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Originally Posted by sonysnob
Why does the MTO need to have a cycling strategy? MTO has very limited interest in local transportation, with a focus on regional mobility.
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I don't know, perhaps because the MoTO is the ministry charged with revising the Highway Traffic Act and with dealing with engineering design standards for transportation infrastructure?
The MoTO's freeways are also the biggest physical obstacles to establishing viable cycling networks in many cities. The number of crossings is quite limited and many of those have A4 parclo interchanges it so loves to slap down everywhere with their high-speed slip lanes that are particularly hazardous to cyclists.
Then there is the issue of Trans-Canada cyclists, who have no choice but to use the MoTO's highways. In fact, the MoTO is so car-and-truck focused that it has NO SIGNS WHATSOEVER to redirect cyclists to alternate routes where Hwy 17 turns into Hwy 417 at Arnprior. It has been like this EACH AND EVERY SINGLE TIME that the MoTO has extended Hwy 417 westwards from Ottawa. At least once a year I see British or Dutch or German cycle tourists on the Queensway shoulders in the western parts of Ottawa because of this.
You might think that's crazy, but look at it from their perspective. They cycled through the Rockies and across much of the Prairies on the shoulders of multilane highways. They've just come down the two-lane largely shoulderless Hwy 17 through the Ottawa Valley. Hwy 417 at Arnprior with its shoulders and divided traffic would look like a godsend.
In the coming years this will probably matter less as a practical matter since the CPR's rail line through the Mississippi and Ottawa Valleys has been torn up - without intervention by the MoTO of course - and will likely be turned into a pathway for the TransCanada Trail.
But incredibly, the MoTO doesn't just do this once... it does it on multiple occasions. The same oversight happens at Hwy 7 eastbound in Carleton Place. Where Hwy 69 turns into Hwy 400 there is a similar lack of redirection signage. It does it a second time with Hwy 400 where Hwy 11 runs into it. Here's the first interchange where Hwy 11 joins Hwy 400 and as usual there is a ped/cycle prohibition sign at the first onramp to Hwy 400:
http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=44.435...hr_F-CYR7XaaPsfmYo4KA&cbp=12,263,,0,9.71
Yet just up the road on Hwy 11 ahead of the same interchange and the last opportunity to get off Hwy 11 before it turns into Hwy 400... no signage:
http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=44.436...S-Zl2viagRuvYYoB6Gg&cbp=12,253.89,,0,3.9
Why not? Let's just cycle down Hwy 400 right into Toronto at Lawrence Ave. At least in the northbound direction they've got a sign at Lawrence... one wonders if they didn't actually have a few cases of cyclists heading onto Hwy 400 here to prompt them to put up the sign.
I can't tell from Google Streetview what the MoTO has done at Hwy 10 - Hwy 410 since it was under construction at the time, but the state of affairs during construction at least isn't encouraging. Where Cty Rd 85 turns into the Conestoga Parkway there is a similar lack of signage, and again at the other end where Hwy 7/8 turns into the Conestoga Parkway.
The Hwy 58 Thorold Tunnel miraculously does have such a sign... except it's past the intersection and the directive below ("Use Walkway") is probably outside the law as there is no statutory authority to compel the operator of a vehicle (e.g. a cyclist) to use a walkway:
http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.115...kMwzR9v9YFUNgneCnZw&cbp=12,319.86,,0,3.9
Maximum hilarity though has to go to the 407 ETR in the westbound direction. You can be cycling along Hwy 7 westbound and run onto the 407 ETR after crossing Cty Rd 1 without passing a sign. If you happened to have been going south on Cty Rd 1 and made a right turn onto the ETR, you'd have run across a sign on the ramp... but no such issue if you had been going north on Cty Rd 1 and had made a left turn instead.
Basically, the MoTO is incapable of considering the possibility that cyclists and anyone else who has a Common Law right to use the King's Highway might actually be doing so where such a highway turns into a controlled-access freeway. Even where they do put up the signs, there is no helpful guidance with respect to alternate routes... because the MoTO just doesn't care about anyone not driving a car or truck.
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Cycling infrastructure is, and should be, managed my local municipalities. And I say that as someone who enjoys cycling.
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The loss of Ontario Northland is a shame, but I can appreciate the economic argument behind cutting the service. Fans of railway transportation seem to have a unrealistic nostalgia about riding the train. Unfortunately for the train, it is much less flexible than auto travel, and even high speed rail is still slower and generally more expensive than air travel
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It's not just the loss of the passenger service... they're getting rid of the whole thing. CN will probably go about abandoning many of the now-spur lines that Ontario Northland had acquired and saved over the years. At the same time no one bothered to act to preserve the tracks in the Ottawa Valley. As a province and as a country we've now lost our only practical rail bypass of Toronto and lost rail access to one of the country's most important military bases at Petawawa.
All for want of less than $100M worth of rails.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sonysnob
Even in Europe which has extensive HSR (and the population density to support it), flying is generally faster and less expensive than the train.
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Lack of population density is one of those red herring arguments constantly brought up by those who don't understand HSR but just want something plausible-sounding to use to oppose it. We see the same thing with arguments against light rail in cities, too.
What matters for HSR (or any other kind of common carrier service for that matter) is density of ridership, i.e. how many riders per kilometre of track or route mile. Population density can certainly help, but so too could cultural factors like a higher propensity to use transit. Typically HSR runs between very large cities. In some ways for HSR you're actually better off with lower population density between cities than with higher population density since the latter results in (1) political pressure to add extra stations and (2) more settlements to dodge and uproot to build the line. The British government recently released some reports on its future HSR network and it is stirring up massive opposition in the Tory Home Counties and in the Chilterns because of the number of small villages that will be impacted. But we, with our lower rural population density, are far less likely to have those issues to the same degree.
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