Highway 401 Widening - Highway 8 to Townline Road

[jeffster]

Where is the public meltdown about this?

Oh yeah, it’s a road. Nobody cares when highways are months (years!) late, just LRT.

(I hate it and drive it every day, too.)

Probably because it isn't behind schedule?? The news release stated that the work (before it started) would be completed by summer 2019. The outcry was back in 2015 that it was a 4 year project. Would be great to get it done in a year or two, but obviously that's not practical.

As for the LRT:

It wasn’t until February 2017 that the first vehicle showed up. On that day, officials said that the second vehicle would arrive in June, with a new vehicle following every two weeks or so after that.

That was last year.

That's the difference. Now if the MTO was telling us that, after they started the project, instead of 2019, it will be 2020, then people will be upset. If when 2020 comes, they tell us 2021, people will be ever more upset. The MTO isn't doing that, but the LRT/Ion/Bombardier is. We were told 2017, then 2018, now it's likely 2019.

For what it's worth, I can't recall the last time they weren't working on the area highways, it's been a continual thing since I first started driving; expanding the 401 to 6 lanes from Milton to Townline, then Townline to Highway 8, then Homer Watson, then all the way to London, putting up the barrier during that time, the highway 8 bypass into Kitchener, the barrier from Lancaster to Courtland (then Fisher-Hallman), Expressway expanded from King St to beyond Northfield (Waterloo) and Fisher-Hallman to New Hamburg, the flyover to Highway 8, expanding highway 8 from 4 lanes to 8 lanes, expanding the expressway to at least 6 lanes from the collectors/express to Fisher-Hallman. And I know that I am missing stuff here (I realize this isn't all in order).

I imagine after all the current work is completed, we'll have more work, like a flyover from Highway 8 to westbound 401. Expanding the expressway from Lancaster to King (Waterloo) or Northfield, including a barrier. Perhaps expansion of 407 ETR out towards Guelph and a link-up to the highway 7 expressway. Plus we know we're getting an exchange at River Rd/Highway 8 at some point. I'm guessing a highway 24 bypass to Brantford as well, linking to the 403. Perhaps highway 7 will expand, with a bypass, towards Stratford, then perhaps head south towards the 401 to link-up with the 403/401 in Woodstock.

Highways are non-stop....that's frustrating. What else is frustrating are things like highway 7 towards Guelph which has been promised for a million years but only getting a start now...but as far as I know, it too is on schedule.