02-17-2023, 04:01 PM
(02-17-2023, 01:59 PM)westwardloo Wrote: A HWY between two large cities in Ontario is not irresponsible planning, nor is it necessarily a strictly dystopian car only approach to planning as you continuously spout. HWY 7 will make way for the City of kitchener or the Region to reimagine Victoria street, transforming it from its current state as STROUD to something more pedestrian friendly. I would also argue that the boardwalk/ west kitchener could have been a more pedestrian friendly neighborhood had the Region decided to with the Ring Road HWY as opposed to the STROUD with roundabouts approach.
With the climate situation we are in, any planning that assumes continued increases in motor vehicle traffic is ill considered.
But mostly I want to focus on the part I bolded. In fact, building a superhighway has no connection at all to making Victoria St. better. All that is needed to get the traffic off Victoria St. is to make slight adjustments near the intersection of Shirley Dr. with Victoria St., and near the intersection of Shirley Dr. with Bingeman’s Centre Dr.; Widen Shirley Dr. to 4 lanes between these intersections, and widen Highway 7 to 4 lanes all the way to Guelph. Install a centre median and roundabouts. Re-work the freeway interchange at Wellington St.
Yes, there is a cost to existing addresses on the highway. You don’t build an entire superhighway just to avoid impacts on a couple of dozen or so properties.
This gives you a continuous 4-lane road from Guelph to the expressway, all north of the railway track. Victoria St. would now end in a T-junction with the combined route more or less where Shirley Dr. ends at Victoria now. The existing Victoria St. bridge over the Grand River would continue to serve the improved Highway 7.
The new road would be designed to move traffic, while Victoria St. could be re-planned as an urban street with low traffic speeds and only one lane in each direction. This plan would save most of the cost of the new freeway and while expanding the road to Guelph to 4 lanes would be an expansion in road capacity, it wouldn’t have the same negative effect as building a superhighway. The difference could be used to put in place excellent rail transit between KW and Guelph.
The most frustrating thing for me about the superhighway discussion is that essentially nobody has even mentioned the possibility of improving the existing road. It’s basically superhighway or nothing when we all know that even if one takes as a given that roads need to be improved there is a lot of space between a 2 lane road and an actual superhighway, and the difference is a huge amount of money.