Highways in Canada

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Oops on the charge. Bust still, $10 is chump change.

As far as who pays for it..... Who pays for the other thousands of roads? Oh, right, the taxpayers of the province.

My complaint about the 407 has always been the higher cost when compared with other tolled highways in Canada and USA.

No argument from me on that point.

[swimmer_spe]

I have to ask.... what is Regina smokin'.....

A ring road that is actually a spiral is not a ring road.....

You should not need to exit to continue on a ring road. That is not a ring.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I have to ask.... what is Regina smokin'.....

A ring road that is actually a spiral is not a ring road.....

You should not need to exit to continue on a ring road. That is not a ring.

Are you saying that the freeway should have been shoehorned onto Victoria Avenue and that houses around Ring Road and Victoria Avenue should have been torn down for a partial system interchange?

[wave46]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I have to ask.... what is Regina smokin'.....

A ring road that is actually a spiral is not a ring road.....

You should not need to exit to continue on a ring road. That is not a ring.

I'm curious to where you are referring specifically.

Perhaps traffic studies indicated the majority of traffic was not using the complete ring.

I believe it is better to have the majority of traffic seamlessly go where it intends as opposed to making it weave across traffic to keep going in its intended direction.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Are you saying that the freeway should have been shoehorned onto Victoria Avenue and that houses around Ring Road and Victoria Avenue should have been torn down for a partial system interchange?

Originally Posted by wave46

I'm curious to where you are referring specifically.

Perhaps traffic studies indicated the majority of traffic was not using the complete ring.

I believe it is better to have the majority of traffic seamlessly go where it intends as opposed to making it weave across traffic to keep going in its intended direction.

I am talking about when you drive in from the west on Highway 1 on what they call the Ring Road. It ends at Pasqua St. There is another outer partial ring that when complete would be a ring road. There Ring road reminds me of the Conestoga Parkway in K/W and calling it a ring road.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I am talking about when you drive in from the west on Highway 1 on what they call the Ring Road. It ends at Pasqua St. There is another outer partial ring that when complete would be a ring road. There Ring road reminds me of the Conestoga Parkway in K/W and calling it a ring road.

It looks to me like they either had a plan and budget considerations killed the final chunk of it, or some revolt among landowners did. I don't know the exact history there.

I'd imagine most traffic along Highway 1 would have previously just used the southern portion of the road anyway. Some might have used the northeastern section to access Highway 6 and 11. The missing northwestern chunk would have been more local traffic, I imagine.

Not protecting Victoria Ave from development between the Ring Rd. and the new bypass (Hwy 1) seems to be the more grievous error. They had to bypass the bypass at great cost.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by wave46

It looks to me like they either had a plan and budget considerations killed the final chunk of it, or some revolt among landowners did. I don't know the exact history there.

I'd imagine most traffic along Highway 1 would have previously just used the southern portion of the road anyway. Some might have used the northeastern section to access Highway 6 and 11. The missing northwestern chunk would have been more local traffic, I imagine.

Not protecting Victoria Ave from development between the Ring Rd. and the new bypass (Hwy 1) seems to be the more grievous error. They had to bypass the bypass at great cost.

I imagine the same can be said about Saskatoon’s Circle Drive.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I imagine the same can be said about Saskatoon’s Circle Drive.

The northern section of Circle Drive has a similar issue, yes.

It's like they got 95% of the way there and said 'to hell with it, this works good enough' and plopped a bunch of big-box stuff there.

Now Saskatchewan will build a big bucks highway to bypass the previous bypass.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I imagine the same can be said about Saskatoon’s Circle Drive.

Originally Posted by wave46

The northern section of Circle Drive has a similar issue, yes.

It's like they got 95% of the way there and said 'to hell with it, this works good enough' and plopped a bunch of big-box stuff there.

Now Saskatchewan will build a big bucks highway to bypass the previous bypass.

Saskatoon's doesn't seem to just end.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Saskatoon's doesn't seem to just end.

This is true.

I was more referring to the weird at-grade road sections connected to an otherwise freeway-style road.

In Regina, that's Victoria Ave between Highway 1 and Ring Rd.

In Saskatoon, it is Circle Drive between Warman Rd. and Airport Dr.

Both are festooned with big-box developments and at-grade intersections. I imagine at one point they were bypass routes. For some reason unbeknownst to me, the powers that be decided to just let them become effectively city streets.

Now the province has to build a new road around the respective cities to function as a proper bypass. Perhaps these roads were just too congested, and stopped serving that function well?

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Saskatoon's doesn't seem to just end.

Circular roads are like that. You can drive on them forever and never come to the end.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Circular roads are like that. You can drive on them forever and never come to the end.

Can you tell that to the planners in Regina?

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Can you tell that to the planners in Regina?

The Province and the city of Regina allowed development on the TCH starting at Balgonie about 30 years ago. It just got worse and worse. In hindsight they should have built a proper interchange at TCH and Victoria (east side of the city) and a couple more overpasses at key points to the east. Maintain service roads all along the route and that would have solved needing to build a whole new highway.

Oh well, it is what it is.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I have to ask.... what is Regina smokin'.....

A ring road that is actually a spiral is not a ring road.....

You should not need to exit to continue on a ring road. That is not a ring.

Oh I drove that a couple of times this Summer. I totally understand what you mean!!

I'm not a fan of Saskatchewan highway designs. So many flaws and obvious places where the province didn't want to invest in safety. I can provide Google Streetview links to show. I also can't believe how many very busy at grade intersections there are along Hwy 1 (Trans-Canada).

I witnessed a horrible accident in Whitewood along Hwy 1 at an at-grade intersection with Hwy 9 and couldn't believe how badly the first responders handled it compared to anything I've ever seen in Ontario. And the fact that there have been a number of deadly accidents at that intersection yet nothing has been done. I do realize that Saskatchewan isn't as well off as Ontario but there are some inexpensive interim measures that could be taken.

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by Loco101

Oh I drove that a couple of times this Summer. I totally understand what you mean!!

I'm not a fan of Saskatchewan highway designs. So many flaws and obvious places where the province didn't want to invest in safety. I can provide Google Streetview links to show. I also can't believe how many very busy at grade intersections there are along Hwy 1 (Trans-Canada).

I witnessed a horrible accident in Whitewood along Hwy 1 at an at-grade intersection with Hwy 9 and couldn't believe how badly the first responders handled it compared to anything I've ever seen in Ontario. And the fact that there have been a number of deadly accidents at that intersection yet nothing has been done. I do realize that Saskatchewan isn't as well off as Ontario but there are some inexpensive interim measures that could be taken.

Not only SK but MB has TCH/16 junction that has been the sight of numerous deadly crashes. Alberta has several dangerous ones as well. Of course there are the awful sections throughout the BC sections of the TCH.
Maybe if we (Canada) had a national highway authority...............

[wave46]

Originally Posted by VANRIDERFAN

Not only SK but MB has TCH/16 junction that has been the sight of numerous deadly crashes. Alberta has several dangerous ones as well. Of course there are the awful sections throughout the BC sections of the TCH.
Maybe if we (Canada) had a national highway authority...............

This actually brings up an interesting tangent: half-assed highways.

I can think of a couple of them. Where highway designers just said 'this is fine' and now they're complete messes, because nobody had the foresight to plan for future growth and just let them become part of city streets. We've discussed Regina and Saskatoon, but I've driven Ile Perrot on the west side of Montreal.

You're on a high-speed divided highway going 100 km/h and suddenly you're on a 50km/h main drag through town. I always wondered why the MTQ never just routed the 20 via the 40/30 west of Baie-D'Urfe and let the section of the 20 become a dedicated city street.

Or the bonkers routing of the 40 through downtown Trois Rivieres when it looks as if there's a nice corridor north of the city.

Throw in your candidates.

[wave46]

Ontario Highway 11 between Barrie and Gravenhurst comes to mind too. It's always an interesting question if that person looking to get on the highway is actually going to pull out in front of you from the Tim's/gas station/RV dealership into the flow of semi-dense traffic.

You wonder how good your brakes are and how good the reaction time of the transport driver behind you is going to be.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wave46

You're on a high-speed divided highway going 100 km/h and suddenly you're on a 50km/h main drag through town. I always wondered why the MTQ never just routed the 20 via the 40/30 west of Baie-D'Urfe and let the section of the 20 become a dedicated city street.

.

And that's actually the continuation of the 401!

Though to be fair the through traffic routing (and even to get into downtown Montreal) signage leads you away from that mess, either via the A-30 and A-40 slightly north of there, or via the new stretch of the A-30 across the St. Lawrence and then on the south shore.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wave46

Or the bonkers routing of the 40 through downtown Trois Rivieres when it looks as if there's a nice corridor north of the city.
.

That's actually on the drawing board and the routing selected and land reserved, but I am not sure if it will ever get built.

[Acajack]

What about the missing link between Highway 417 in Ottawa and A-5 in Gatineau which requires heavy truck traffic between the two cities to weave through a maze of tight turns on narrow, busy inner city streets? Including Rideau, one of the capital's main streets.