Last week I
gave a guided tour of highway expansion plans in southern Ontario.
Now let’s look to the wide open spaces north and east of Toronto --
starting with the traffic clogged Region of Durham.
Despite being
home to Oshawa’s automotive plants and the growing eastern suburbs
of Pickering, Ajax and Whitby, Durham boats only one expressway, the
401. Commuters get caught in a daily bottleneck as the busy route
drops from 10 to six lanes in a fairly short distance. They can’t
wait for news that MTO will speed up its widening project, which
seems to progress slower than some glaciers.
But it is
politics at Queen’s Park that seems to be holding up the biggest
hope for those east of Hogtown -- an extension of Highway 407. The
provincial Liberals are very touchy, like many voters, about the
controversial 407ETR toll route. Perhaps no one wishes to appear as
if they support more privately-run roads in this corridor, but if
the highway is to be lengthened by 40 kilometers from its endpoint
just east of Toronto to Highways 35 and 115, somebody has to finance
it.
You can check
developments at
http://www.407eastea.com, but expect a multi-year environmental
assessment process. Ontario Conservatives and Liberals recently
traded barbs over the 407, with the Tories decrying the delay and
the Grits noting the other party had stalled studies when in power.
For those who
flee Toronto every weekend for their cottages, two escape routes
deeper into the north are Highways 11 and 69. The latter route to
Sudbury is slowly being transformed into a four-lane separated
expressway. The current completion date is still over a decade away
-- none too soon for those who dread using the oncoming lane to pass
other vehicles. As part of the Trans-Canada Highway System, some of
the funds for widening this crucial conduit come from via the
federal government. As it is upgraded, the highway number changes
from 69 to 400.
Not so with
Highway 11 -- although it is getting the same treatment, the North
Bay-Toronto route has so far kept its two digits. Four-lane sections
in the north and south ends of the corridor are gradually inching
toward each other, with less than 100 kilometers left to twin. New
lanes and bridges bypass smaller towns in the same way the “old”
Highway 11 replaced its winding, meandering predecessor decades
before.
The
Traffic-Guru’s near-north correspondent Eric McConnachie has a bit
of a kvetch on about the design of some of the new interchanges. As
bulldozers bust through Canadian Shield, they create unexpected
vistas, but oh, “how crappy are the off-ramps and exits,” he writes.
When it comes to adapting the expressway to wee hamlets, some new
linking roadways “seem as if they were planned by somebody sitting
in an office in Toronto.”
I too have
used some of Highway 11’s questionable access ramps -- McConnachie
cites “the blind stops” near ramp entrances that require you to pull
forward into the road area to see if anyone is approaching.
He laments that
no one seems to have properly anticipated snowbanks that obscure
traffic. At least all the nice snow can cushion your vehicle as you
get smashed over some guardrail-less embankment.
Look under
“Traveller's Information” at
www.mto.gov.on.ca for news of the latest sections to be
transformed from old-school highway standards to near-freeway
status. This very handy web page would be a good spot to start
looking for details on other Ontario highway and transit projects
but alas, here the trail peters out.
Coming up:
Sniffing out road plans along the Ottawa River, and a new crossing
into Quebec?