Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[ijmorlan]

I just want the new access roads under the train tracks. If those are built (specifically the western one) then we can close the Lancaster St. road crossing and eliminate problems at Lancaster/Victoria and Lancaster/Krug/Cedar.

What does this do at Lancaster/Krug/Cedar? I mean, how does this change that disaster?

It dramatically reduces the amount of traffic to/from Lancaster. Or so I believe. It would take a traffic study to show for sure; maybe they’re all turning at Frederick or Victoria but I doubt it — I think a lot of the traffic at that intersection is to/from Lancaster above Victoria.

Regardless of where people are going however, I think it’s clear that the fix for Lancaster/Krug/Cedar is not to knock down some buildings and increase capacity there, but rather to change things elsewhere so less traffic goes through that intersection. My personal suggestion would be to close Lancaster immediately north (west) of Victoria but it may be that closing it immediately south (east) of Victoria or Frederick would be more effective. Or maybe there should be a one-way section.

Another point about that intersection: a big issue is that it’s not really Lancaster/Krug/Cedar; it’s Lancaster/Krug/Cedar/Weber, a 5-way combination of streets with a traffic light at Cedar/Weber. But the problem goes away if the traffic levels go down enough.

In any case, the real point is to look at the whole network. Oddly, they do this when they design a freeway; freeways rarely (especially now) just widen an existing road; instead they build a new route. How do they know where to do this? By analyzing the traffic network. But when it comes to building a grade separation to fix Lancaster/Victoria, I haven’t heard any official source suggest examining the whole network to look for solutions.