Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[ijmorlan]

I do think your solution is an interesting alternative, and could serve as beneficent to reduce some traffic on Victoria. I have my doubts on how many drivers coming from Guelph would exit off Victoria onto Shirley dr. But I guess in this alternative vision they could divert Victoria into Shirley Dr at the BMW dealership to encourage that routing. 

Right, my idea is to divert, so traffic coming into town from Guelph would end up on Bingeman’s Centre Rd. and eventually the Wellington St. bridge over the expressway unless it specifically turned.

I claim my idea would be almost as good for economic integration. According to Google Maps, the distance from the Wellington St. bridge over the expressway to the Hanlon expressway is just under 18km. With improvements short of a full superhighway, it should be possible to do this at 80km/h, which would take just under 15 minutes. With a superhighway, it should be possible to do at 120km/h, which would take just under 10 minutes. So the superhighway saves 5 minutes. Is that really worth what we’re spending?

But realistically my idea is not happening, and as you point out, there has been lots of money sunk already. I guess the land could be sold off, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

At the end of the day I think that this type of investment further serves to interconnect the Guelph and Kitchener economy. I also would not expect the Government to commit to allocate the unused HWY 7 funds to build green infrastructure in KW and Guelph. More likely it would either just not be spent or it would be diverted to the HWY 401 expansion. It is not like the government and the region are not working on green solutions to connect our regions. 2-way all day go is in the books (hopefully it has not been delayed further). They have expressed interest in studying a Cambridge to Guelph GO train connection.

I think this type investment is an accept it or we (the Government) will allocate the funds to another region. Not that I think there is anything to reject. Pretty sure this has approval from all levels of government. Correct me if I am wrong the province has already spent over $60 million purchasing all the required land and $50 million on construction leading up to the hwy which is sunken cost. 

We as a region also just built and ambitious LRT that turned out to be a great investment into our urban fabric. Hopefully The region continues to work towards the business cause for phase 2. I don't think having HWY 7 built will stop the region from receiving future provincial funding for that. I think we have been pretty progressive in our investments into green transit options. Obviously we have a lot of work to do when it comes to bike lanes.   

Personally I think you can have a balance in the types of transit investment.

I will agree with you on the Scarborough subway though. When I lived in Toronto it was a very frustrating transit development. Although we are taking about $300 million for a decent amount of traffic vs  $6 billion for 1 stop.