stress at the Wellington interchange. Ideally it should have been done 50 years ago.

[MrSlippery519]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I'd wish we would fix our existing in-town infrastructure (WESTERN ROAD/WHARNCLIFFE AND MOST OF ALL, SARNIA RD and HYDE PARKING LOT) before embarking on really expensive "rethink" infrastructure expansion where very few people will benefit (periphery), especially given the incredible sprawl of London which is irreconcilable with our tepid economic/population growth rate.

If the city was paying for most of this work I would agree, that said the funding is coming from elseware.

You are still bang on in regards to the other needs in the city.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by MrSlippery519

If the city was paying for most of this work I would agree, that said the funding is coming from elseware.

You are still bang on in regards to the other needs in the city.

It would be nice if the province still funded provincial highways in London. There was a time when Highways 2, 4, 22, 100, 126, and 135 were either owned by the province, or they contributed something like 90% of the funds to the City for their upkeep, thereby freeing up the City of London to focus funding on roads like Wonderland or Southdale.

[Snark]

I can assure you that municipalities have not, and will not, recover from the great provincial downloading from years' past. Chickens are on their final approach to landing and roosting right now.

Originally Posted by manny_santos

It would be nice if the province still funded provincial highways in London. There was a time when Highways 2, 4, 22, 100, 126, and 135 were either owned by the province, or they contributed something like 90% of the funds to the City for their upkeep, thereby freeing up the City of London to focus funding on roads like Wonderland or Southdale.

[go_leafs_go02]

I'm quite sure that even Highway 4 has been officially downloaded through the City (minus a few km south of the 401) pretty much and there are now 2 completely separate Highway 4s that don't link up, although London has tried to sign between them from a municipal level.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by go_leafs_go02

I'm quite sure that even Highway 4 has been officially downloaded through the City (minus a few km south of the 401) pretty much and there are now 2 completely separate Highway 4s that don't link up, although London has tried to sign between them from a municipal level.

Within the past year the Province also quietly cancelled the "Connecting Link" program that provided 90% of the funding of municipally-owned urban sections of provincial highways. This has been heavily criticized in Northern Ontario, where Sault Ste. Marie has been forced to bear 100% of the cost of the Trans-Canada Highway through town and the approach to the international bridge to Michigan, and Timmins also has to bear the entire cost of a long stretch of Highway 101. This issue hasn't been noticed as much in the South as the province pays entirely for the 401, QEW, and so forth.

[Pimpmasterdac]

Unfortunately the city is filing its plan for the southern extension of VMP tomorrow, which effectively will cancel VMP from be a free flowing freeway from 401.

I still cannot understand this push to extend VMP south of the 401 when Westchester Bourne already does that less than 1 km to the east?! There's plenty of areas north of the 401 off VMP that can be developed. The south extension is only going to be a 2-lane extension not 4-lanes, as well who ever is the road planner is designates VMP to be a freeway even with the unnecessary extension.

VMP Southern Extension: http://sire.london.ca/view.aspx?cabinet=published_meetings&fileid=109554

[haljackey]

I'm hopeful the new interchange is designed to be retrofitted to make it a free-flowing interchange when the time comes to upgrade the VMP to a freeway. Two flyover ramps can easily upgrade the junction to a clover-turbine junction if sufficient room is left.

Thanks for the link. At the end its dated Aug 27 2013? Is that when the plan will be presented? If so perhaps I might attend it.
-I'll express my outrage at making it at-grade. A little late for changes at this point but who knows what could be done.

[Pimpmasterdac]

I hope so too, that MTO/city planned this new 401/VMP interchange with some forethought for the future.

I don't think so though unfortunately, IMO don't see a real need for a southern extension of VMP to Wilton Grove Rd. to begin with, let alone any place further south than that since that would literally be a highway to nowhere. As well they seemed concerned with whatever wetland/vegetation is in the southeast quadrant of the interchange, and is why it's an unusual Parclo-A3, instead of a standard A4 during the design. Could've been worse in some respects they were thinking a regular diamond interchange...

From what I read the meeting is actually tomorrow night, Planning and Environment Committee sometime after 4:30. There will probably be more stink/clucking about the proposed PenEquity mall near Wellington/401 than the interchanges.. Best of luck if you do go! Here's a link for all council's agendas http://london.ca/d.aspx?s=/Meetings/Default/meetingpackages.htm

[haljackey]

Gah I can't make tomorrow. Hopefully it isn't presented then.

Also I didn't notice that it isn't even a full parclo design (A-4). This is now even worse

MTO doesn't make diamond interchanges unless there are some really constraining factors at play. If there's room they always build a A-4.

Why wasn't the wetland issue spotted when they originally built the interchange? Guess they never intended it to be extended south, eh?

[Pimpmasterdac]

Yeah that's council for ya, schedule major infrastructure reports in the middle of summer, with citizens and half council on vacation...

From what I've seen they were limited in options. Regular Parclo A4 would have the southeast quadrant in the middle of a drain and treelot that was deemed significant. An elongated ramp in the southeast was also proposed but it would've been too close to Westchester Bourne interchange, creating dangerous weaving patterns.

VMP/401 Interchange Designs: http://london.ca/Transportation/PDFs/VMP-PIC-2-Displays-DRAFT-121210.pdf (Page 7)

Really is London's fault though. Rejected an in-city 402 route that would've used Highbury interchange as the junction, and probably would've been a neat stack interchange... After London shit the bed and got Highway 100/Airport Road/VMP as a consolation prize there were slim pickings for a further east road. Old Victoria Road was considered at one point since it's a good distance between Highbury & Westchester Bourne interchanges, but it had even worse drain issues; Westchester Bourne was rejected for being too far outside of London and not practical. Instead they chose VMP since it just barely was outside the drain area and the bare minimum away from Westchester Boure that MTO would allow. MTO probably reasoned there was no need to ever build the road any further south since there was/is nothing of any significance to link up to in the area. Our current "brilliant" council feels otherwise...

[MolsonExport]

nix the damned vmp extension south. Unnecessary. We already have plenty of serviced vacant industrial land. Stop the sprawl, dammit.