Quote:
Originally Posted by jhausner
Length does not a climbing lane make. The reason it extends so far is because the hill goes from 232 to 264 that they climb. Because it is interchange to interchange though, it does serve a dual purpose as a third lane.
Honestly, I just think we do things bass-ackwards in this Province and don't build enough road infrastructure. It should be 3 lanes + HOV from Grandview Highway to Sumas at minimum.
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I don't think it's backwards, but fairly common and prudent.
In Montreal, the new Champlain Bridge is going in, and Autoroute 10 drops to 2 lanes in each direction right after Autoroute 30 interchange, which is only 5 km from the Bridge and only 15km from the Ille do Montreal.
In Toronto, the 401 drops down to 3 lanes in Ajax, which is a 48 Km drive from Union Station (and before you get to Oshawa). 200 Street, where it will drop down to 3 lanes is about a 40km drive from Waterfront station.
As it is, this is reported to be a $235 million project, for 11km of work. If all things were equal, that would be a $640 million project just to 3 lane it to Sumas, or about $855 million to 4 lane (each way) all the way to Sumas.
The main problem with 4 lanes, is that the new overpasses at Clearbrook, MacCallum, Fraser Highway, and Mt Lehman aren't really capable of 4 lanes each way. And I really don't think it is wise to replace less than 15 year old infrastructure, nor would it be cheap.
I don't think a population of 150,000 75km away from Waterfront in Abbostford justifies more than 3 lanes of traffic, when Oshawa, an area of 380,000 only 40 km away from Union station has 3 lanes of traffic in spend-a-holic, financially Bankrupt Ontario.