(09-20-2024, 10:11 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: 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).

(09-20-2024, 09:00 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: 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.

(09-22-2024, 01:45 PM)tomh009 Wrote: 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.

(09-25-2024, 01:57 PM)bravado Wrote: Has Doug Ford finally lost what’s left of his mind? What is genuinely in the water in Etobicoke?



https://globalnews.ca/news/10773679/ontario-highway-401-tunnel-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.”

(09-25-2024, 01:57 PM)bravado Wrote: Has Doug Ford finally lost what’s left of his mind? What is genuinely in the water in Etobicoke?



https://globalnews.ca/news/10773679/ontario-highway-401-tunnel-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.”

(09-25-2024, 03:32 PM)ZEBuilder Wrote:

(09-25-2024, 01:57 PM)bravado Wrote: Has Doug Ford finally lost what’s left of his mind? What is genuinely in the water in Etobicoke?



https://globalnews.ca/news/10773679/ontario-highway-401-tunnel-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.

(09-25-2024, 03:37 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(09-25-2024, 03:32 PM)ZEBuilder Wrote: 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.

(09-26-2024, 07:33 AM)the_conestoga_guy Wrote: 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.”