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Old Posted Mar 11, 2009, 12:41 PM
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Thunder Bay
Posts: 41,172
I can't find stats on highway fatalities, but aside from the Expressway proper, the Shab and Arthur Street between the airport and 130 have claimed a lot of lives in the past year, mostly young women.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathgrith View Post
Does Thunder Bay even get traffic jams to warrant an freeway?
Yes. Our widest road is five lanes, the fifth is turning. Intercity at rush hour is gridlocked (and it isn't even a grid!). There have been occasions where traffic moves so slow you get caught at the same light 3 or 4 times or worse, stuck in the middle of an intersection, unable to go anywhere, thus blocking another road. The main roads in the intercity area are four lane roads with AADTs above 25,000 and many are turning and merging in and out of traffic. (Depending on the day and season; during Christmas shopping it had to have been at or above 50,000, it was chaos.) Imagine all of the shopping malls and big box stores of your city on a three block corridor between two downtowns, and there being no other choices. That's intercity.

Aside from the intercity area, the intersection of Highways 102 and 11/17 has exceeded its capacity. When I lived in Jumbo Gardens up until 2004, that intersection was backed up over a mile west in the morning, and in the afternoon there was so much traffic that on several occasions, the intersection of Junot and Red River (102) was blocked because cars got stopped in the middle of it, causing that street to lock up, though I never saw traffic on Junot stretch more than 200m. Jumbo Gardens has grown since then (it is the fastest growing part of Thunder Bay, aside from the reserve) so the problems are likely worse now.

AADTs on major roads in Intercity were between 25,000 and 40,000 AADT in 2004, and that area has grown since then.

Highway traffic data from 2004 in the Lakehead:



The thickness of the line is how many lanes the road has--2 pixels is 2 lanes, 4 is 4 lanes. Each pixel represents 500m.
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