06-06-2017, 10:36 PM
(06-06-2017, 08:15 PM)p2ee Wrote: I have a feeling MTO wants to avoid reducing lanes on the 401 as much as possible, but you're right it'd make more sense to reduce a lane westbound than eastbound (and currently they have it backwards).
One thing that is somewhat shocking about this project is that they're taking 5 years to widen 4 kms of highway. Down in Chicago, they're in the process of widening (maybe they're already done?) about 40 kms of I-90 from 6 lanes to 10. That highway is just as busy (maybe even slightly more) and they have similar climate as us. And their timeline is about 2.5 years. Some people have mentioned the replacement of speed river bridges as the reason, but in the I-90 project they're also replacing the bridge over Fox river, which seems to be about as wide as grand river (google street view here).
And there's an obvious pattern here.. 4 years to add 2.5 km of express-collector in Mississauga back in 2010-2013 and another 4 years to add another 2.5 km of express collector currently under construction.
I'm not familiar with the I-90 Chicago widening, but did they fully replace the existing roadway too? For this 401 widening project, the existing highway carriageway was identified as requiring a full and complete replacement (grading, drainage, granular, superpave asphalt surface, structures - bridge replacement over river, etc.). What the MTO needs to do here is build the new carriageway, shift traffic over to the new alignment, and then fully remove and replace the existing carriageway, and then merge the two together for the final product. That is a complex undertaking while keeping a fully operational highway carrying well over 100,000 vehicles a day.
I can see where a simple 2 lane widening would be much quicker where a new 2 lanes would just be joined with the existing roadway.