General Road and Highway Discussion

[the_conestoga_guy]

I wonder if this means any improvements to Benton/Frederick, Victoria & King, and I'm sure some other projects are dead? Are the Lancaster changes removing lanes? Does this meaning turning lanes can't be removed?

Nonsense. Worse when you consider that many road diets or turning lane reconfigurations should happen regardless of bike lanes, but now you can't toss them in to save money on constructing them together (if at all).

Fortunately, there is an easy solution: just close the car lanes. Don’t re-stripe them as bike lanes or anything. Of course, if some bicyclists still use the space once the cars are out of them, nobody can really blame them.

They'd sure be blamed for getting run over by a right hook, or any other situation where they should have had right of way.

For Victoria and King, I wonder where this new “law” differentiates between “lanes lost for bikes” and “lanes lost for bus-only lanes”. If the latter is acceptable, then I think it would still be allowed. 

I don’t believe Lancaster is proposed to be closing any car lanes. 

The Frederick/Benton project, though, is such a classic case of a road being overbuilt and where losing a lane or two wouldn’t change anything for drivers and their commute times. 

Going back to the “bus lanes being allowed” thing, I’m sure if cyclists just happened to use the bus lanes, then we could still make some progress as a city until a new government gets elected (whenever that might be).

[tomh009]

There is no law yet ... and we don't know what the proposed wording for the law will be.

[danbrotherston]

It's true we don't know what is proposed, but we can probably make some guesses. The plain reading of the law and the most straight forward implementation would be that bike lanes cannot be added in place of vehicle lanes, so, no road diets (Benton is out).

But we also know that DoFo is bitter about Toronto, so possibly it would do something to target Toronto more directly as well 🤷‍♂️. In that regard, we haven't heard anything about it, but bike lanes are a bigger cultural issue which might explain why we've only heard about bike lanes, so it's not impossible that transit lanes might be in it too (DoFo's brother famously hated streetcars).

I think the fundamental mistake would be to believe that this is a good faith policy (i.e., that Benton would be fine because it's overbuilt so it should be road dieted). A second fundamental mistake is to believe that bureaucrats like our active transportation planners (even our wonderful and progressive staff) will be willing to actively undermine provincial legislation in a fairly direct way... i.e., building a bike lane but marking is "bus lane". I simply don't think that will happen.

If this legislation passes, it will set bike infra in Ontario back 2-6-10 years (depending on how long Ontarians are willing to re-elect this garbage government). On that topic, here is a petition you can sign: https://www.cycleto.ca/ilovebikelanes and of course, all ya'll should also be writing to every elected official you can think of. Write early, write often.

[ijmorlan]

Such a law is so patently unreasonable and vindictive that it could result in the Conservative party being out of government for a generation. On the other hand, there are enough idiots who would be cheering it on that it could easily not have that effect.

[tomh009]

Streets like Benton ... if the Regional council wants to, they can make (temporary!) bike lanes happen in a matter of few weeks, before any bill is signed into law. The law will not be retroactive, so if the conversion is already done, it should not be affected, and the region can then take their time to upgrade those bike lanes.

[danbrotherston]

Streets like Benton ... if the Regional council wants to, they can make (temporary!) bike lanes happen in a matter of few weeks, before any bill is signed into law. The law will not be retroactive, so if the conversion is already done, it should not be affected, and the region can then take their time to upgrade those bike lanes.

That is absolutely possible. And you folks should push for that.

But I am also not going to hold my breath...Benton has been like that for decades...

[bravado]

Has Doug Ford finally lost what’s left of his mind? What is genuinely in the water in Etobicoke?



https://globalnews.ca/news/10773679/onta...doug-ford/

The Ontario government announced plans to explore whether tunnelling under a major highway, an idea Premier Doug Ford first mused about when he was a Toronto city councillor, is possible. The government delivered the concept at a news conference near Highway 401 in Etobicoke on Wednesday morning, pledging to conduct a feasibility study of whether a new expressway could be tunnelled beneath the existing route.
“We’re experts at tunnelling,” Ford said. “And once a feasibility study comes back, then we’ll move it forward. I always believe, never take the tunnelling machines out of the ground — just keep tunnelling.”

[ijmorlan]

Has Doug Ford finally lost what’s left of his mind? What is genuinely in the water in Etobicoke?



https://globalnews.ca/news/10773679/onta...doug-ford/

The Ontario government announced plans to explore whether tunnelling under a major highway, an idea Premier Doug Ford first mused about when he was a Toronto city councillor, is possible. The government delivered the concept at a news conference near Highway 401 in Etobicoke on Wednesday morning, pledging to conduct a feasibility study of whether a new expressway could be tunnelled beneath the existing route.
“We’re experts at tunnelling,” Ford said. “And once a feasibility study comes back, then we’ll move it forward. I always believe, never take the tunnelling machines out of the ground — just keep tunnelling.”

It would probably be less absurd to deck above the existing highway. But only less absurd, not actually a reasonable idea.

[ZEBuilder]

Has Doug Ford finally lost what’s left of his mind? What is genuinely in the water in Etobicoke?



https://globalnews.ca/news/10773679/onta...doug-ford/

The Ontario government announced plans to explore whether tunnelling under a major highway, an idea Premier Doug Ford first mused about when he was a Toronto city councillor, is possible. The government delivered the concept at a news conference near Highway 401 in Etobicoke on Wednesday morning, pledging to conduct a feasibility study of whether a new expressway could be tunnelled beneath the existing route.
“We’re experts at tunnelling,” Ford said. “And once a feasibility study comes back, then we’ll move it forward. I always believe, never take the tunnelling machines out of the ground — just keep tunnelling.”

I am amazed how we managed to elect this idiot into office. He says they'll conduct a feasibility study and you can bet he'll somehow make it come back saying it's a perfect idea. The cost of tunneling the 401 would be absolutely insane. Not only would you need to still have bridges over the Humber, Don, Etobicoke Creek, you'll need emergency entrances and exits all along in case chaos ensues inside which is inevitable, plus you're going to have to redo a pile of bridges because the footings would land in the way of this new tunnel.

The Big Dig in Boston cost 22 or so billion dollars, 12.6 km of road, about half of that in tunnels, so obviously its not gonna be a direct split but lets say the tunnels cost 2 billion per km,  reasonably they cost more, the 401 from Mississauga to Scarborough is 57km, that's 104 billion dollar's and we know it's going to be way more than that.

Plus where is Ford expecting to get the money from? He can pay for Hamiltons LRT, YNSE, Sheppard extension, ION phase 2, Hurontario into Brampton, and a pile and a half more projects which would serve more people then tunneling the damn 401.

[danbrotherston]

Has Doug Ford finally lost what’s left of his mind? What is genuinely in the water in Etobicoke?



https://globalnews.ca/news/10773679/onta...doug-ford/

The Ontario government announced plans to explore whether tunnelling under a major highway, an idea Premier Doug Ford first mused about when he was a Toronto city councillor, is possible. The government delivered the concept at a news conference near Highway 401 in Etobicoke on Wednesday morning, pledging to conduct a feasibility study of whether a new expressway could be tunnelled beneath the existing route.
“We’re experts at tunnelling,” Ford said. “And once a feasibility study comes back, then we’ll move it forward. I always believe, never take the tunnelling machines out of the ground — just keep tunnelling.”

I am amazed how we managed to elect this idiot into office. He says they'll conduct a feasibility study and you can bet he'll somehow make it come back saying it's a perfect idea. The cost of tunneling the 401 would be absolutely insane. Not only would you need to still have bridges over the Humber, Don, Etobicoke Creek, you'll need emergency entrances and exits all along in case chaos ensues inside which is inevitable, plus you're going to have to redo a pile of bridges because the footings would land in the way of this new tunnel.

The Big Dig in Boston cost 22 or so billion dollars, 12.6 km of road, about half of that in tunnels, so obviously its not gonna be a direct split but lets say the tunnels cost 2 billion per km,  reasonably they cost more, the 401 from Mississauga to Scarborough is 57km, that's 104 billion dollar's and we know it's going to be way more than that.

Plus where is Ford expecting to get the money from? He can pay for Hamiltons LRT, YNSE, Sheppard extension, ION phase 2, Hurontario into Brampton, and a pile and a half more projects which would serve more people then tunneling the damn 401.

At this point, it's hard to tell if DoFo is this stupid...or if he merely thinks his voters are.

[ijmorlan]

Money for a tunnel of this magnitude would probably pay for every transit project ever proposed in the province, including some of the lines-on-maps drawn by enthusiasts.

[panamaniac]

I am amazed how we managed to elect this idiot into office. He says they'll conduct a feasibility study and you can bet he'll somehow make it come back saying it's a perfect idea. The cost of tunneling the 401 would be absolutely insane. Not only would you need to still have bridges over the Humber, Don, Etobicoke Creek, you'll need emergency entrances and exits all along in case chaos ensues inside which is inevitable, plus you're going to have to redo a pile of bridges because the footings would land in the way of this new tunnel.

The Big Dig in Boston cost 22 or so billion dollars, 12.6 km of road, about half of that in tunnels, so obviously its not gonna be a direct split but lets say the tunnels cost 2 billion per km,  reasonably they cost more, the 401 from Mississauga to Scarborough is 57km, that's 104 billion dollar's and we know it's going to be way more than that.

Plus where is Ford expecting to get the money from? He can pay for Hamiltons LRT, YNSE, Sheppard extension, ION phase 2, Hurontario into Brampton, and a pile and a half more projects which would serve more people then tunneling the damn 401.

At this point, it's hard to tell if DoFo is this stupid...or if he merely thinks his voters are.

Not necessarly an either/or question.

[tomh009]

50 km of tunnel would probably cost $200B or more (and take more than a decade). That's 40,000x the annual budget amount for transit improvements ...

Madness.

[the_conestoga_guy]

I can’t help but pile on one extra criticism of this woefully stupid idea. Toronto is famously ill-prepared for flooding events, so wouldn’t a massive tunnel just fill with water during every rain event? Also, couldn’t they just spend this money on flood-resilience measures for other highways that get snarled during floods (403, DVP)?

Back to reality, my hope is that they actually know this is a horrible idea, but they want traffic studies to point to for justifying other ideas. Like, “it’s cheaper to buy back the 407 instead of my great tunnel idea, so we’re going to go ahead and do that instead.”

[danbrotherston]

I can’t help but pile on one extra criticism of this woefully stupid idea. Toronto is famously ill-prepared for flooding events, so wouldn’t a massive tunnel just fill with water during every rain event? Also, couldn’t they just spend this money on flood-resilience measures for other highways that get snarled during floods (403, DVP)?

Back to reality, my hope is that they actually know this is a horrible idea, but they want traffic studies to point to for justifying other ideas. Like, “it’s cheaper to buy back the 407 instead of my great tunnel idea, so we’re going to go ahead and do that instead.”

This is an interesting theory. FWIW...it's hard to tell with DoFo as I do think he is rather stupid.

That being said, people in general do tend to have zero understanding of the cost of these things. More people than you think might be stupid about this. Of course, they're also just generally stupid about it. Most don't think deeply enough about anything to realize that tunnelling to carry two train tracks for transit would 1/10, 1/50th? The cost of tunnelling a tunnel big enough to carry another 10 lanes of 401 traffic. Like, saying it's stupid is mean, and unproductive, but I don't really have a better word for it. I'm not saying they couldn't understand this if they tried, I'm saying they aren't bothering to even think about it.