Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[ijmorlan]

Have you ever driven between Guelph and KW between 7am and 8pm?

I assume you’re hinting that the road is extremely busy.

As a transit fan should know, road capacity is not the only way to move people. For far less money, an appropriate rail service could (probably) be provided on the existing railway right-of-way. This could be an LRT on a track parallel to the existing tracks (with passing tracks in the appropriate locations), or double-tracking of the line and using EMUs or DMUs to provide the service. For that matter, an expansion of bus service should be investigated.

Personally, I would widen the existing road to four lanes with a Jersey barrier down the middle and roundabouts to facilitate movements that are currently done as left turns. This would provide some additional capacity and improve safety at a small fraction of the cost of a superhighway. This would be in addition to a transit expansion as suggested above.

My understanding is that a large fraction of the traffic is commuters, so shifting them to transit is a perfectly reasonable thing to try to do. It’s not like the reason the road is full is primarily truck transportation, which will definitely not be affected by transit.

But of course none of this was even seriously investigated since a proper EA process was not conducted.

Why when the Region has the idea to build transit do we have to do a full investigation of alternatives, including nonsense like Aerobus and PRT (note: I happen to agree with the EA outcome not to build monorail, but I don’t consider monorail nonsense and would have been happy to have such a system built), but a road can be built with just a pro forma consideration of road routes? The EA should have to ask “what problem are we trying to solve?” and then consider multiple possible solutions.

[SammyOES2]

I honestly wonder sometimes if people that suggest public transit to replace highway 7 have used public transit in a meaningful way.

The vast majority of people taking that road would have no complete door-to-door public transit options or would require 3-4 connections making the trip take a significant amount of time.  We're nowhere near the transit infrastructure we need to avoid a highway here.  Nor do we have anything close to the demand to support it.

That's not to say we shouldn't work on it - but its not a meaningful option for the short/medium term here.

[Canard]

I had just written a huge rant back and decided to scrap it, basically saying (less eloquently) what you just said.

Multiple bus rides to a train station, then a train ride between KW and Guelph, then multiple bus rides on the other end. 20 minute drive becomes a 2 hour ordeal. No one is going to do that. It would be cute, sure. But that's it - still have the last mile issue.

[SammyOES2]

I came back to delete that post thinking it wasn't worth it... but I'll leave it up.

[Pheidippides]

Have you ever driven between Guelph and KW between 7am and 8pm?

I frequently head to Guelph to visit family. It is exactly 30km from my house in central Kitchener to my relative's on the far east side of Guelph.

It is less than a 30min trip 80% of the time, and less than a 35min trip 95% of time which is very reasonable to me given that 60% of that is city driving; that's an average speed of 50-60kph.

Have you ever heard of induced demand? Within a couple years of this new route opening the promised "under 11 minutes" travel times between #85 and the Hanlon will be inching right back to the current 15min. This road expansion has, and always will be, about politics for a "savings" of 5min.

There may not be a transit network in place to support door-to-door service, but you could have built a pretty decent one with the $400 million dollar cost (2011 dollars, $435 million in 2017 dollars) if someone had be brave enough to do the right thing instead of the politically expedient thing for a change.

[timio]

A solution that would be a compromise would be to build the bypass from 7/85 through to Breslau to merge in with a widened current alignment with dedicated left turn lanes, jersey barriers in select locations, and passing lanes alternating the entire length.

[Elmira Guy]

I came back to delete that post thinking it wasn't worth it... but I'll leave it up.

I think there was some valid points made in your post.

While I agree with the others that a commute of transit only between K-W and Guelph would take far too long due to the lack of sufficient transit infrastructure at each end of the trip I think your point about no other options than a highway even being considered is quite valid. Why not look at other approaches, even if you know there are no sound alternatives at this time? Seems all large projects take multiple EA's and feasibility studies spread over several, even many years before work (might) begins.

I think looking at such a rail link now can only hone the final concept and system when (yes, I said when) the time comes that demand would make such a route doable from a ridership standpoint.

So yeah, leave the post.

[timc]

But of course none of this was even seriously investigated since a proper EA process was not conducted.

I don't know what this means. An environmental assessment was initiated 20 years ago, and approved in 2007.

[ijmorlan]

But of course none of this was even seriously investigated since a proper EA process was not conducted.

I don't know what this means. An environmental assessment was initiated 20 years ago, and approved in 2007.

I will confess I have not read that EA. But did it examine the possibility of building a transit network instead of a superhighway?

If not, it was not a proper EA process. An EA is supposed to examine alternatives, as was done with the LRT — in the early stages, they looked at monorail, BRT, LRT, and other options. I don’t remember if road expansion was an explicit option in the EA, but I do remember that there has been public discussion of the amount of road building that would be needed without the LRT.

The superhighway is extremely expensive. While I only mentioned an interurban from KW to Guelph, the money might have paid for both an interurban and improved transit access at the Guelph end, together with improvements to the existing road (much cheaper than a whole new superhighway). At our end of course it would connect to the transit hub and LRT. So the idea that transit can’t handle a significant fraction of the traffic needs justification. Note that it doesn’t need to handle all the traffic; just a big enough fraction to take care of the increase over levels that can be handled by a slightly-improved current road.

At some point if we want to get to a more efficient transportation network, we have to start using more efficient means to handle traffic increases, and that means transit, not just adding more very expensive lanes of traffic indefinitely.

[SammyOES2]

ijmorlan, what numbers are you using?

[Smore]

@canard, your question didn't provide any quantitative evidence as requested....

I think others have eluded to what I was thinking, which is why not 4 lane this road in both directions....roundabout I hadn't considered, but sure! The infrastructure being installed in kw is nice and will help localized problems that exist(ed) (I.e. Shirley/ wellington intersection, Victoria Street Rd diet, short on/offs for expressway) but to plow a new 4 lane divided highway through farmland, across a river valley, and connect it to existing expressways is a massive undertaking! And as others reported, for a miniscule time saving per trip.

[ijmorlan]

ijmorlan, what numbers are you using?

I’m not conducting an actual study, just pointing out that superhighways are insanely expensive. I think it’s pretty obvious that upgrading the existing road to a high-quality four-lane road would be enormously cheaper than building a brand new superhighway on a new alignment.

Similarly, it is well known that the capacity of a lane being used as an LRT right of way is comparable to the capacity of an entire superhighway. It is hugely inefficient to move large volumes of commuters by highway.

But most importantly, I’m pointing out that the EA didn’t study this question. At least I don’t think it did. If I’m wrong, I’m happy to be corrected.

Another way to think of it: if we billed users of both systems to cover the entire cost of the systems, which would they choose? A highway whose tolls are high enough to cover all costs, or an LRT network whose fares were high enough to cover all costs? Right now of course the usual state is for a highway to have no tolls, and therefore free (or near free, if you want to count the gas tax as a usage fee) to use, whereas LRT and other transit normally have significant fares that cover a substantial fraction of the operating cost.

[panamaniac]

I don't know what this means. An environmental assessment was initiated 20 years ago, and approved in 2007.

I will confess I have not read that EA. But did it examine the possibility of building a transit network instead of a superhighway?

If not, it was not a proper EA process. An EA is supposed to examine alternatives, as was done with the LRT — in the early stages, they looked at monorail, BRT, LRT, and other options. I don’t remember if road expansion was an explicit option in the EA, but I do remember that there has been public discussion of the amount of road building that would be needed without the LRT.

The superhighway is extremely expensive. While I only mentioned an interurban from KW to Guelph, the money might have paid for both an interurban and improved transit access at the Guelph end, together with improvements to the existing road (much cheaper than a whole new superhighway). At our end of course it would connect to the transit hub and LRT. So the idea that transit can’t handle a significant fraction of the traffic needs justification. Note that it doesn’t need to handle all the traffic; just a big enough fraction to take care of the increase over levels that can be handled by a slightly-improved current road.

At some point if we want to get to a more efficient transportation network, we have to start using more efficient means to handle traffic increases, and that means transit, not just adding more very expensive lanes of traffic indefinitely.

Is it?  I've not heard that before.  A formal EA of options not selected seems incredibly wasteful to me, but I'm no expert.

[Pheidippides]

Not only do EAs have to look at different ways of approaching and dealing with a problem or opportunity they also have to evaluate the "do nothing" alternative.

[SammyOES2]

Ijmorlan, so basically you have strong opinions about the EA process and about the budgeting numbers w/o any actual knowledge of what the EA process was and what the actual numbers are?

Here are some numbers I found:  "Back in 2007, the budget of the new highway was estimated at $300 million. There has not been a new estimate since."  Let's double it and adjust for inflation and call it $700 million.  

That's not paying for: "both an interurban and improved transit access at the Guelph end, together with improvements to the existing road".  And of course without a highway or brand new route/track to Guelph - your transit service is going to be extremely poor because its along an extremely congested road through heavily developed areas.

Edit: And of course, you also need improved transit all along the route through the new developments.  Because the people living in the subdivisions need to get from their living place to this highway 7 public transportation.