General Road and Highway Discussion

[Markster]

Interesting, I never did see that being constructed.  That's a bit surprising as it looked like a proper retaining wall, which I wouldn't think would require mechanically stabilized soil--I see these types of walls simply built to retain existing earthen berms--but I'm not a geotechnical engineer.

They probably want the extra stability because of all the sensitive rail infrastructure.

An asphalt path could probably make do with just a retaining wall, and ground that is prone to a little settling.  The station is going to want things to stay a little more precisely aligned.

[jamincan]

As far as I know, most larger retaining walls aren't actually retaining walls per se, and instead rely on geotextiles like you see here to preserve slope stability.

[danbrotherston]

@jamincan. I don't know about "most" but most examples I can think of don't seem to be that. Most examples of retaining walls (the spur line trail, under the King Street overpass) are retaining existing earthen mounds, not artificial mounds. I don't see how such material could have been added.

[timc]

I saw that bit of bike lane on Columbia, and I fear that the change of surface and addition of tactile plates is going to be very destabilizing for some cyclists. I don't even get why it is like that. There is lots of room there to do something better.

[Markster]

I did figure it was to provide warning/transition to cyclists entering the boarding zone (why they couldn't put the bike lane *AROUND* the boarding zone I do not know, at least Toronto has obvious space constraints, which don't really appear to apply here.  I mean, how hard is it really to just copy the Dutch?  I digress.

Yeah, it makes sense in Toronto, but there's plenty of space here to do the correct thing, and have the bike lane go behind a bus loading pad.

 My bigger concern is why they chose an accessibility tactile plate treatment?  Isn't that supposed to provide a warning and path to visually disabled folks?  

I think the idea is that the tactile strip is there to tell the pedestrians that this is where the pedestrian zone ends. It gives a bounding box.

[danbrotherston]

 My bigger concern is why they chose an accessibility tactile plate treatment?  Isn't that supposed to provide a warning and path to visually disabled folks?  

I think the idea is that the tactile strip is there to tell the pedestrians that this is where the pedestrian zone ends. It gives a bounding box.

That isn't what they're used for though.  They're only used where pedestrians are *supposed* to walk.

But I don't really know how visually impaired people use them to navigate.

[Canard]

What are they doing on Hwy 8 West/North at the big hill? Seems like every day when I'm driving home, more of the pavement is torn up! Are they just resurfacing it? Did we know this was coming?

Also, for the King St. rebuild between the 7/8/85 interchange and about Ottawa... are they going to do anything to fix that awful "race point" between Dixon/Montgomery heading West/North a block or two? I absolutely dread driving here because people drive like dicks!

[boatracer]

The backup coming into town this morning was long. I got on at Sportsworld and didn't see how far back it went. Old King was jammed as well. Everything heading up the hill to near Franklin Street has been ground down. There was an electronic sign on 7/8 heading toward the 8 flyover mentioning about a ramp closure I think on the 12th from 12-6am.

[p2ee]

What are they doing on Hwy 8 West/North at the big hill? Seems like every day when I'm driving home, more of the pavement is torn up! Are they just resurfacing it? Did we know this was coming?

Also, for the King St. rebuild between the 7/8/85 interchange and about Ottawa... are they going to do anything to fix that awful "race point" between Dixon/Montgomery heading West/North a block or two? I absolutely dread driving here because people drive like dicks!

They are just resurfacing the road.  Here is the contract information:  http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/travell...t2017-3006

Looks like its scheduled to be completed early November.

[Canard]

Good, maybe they'll finally fix that little jog in the dotted lines going up the hill in the right lane that makes my eye twitch every single day!!

[Bob_McBob]

I recently started going to the St Jacobs market again after a long hiatus, and I usually park across the street in the antique store/TSC lot. There is a constant stream of people crossing back and forth to the market, but the pedestrian crossing is set to only give a signal if you press the beg buttons that are so far from the road most people don't bother or even realize it's necessary. The result is a lot of the time a huge crowd just crosses on a "don't walk" signal. And that's nowhere near as bad as the ridiculous uncontrolled intersection leading to the outlet mall.

[Elmira Guy]

Paving of Weber near Lincoln currently underway.

[jamincan]

I live east of the expressway, and they've basically cut off this part of the city. Victoria and Krug are closed completely, and half of Ottawa is torn up between the expressway and River, which means the only way to reach downtown is via Frederick or the other half of Ottawa, which  have been bumper to bumper the last few times I've taken them. I've been out of town for the last three weeks, so I might have just been unlucky, but the number of lanes across the expressway has essentially dropped to four from twelve. Do they not plan this construction out at all in advance? To make matters even worse, the access to the expressway at Bruce and Edna is closed to/from the north as well.

Does anyone have any sense on timelines for these projects?

[greybird]

Victoria is only closed on weekends.

[jamincan]

Victoria is only closed on weekends.

Oh, that's a relief. Only just got back Friday at midnight, so not quite fully up on everything.