Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[The85]

The collector/express thing exists solely because of the bridge design they built at Frederick, Victoria and Wellington (with intermediate columns)!  

The collector/express system was actually built due to the very close proximity of the Wellington and Frederick/Victoria exits. At the time, the MTO was concerned about weaving between traffic entering and exiting the expressway, so they separated that potential conflict into lower-volume collector lanes. The bridges were then built accordingly, with piers placed in the physical division between the collector and express lanes.

After looking at it some more, if they aren't doing any work on the Frederick Bridge at all (I don't know - are they?), they have a "window" they have to fit all the new lanes through so that's probably why... they used up the width for the Edna Southbound (Westbound? whatever) on-ramp to get another lane in there for through traffic.

The Frederick bridge will also be replaced after the Victoria bridge to accommodate the new ramps. The Frederick Bridge is the only remaining bridge on the expressway to not receive a full rehabilitation in the past 10 years, all because it will eventually be replaced. 

Here is a previous post I did on this:
http://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/s...hp?tid=225&pid=18228#pid18228