Trans Canada Highway Twinning: Segments U/C

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I've always found the highways in BC to be (pardon the expression) kinda "toy train-ish" in design.

I tend to agree.

I also agree that some of the at-grade crossings are sad. Here's Braid Street where a train happened to be captured on street view (spin camera around 360 to observe traffic and the train):

https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2313...7i16384!8i8192

This isn't a dead end to nothing, it becomes United Blvd again which turns into 4 lanes and runs for a few km. This is the kind of thing I am talking about when I say we seem to have a lot of low-hanging fruit in terms of urban infrastructure needs in Canada.

[Dengler Avenue]

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/beta.ctv...1_4929285.html

Now this is twinning done right, but $718M? I thought it was supposed to be $285M...?

Holy smokes, the timeline means this stretch of N.S.-104 will be done before A85!

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Now this is twinning done right

Is it?

"The project includes 28 kilometres of new two-lane twinned highway and 10 kilometres of new four-lane twinned highway."

What's the difference between the two?

[Dengler Avenue]

I guess I said it a bit offhandedly, “Oh look, in N.S., they twin and grade-separate too. Learn from that, B.C.!” Yea I knew that N.S.-104 was already a super-2 to start and that B.C.-1 wasn’t.

[ssiguy]

This notion that BC is mountainous and therefore can't afford a proper highway system is just a bunch of crap forwarded by successive governments to justify it's pathetic road system.

The reality is that nearly all the roads in the province are in valleys which are genrally very flat and at best mildly hilly no more so than any other place in the country. HWY#1 in the FV is as flat as a pancake east of Abbostford and has a huge median but the plans to even get it to 6 lanes were scuttled. HWY #99 in MV is the same highway as it was when it was built in the 1960s except for a bus lane despite being bumper-to-bumper in rush hour yet travels thru a completely flat area. Ditto for the Richmond Connector. The entire Okanagan Valley is only modestly hilly but not a freeway in site. The Island Highway was cheapened out so not even the Nanaimo Parkway has any interchanges and same with the very busy Pat Bay in Victoria.

The simple reality is that BC just doesn't want to spend any money on it's roads and when they are forced to they build them to the lower common denominator and traffic flow and even safety be damned.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I guess I said it a bit offhandedly, “Oh look, in N.S., they twin and grade-separate too. Learn from that, B.C.!” Yea I knew that N.S.-104 was already a super-2 to start and that B.C.-1 wasn’t.

NS has much better highway infrastructure than BC if you compare similar areas. NS has a number of sparsely populated rural areas and small towns served by divided highways and interchanges.

The most comparable part of BC to NS is Vancouver Island. Vancouver Island has very little real highway, with the main highway into Victoria dropping down to 1 lane each way. Up around Nanaimo the highway has some regular intersections. Some of this has to do with environmental restrictions and difficulty of construction in mountainous areas but not all of it.

I don't have statistics but I'd guess metro Vancouver has 2-3x the highway infrastructure of metro Halifax with 5-6x the population. The biggest highways in both metro Halifax and Vancouver have 10-lane stretches I think (111 and Cape Horn area). (This isn't a cheerleader thing, just an illustration.)

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I've always found the highways in BC to be (pardon the expression) kinda "toy train-ish" in design.

I do realize there are huge geotechnical challenges there.

The technically challenging bits are not usually the places that have the most congestion, with a few exceptions like the Sea-to-Sky highway and Hwy 1 from Golden to Field.

In most other places, BC's inadequate highway infrastructure is just a combination of shortsightedness and NIMBYism.

Expanding Hwy 1 to 6 lanes from Langley to Abbotsford; building Hwy 17 into a grade-separated freeway from Victoria to Swartz Bay;grade-separating Highway 97 through Kelowna - none of these, and many other necessary projects, involve tunneling or blasting out rock.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't have statistics but I'd guess metro Vancouver has 2-3x the highway infrastructure of metro Halifax with 5-6x the population. The biggest highways in both metro Halifax and Vancouver have 10-lane stretches I think (111 and Cape Horn area). (This isn't a cheerleader thing, just an illustration.)

I've always compared the highway infrastructure of Vancouver to Ottawa, a city about 40% of its size, which has an inadequate system of its own.

Hwy 1 is the 417; Hwy 99 is the 416 and Highway 91 might be A-5 in Gatineau.

Actually, I think Ottawa-Gatineau might have more freeway lane miles.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Expanding Hwy 1 to 6 lanes from Langley to Abbotsford; building Hwy 17 into a grade-separated freeway from Victoria to Swartz Bay;grade-separating Highway 97 through Kelowna - none of these, and many other necessary projects, involve tunneling or blasting out rock.

Highway 1 around Abbotsford to Chilliwack has had stop and go traffic for years (as in all cars have to quickly go from maybe 80 km/h pseudo-highway speeds to 0) and because of that there are lots of pile-ups.

Even if they don't want to add more lanes there could be metering or adaptive congestion charges to manage the traffic. I think there might be a plan to install signs to at least make the speed limit adaptive so people go 30 km/h instead of a dangerous mix of 80 and 0.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Is it?

"The project includes 28 kilometres of new two-lane twinned highway and 10 kilometres of new four-lane twinned highway."

What's the difference between the two?

I'm pretty sure this means that they are twinning 28 km of pre-existing TCH (hence only one new roadway is necessary), and then building 10 km of entirely new four lane highway (the bypass around Marshy Hope, avoiding that scenic but narrow valley next to the river).

The end result will still be 38 km of grade separated four lane freeway.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

This notion that BC is mountainous and therefore can't afford a proper highway system is just a bunch of crap forwarded by successive governments to justify it's pathetic road system.

The reality is that nearly all the roads in the province are in valleys which are genrally very flat and at best mildly hilly no more so than any other place in the country. HWY#1 in the FV is as flat as a pancake east of Abbostford and has a huge median but the plans to even get it to 6 lanes were scuttled. HWY #99 in MV is the same highway as it was when it was built in the 1960s except for a bus lane despite being bumper-to-bumper in rush hour yet travels thru a completely flat area. Ditto for the Richmond Connector. The entire Okanagan Valley is only modestly hilly but not a freeway in site. The Island Highway was cheapened out so not even the Nanaimo Parkway has any interchanges and same with the very busy Pat Bay in Victoria.

The simple reality is that BC just doesn't want to spend any money on it's roads and when they are forced to they build them to the lower common denominator and traffic flow and even safety be damned.

Thanks for stating the truth. In many areas building highways in B.C. is no more difficult than in most areas of the country. Based on the photo in the article how can anyone consider that to be difficult terrain to build a highway on?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

That Chase work, the article says late summer.

So, it will be built in one season?

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

So, it will be built in one season?

Doubt it. Article says "After the contract has been awarded, work is anticipated to start late this summer."

[Dengler Avenue]

Anyway, I am about to draft the email now. Since Mrs. Schimpf is taking tomorrow off, it means that I won't be able to chat with her until next week. Well, I suppose that we both get to buy time.
From Metro-One:

Want to know who opposed the interchange and while, and really want to stress the importance the #1 is to the nation (obviously economically) and the danger of putting a few special interest groups concerns (likely something along the lines of lost business for road side stops) over the greater good for the province and nation and safety of the road.

From swimmer_spe:

Do you have credentials and facts to back up your claim? Something that tells her you know what you are talking about? (If not,) Well, now you have gotten yourself in a mess. (...) I’d suggest waiting till he (Metro-One) gets one then you both can work on a response.

From a friend of mine (who also knows p78hub, who only lurks in the AB & B.C. subsection):

In general, for any sort of discussion/debate or just trying to get your point across, it's good to be adequately prepared with your points and supporting evidence.

In terms of "evidence", these are all that I got:
https://www.radionl.com/2020/05/04/59927/
https://cfjctoday.com/2020/05/02/cos...tion-minister/
So, what kind of case can I make in favour of the interchange instead of 2 T-protected intersections?
From GlassCity:

it's hard to convince people concerned with numbers when your goal has so much symbolism attached to it

FYI this was her initial reply:

Good evening (Insert my name)

I’d be happy to set up a time to chat with you to discuss the details of the revisions to the design which are an outcome of public consultation in earlier public engagement.

Please let me know if there’s acceptable times to you later this week (Thursday) or early next week, apologies I am not available Friday as it is a vacation day I’ve taken to be with my kids.

Thank you for your email. And I look forward to chatting with you soon.

Kind regards,
Maike

[Metro-One]

The protected T intersections are fine solutions for isolated pockets of farms / houses and low volume mountain access roads where building interchanges and frontage roads is prohibitively expensive, but major community access points and junctions such as through Chase here need to be interchanges.

This was planned as an interchange the entire time, and now it’s dropped... I am sure a couple NIMBYs came out saying how it will take them an extra minute to access the #1 from their house / people will no longer stop in at the snack and gas blah blah blah (never figured how an interchange is bad for business but having an at grade intersection will make people stop... if anything a protected T seems like more trouble to get on and off the highway) but this is a national route, and the needs of traffic / safety / and economics need to be taken into account as well.

PS the province already had the money for the interchange.

So it is not as if the province decided to drop it to add more KMs of expansion... because project length is still the same.

[Dengler Avenue]

"but major community access points and junctions such as through Chase here need to be interchanges"

How do we then explain the T-protected intersection with Highway 95 by Golden? Or is that on B.C. MTI? Or do we even need to worry about that being brought up? I am also wondering if there's a way to get these 3 to explain this publicly. Everyone deserves to know. Also, in general, my fear is that, if we don't have good evidence, we may look like the very special-interest group we're denouncing.

[Metro-One]

The vast distances and terrain in BC is a challenge and the lack of a real federal highway program adds to that challenge (because while the province needs to build highways near Vancouver and other populated areas, it also needs to upgrade and maintain all the other highways to tiny villages such as highway 20 to Bella Coola, which does drain funds.

That said, at a minimum highway 17 should be full freeway grade, from Victoria to Langley. Highway 1 should be full freeway between Victoria and Nanaimo. Highway 97 should be full freeway between Penticton to Salmon Arm. And of course the #1 should be 4 lanes through the entire province, with interchanges through towns and protected Ts in the very rural areas (no lights).

That is the base BC should already have or at the very least aiming to build.

Tired of the single interchange and / or 2 or 3 KM at a time upgrades.

[Dengler Avenue]

"Tired of the single interchange and / or 2 or 3 KM at a time upgrades."

Yep. Be like Ontario, doing 35 km in one go with 5(?) concurrent contracts (between Thunder Bay and Pass Lake).

[Metro-One]

I would t over think it, at the very least we will just be providing a balance of opinions. The evidence is in how major trans regional / national highways are built nearly everywhere else in the developed world.

Also the Golden intersection was also originally going to be upgraded to an interchange, but that plan was also silently dropped. Saw the drawings years ago on the Kicking Horse upgrades website.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Also the Golden intersection was also originally going to be upgraded to an interchange, but that plan was also silently dropped. Saw the drawings years ago on the Kicking Horse upgrades website.

So I heard. Alright, let's not let MTI get away this time. I will read all 4 articles and write a draft after.

Edit: Morning, by the way.