Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[GtwoK]

I think it's only at night though?

There's no left turns onto Wellington coming off 85 Southbound at all times (for a few weeks). Also, the ramps from Wellington onto the 85 Norhbound are closed.

[DHLawrence]

I'm guessing Wellington Rd 34 would become an over/underpass. It's too close to the highway.

[The85]

I'm guessing Wellington Rd 34 would become an over/underpass. It's too close to the highway.

No - Wellington Road 34 is proposed to have a full Parclo A4 interchange with Highway 6. I believe the EA is approved and the project is just awaiting funding. More than likely it will happen with the Highway 6 north-south connection project through Morriston.

[ijmorlan]

Everybody is going to be wondering why we didn’t just build an interurban LRT line between Kitchener and Guelph instead of blowing the money on another highway.

They have already done all the environmental assessments, land acquisition and design. Plus this project will provide another link for the region to the 401 corridor via the Hanlon (which I believe is to be converted to limited access highway). I don't think this money is blown. I wonder what the cost would be to run an lrt line into Guelph's core. Also I wonder what route they would take.

I don’t deny that the highway has benefits. But building an LRT line would be a bigger capacity increase. Over time, the traffic that essentially consists of people moving between the cities could move to the LRT line, while cargo traffic could continue to use the road. Additionally, the existing road could be widened to four lanes as needed on the existing right of way. Building a controlled-access highway is overkill.

As for route, between the cities is obvious — just run parallel to the existing rail right-of-way, as close as permissible. Within the cities, probably mostly the same, with possibly some slight adjustments near each end of the route. At both ends, terminate immediately next to the train stations/transit hubs for seamless transfers to GO trains, local buses, and Ion.

[Canard]

Guelph transit is horrible. I took it once. My commute (driving) from downtown Kitchener (Kaufman Lofts) to the industrial park on the South end (where Sleeman's is) was 25 minutes. The Guelph bus took almost an hour just from downtown Guelph to get to my office, and it only ran something like once per hour. I can't even imagine how long it would take if you factored in an inter-city train ride as well as transit connections inside Kitchener.

Highway is the right move for right now; but in the future, once both cities have the urban density and proper internal transportation to support it, then I could see some sort of higher-frequency interurban running between them.

Doing it now would be a white elephant*.

*-Not that I'd mind - most of my favourite projects to explore and visit are white elephants!

[MidTowner]

Guelph transit is horrible. I took it once. My commute (driving) from downtown Kitchener (Kaufman Lofts) to the industrial park on the South end (where Sleeman's is) was 25 minutes. The Guelph bus took almost an hour just from downtown Guelph to get to my office, and it only ran something like once per hour. I can't even imagine how long it would take if you factored in an inter-city train ride as well as transit connections inside Kitchener.

I've only taken Guelph Transit a handful of times, and not for a while, but I don't think it's that bad. You're talking about access  to an industrial park on the very outskirts of town. That situation is not likely to support good transit, and transit access to industrial parks in Waterloo Region isn't much better. The 34 to Bingeman's is the one I'm most familiar with- it's now a little worse than half-hourly, with no midday service. That's not so good, either, but it's not so much an indictment of GRT as the form of the development it's trying to serve.

In denser parts of the city, and especially routes serving students, Guelph Transit is much better, just as is true for GRT.

In any case, I think ijmorlan is right that transit service would be the better investment. We know that this highway will eventually cause enough induced demand to congest it, and create more sprawl. But I don't think a big transit project connecting the two cities would find the support that this highway does (that's a big understatement).

[Canard]

Who knows, once the Kitchener line is double-tracked and electrified, it'd really be trivial to get an operator to buy a small fleet of EMU's (TALENT?) to run back a forth along there. That'd be a dream.

[ijmorlan]

Even if road work is needed now, why not just four-lane the existing highway? Enormously cheaper than building a freeway.

How about four-lane the existing road, build an LRT, and enhance connecting bus services in Guelph? Ok, not sure how much money I just spent, but freeways are really expensive and lead to enormous maintenance expenses, not to mention that all that wonderful road surface encourages still more people to drive.

[Viewfromthe42]

I don't think it's any small coincidence that the area the new highway 7 will bisect is very prominently excluded from all greenbelt-type protection plans. It looks like you could drop in urban/suburban/exurban development and merge Guelph with KWC, with this forming a main connection between them.

[SammyOES2]

I think the highway between KW / Guelph is a no brainer, imo.

A LRT line isn't an acceptable substitute anytime soon. There's too many people starting and/or ending their journeys in locations with no/bad/average transit. These people would still have to drive a portion of the route or make at least 2-3 transfers on systems with not very frequent service. And that's during peak periods. Trying to get between some random residential area in KW to some other random residential area in Guelph on a weekend or later in the evening would be a huge waste of time.

And if the argument is that the highway doesn't have the ridership to support it, that argument applies even more to an LRT line between the two cities (for the forseeable future. Hopefully long-term that changes).

The existing highway 7 is almost certainly going to slow down over the short-medium term. More and more development is planned along the highway, which means more roundabouts/stoplights, slower average speeds, etc. Even increasing it to 4 lanes the whole way wouldn't fix the problem.

[SammyOES2]

I don't think it's any small coincidence that the area the new highway 7 will bisect is very prominently excluded from all greenbelt-type protection plans. It looks like you could drop in urban/suburban/exurban development and merge Guelph with KWC, with this forming a main connection between them.

At one of the public meetings I attended it was mentioned that the long-term plan is to develop north of the existing highway and south of the new highway.  But that was all planning that was still 25+ years out as the short-medium term the development will mostly happen south of the existing highway.

Edit: This was on the Region of Waterloo side.  Not sure what the deal is on the Guelph side.  But they're running out of new development area too.

[MidTowner]

A LRT line isn't an acceptable substitute anytime soon. There's too many people starting and/or ending their journeys in locations with no/bad/average transit. These people would still have to drive a portion of the route or make at least 2-3 transfers on systems with not very frequent service. And that's during peak periods. Trying to get between some random residential area in KW to some other random residential area in Guelph on a weekend or later in the evening would be a huge waste of time.

This is a reinforcing cycle. Transit is “bad” in KW and Guelph because we’ve invested so much to make driving convenient and cheap for the user, and promoted sprawl that’s hard to serve by transit. This new highway will continue that pattern.

[SammyOES2]

A LRT line isn't an acceptable substitute anytime soon.  There's too many people starting and/or ending their journeys in locations with no/bad/average transit.  These people would still have to drive a portion of the route or make at least 2-3 transfers on systems with not very frequent service.  And that's during peak periods.  Trying to get between some random residential area in KW to some other random residential area in Guelph on a weekend or later in the evening would be a huge waste of time.  

This is a reinforcing cycle. Transit is “bad” in KW and Guelph because we’ve invested so much to make driving convenient and cheap for the user, and promoted sprawl that’s hard to serve by transit. This new highway will continue that pattern.

By this logic we should never invest anything in making driving better because it "reinforces the cycle".

The reality is that driving IS more convenient in a lot of use cases - regardless of how good your transit system is.  I lived in NYC and still had a car because sometimes its easier and necessary.  I just didn't have to take it to work or every time I wanted to leave the house.  And travel between cities that are 10-20km apart is never going to be easily solved by public transportaiton.

There's a clear need for a better transportation system between KW/Guelph, right now.  And its not a need that an LRT line can address.  So I don't think an acceptable solution is to ignore that need.

[Canard]

And one thing people without a car never seem to understand is that a lot of people have a car because they like to travel and they actually do stuff outside of their own city. This attitude of "we're reinforcing a bad habit" or whatever seems to equate driving with smoking, and it's really annoying. Obviously it'd be great if I could take a train everywhere I want to go. I'd love that! I love trains. But I can't. This isn't Japan. It doesn't go to the Dryden Tract. Or my parents place in rural Ontario. Or theme parks in the middle of nowhere in the US.

Sorry, I've wanted to vent that for a while but resisted, but people keep bringing up this "we should screw over cars" thing.

[danbrotherston]

By this logic we should never invest anything in making driving better because it "reinforces the cycle".

The reality is that driving IS more convenient in a lot of use cases - regardless of how good your transit system is.  I lived in NYC and still had a car because sometimes its easier and necessary.  I just didn't have to take it to work or every time I wanted to leave the house.  And travel between cities that are 10-20km apart is never going to be easily solved by public transportaiton.

There's a clear need for a better transportation system between KW/Guelph, right now.  And its not a need that an LRT line can address.  So I don't think an acceptable solution is to ignore that need.

It *is* more convenient because we've *made* it so.  But investing in roads, and *not* transit for the past 70 years.

Nobody's suggesting we ignore that need, but dismissing an LRT line as "not suitable" because it doesn't fit every use case.  Yes, an LRT won't work for everybody, but right now the choices of Guelph to KW is 1) Drive it.  That's it. No other option.  Providing another option would work for some people, even if not everyone, and would reduce the demand for driving between the two cities.  Nobody's suggesting that the LRT go in place of having a road between the two cities.

And the suggestion that we should enhance the existing road instead of building a new and extremely expensive long term investment in continued sprawl.  I think is a valid suggestion.  It meets the short term need for improved driving without investing all our futures in continued unsustainable sprawl.

Of course, this is all a moot point anyway, the highway is being built, just as the LRT in KW is being built.  We'll have to live with these decisions for the next 50 years or so.