174 Widening and Extension | Proposed

[DubberDom]

According to Phil McNeely's site, the 417 should be widened from Vanier Parkway to 174 Split starting next year, is this official? Have the contracts gone out?

http://www.philmcneely.onmpp.ca/en/thesplit.htm

Also, any news on the 174 to Orleans and beyond to Rockland?

I haven't seen anything from the City on the 174 widening to Orleans.

The funding was approved to widen the 174 from Trim to Rockland (80Million), but the city apparently refused it? I suspect that the city is looking to offload this highway back to the province. There is supposedly a EA study commenced in 2007 that was supposed to take 3 years, so 2010?

[RTWAP]

Originally Posted by DubberDom

According to Phil McNeely's site, the 417 should be widened from Vanier Parkway to 174 Split starting next year, is this official? Have the contracts gone out?

http://www.philmcneely.onmpp.ca/en/thesplit.htm

Also, any news on the 174 to Orleans and beyond to Rockland?

I haven't seen anything from the City on the 174 widening to Orleans.

The funding was approved to widen the 174 from Trim to Rockland (80Million), but the city apparently refused it? I suspect that the city is looking to offload this highway back to the province. There is supposedly a EA study commenced in 2007 that was supposed to take 3 years, so 2010?

The city did refuse it, but I don't think it has anything to do with the city wanting to offload the road back to the province. I think widening it doesn't fit with the city's plans at this point.

Interesting to note on that page that the province and city are also working to connect Hunt Club to Innes at Anderson Road. If that was part of the plan all along then I missed it somehow.

[DubberDom]

Hunt Club to Innes at Anderson was always part of the plan AFAIK

[eternallyme]

IMO, 174 east of Trim should be widened - but only as a 4 or 5-lane (with central turning lane) undivided arterial on the current alignment with little control of access. There isn't much commercial traffic there with Highway 417 to the south and it is mostly a local purpose, and it is too developed in the whole area to allow for a new alignment without expropriation.

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by RTWAP

Interesting to note on that page that the province and city are also working to connect Hunt Club to Innes at Anderson Road. If that was part of the plan all along then I missed it somehow.

http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa...E-POL-0070.htm

[eternallyme]

Pointless project there IMO, as it duplicates the 417. Widening Highway 417 to 6 lanes in that area makes more sense than a new corridor.

[Dado]

This project (the portion beyond the Hunt Club interchange north to Innes) just goes to show the sheer pointlessness of the EA process(es) given that it managed to get through it at all.

The only part that's justified is the Hunt Club extension and interchange due to the amount of traffic using Hawthorne and going out of its way to go between Hunt Club and the 417. There aren't too many road projects I approve of, but this portion of the project (Phase I) comes close to being a no-brainer.

[DubberDom]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Pointless project there IMO, as it duplicates the 417. Widening Highway 417 to 6 lanes in that area makes more sense than a new corridor.

Absolutely Phase II is silly, why build a parallel road? The only benefit is to bypass the Innes portion between Blair and 417 which the city, in its infinite wisdom, converted to big-box wonderland about 10 years ago. The road should connect directly to the Innes Bypass in Blackburn and also allow for westbound traffic to use the Wakley onramp to go downtown (both of which will not happen)

The only way Phase II can be effective IMO would be to allow commercial development along the roadway (which will never happen - thank you NCC)

[DubberDom]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

IMO, 174 east of Trim should be widened - but only as a 4 or 5-lane (with central turning lane) undivided arterial on the current alignment with little control of access. There isn't much commercial traffic there with Highway 417 to the south and it is mostly a local purpose, and it is too developed in the whole area to allow for a new alignment without expropriation.

That could be easily done, but the problem remains that the road is a city-owned road, and beyond Trim, about 90% of cars are not resident of the city of Ottawa. I'm sure the city's plan is to stall and stall again to frustrate Rockland residents and force the province to take it over.

[Lakche]

Originally Posted by DubberDom

According to Phil McNeely's site, the 417 should be widened from Vanier Parkway to 174 Split starting next year, is this official? Have the contracts gone out?

http://www.philmcneely.onmpp.ca/en/thesplit.htm

Well,

According to the MTO's website, the following is scheduled for 2010 - 2012:

• Highway 416 to Anderson Road - Merivale Road, Carling Avenue, Kirkwood Road bridges, Ottawa
  Bridge rehabilitation/deck replacements/widening/noise barrier
  planned/expected start: 2010, planned/expected completion: 2012

• Highway 416 to Anderson Road - Vanier Parkway to Regional Road 174, Ottawa
  Six to eight lane widening
  planned/expected start: 2010, planned/expected completion: 2012

• Highway 416 to Anderson Road - Cyrville Road Bridge, Ottawa
  Bridge replacement
  planned/expected start: 2010, planned/expected completion: 2011

Link: http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/pub...08/partG.shtml

PDF: http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/pub...ansion2008.pdf


I haven't seen any news to say otherwise, so it looks like it's still on.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by DubberDom

According to Phil McNeely's site, the 417 should be widened from Vanier Parkway to 174 Split starting next year, is this official? Have the contracts gone out?

http://www.philmcneely.onmpp.ca/en/thesplit.htm

Also, any news on the 174 to Orleans and beyond to Rockland?

I haven't seen anything from the City on the 174 widening to Orleans.

The funding was approved to widen the 174 from Trim to Rockland (80Million), but the city apparently refused it? I suspect that the city is looking to offload this highway back to the province. There is supposedly a EA study commenced in 2007 that was supposed to take 3 years, so 2010?

There is a few problems with widening that part of the 174. I used to live near it before I moved further into the core.

The first was that the city was expected to pay a fair portion of the costs. It made no sense to spend Ottawa taxpayers money on a road mostly used by people who are not Ottawa taxpayers.

The second problem is more mathematical. The 174 is 4 lanes between Trim and Montreal rd. If 4 lanes are required between Rockland and trim how many bloody lanes would we need from Orleans into the split and if we added significantly more lanes to the 174 then the Queensway would need more lanes and then downtown streets would probably become the bottleneck.

The biggest problem with the 174 east of trim is safety wrt to vehicles stop for left turns (roads or private driveways) and vehicles crossing the yellow line at high speed on the many many turns. I personally think the best way to deal with this is to put a cement barrier up the middle but keep the highway 2 lanes. This would stop all left turns except at controlled intersections line Cameron Street. It would also prevent accidental cross overs.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by DubberDom

That could be easily done, but the problem remains that the road is a city-owned road, and beyond Trim, about 90% of cars are not resident of the city of Ottawa. I'm sure the city's plan is to stall and stall again to frustrate Rockland residents and force the province to take it over.

Except those thousands of commuting Rockland residents ARE paying Ottawa taxes (at least indirectly) at the commercial level even if they are not paying residential taxes. If their jobs were moved to Rockland, the City of Ottawa would lose a significant tax base.

[Acajack]

This whole question of an Ottawa city road benefiting people living outside the city limits in another municipality (mostly in Clarence-Rockland) is a perfect illustration of why highways such as these should be under the authority of provincial governments, and why downloading was a bad idea in the first place.

[Ottawan]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Except those thousands of commuting Rockland residents ARE paying Ottawa taxes (at least indirectly) at the commercial level even if they are not paying residential taxes. If their jobs were moved to Rockland, the City of Ottawa would lose a significant tax base.

It's a pretty indirect and probably very small amount of revenue to attribute the commercial property taxes for their workspace (in the majority of cases, a public service cubicle), especially compared to the amount of money generated from a person's residential taxes. I'm sure it does not compare to the cost of provision of services to those commuters (upkeep of all roads except the 417, police, fire, & utilities while they are in Ottawa).

On another note, the current commuters from Rockland moved there fully knowing how the commute would be. The rationale for not expanding it (as far as the city is concerned) is to discourage future growth in Rockland.

[c_speed3108]

When I lived out that way, I always felt that, at least in the short term, adding a lane to each side of the 174 between Place D'Orleans and Montreal Rd would do more for Rockland residents than a lane east of Trim would. The bigger bottlenecks are further in.

As an added bonus about 100000 Orleans residents would benefit too making it a stronger case.

My personal favourate idea would be to build a real transitway (or rail..) from Blair to Orleans and then simply convert the bus lanes to Car lanes and it would be a win for transit users, and a win for car users. The only thing required would be a few changes are interchanges but there would be work anyway if you built a transitway.

[DubberDom]

Report released:

http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...S-PWS-0024.htm

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by DubberDom

Report released:

http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...S-PWS-0024.htm

What I find most interesting is this:
A total of 1,294 offence notices were issued during the five-year period (2003-2007). Significant Highway Traffic Act (HTA) offences included speeding (475), careless driving (51), and following too close (34).

So this means police are only giving out one speeding ticket every four days on the 174!

[waterloowarrior]

a couple of articles on the 174
http://www.orleansonline.ca/pages/N2009120302.htm
http://www.largenteuil.ca/home.jsp?i..._item_id=17536

note the disposition from the report

5. OTTAWA ROAD 174 – IN-SERVICE ROAD SAFETY REVIEW
ROUTE 174 - EXAMENS DE LA SÉCURITÉ DES ROUTES EN SERVICE
ACS2009-COS-PWS-0024 Orléans (1) and /et Cumberland (19)

That Transportation Committee recommend that Council approve:

1. That staff implement all short-term strategies identified in the report along the two-lane arterial road segment of Ottawa Road 174 east of Trim Road and that this work be completed within current budgeted programs.

2. That staff undertakes a preliminary design of geometric improvements at the intersection of Ottawa Road 174 and Quigley Hill Road and that funds for the construction of these geometric improvements be requested in future capital budgets.

3. That Infrastructure Services staff be directed to design and construct the extension of the transition zone from the freeway section to the two-lane rural arterial road segment including the installation of street lighting, as shown in Document 4 and to increase the base budget of the Trim Road Widening (Ottawa Road 174 to Frank Kenny) project from $ 29.3 million to $ 35 million to fund in the 2011 capital budget.

4. That funding required to implement all medium-term strategies identified in the report be included for consideration in future capital budgets, and

5. That the City request funds from the province and the federal government to implement the road safety strategies included in the report.

6. That the City once again request the Government of Ontario to conduct an Environmental Assessment on widening the road. (added by Committee)

[eternallyme]

19,000 cars a day on 174 between Trim Road and Rockland? That clearly warrants upgrades, even if the commercial vehicle count is low.

As for the potential Orleans bottleneck, remember the capacity for a 4-lane freeway (built before the 417 bypassed the section, correct?) is higher than for a 4 or 5-lane arterial (the 5th lane being a central left turning lane) and the presence of 417 to the south means a freeway is not required there. A 5-lane arterial is my preferred option, since it allows for better local access without significantly impacting traffic operations, and does not require immediate access controls (access controls should be standard for an 80-90 km/h rural arterial highway).

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa...E-POL-0070.htm

This was another case of Staff completely missing the mark!

There was a request from an east end Councillor to connect the Hunt Club Road to the 417 so that Orleans residents could have better access to the airport. Unfortunately, the word 'direct' was used instead of 'better'. Staff when off and commissioned the EA for a direct connection from the Hunt Club Road to Orleans. Compound this with the Councillors' refusal to actually READ things before they approve them and then we get an EA for the two phases; first to the 417, and then to Innes. (The only reason it went to Innes, if I recall, is because Staff couldn't get a more direct route through the Mer Bleue.)

So the EA comes back to the Councillors and they are up in arms: Many wanted to NOT recieve it, but Staff told the Councillors that to not recieve it and just have an EA for the connection to the 417 would mean that an entirely new EA would be needed. Wasting more money and time. In the end, the leagal opinion was that the complete EA should be recieved, but the entire project didn't need to ever get completed. It was suggested that after Phase 1 was completed, money would never be found for Phase 2.

However, that is the wish of the current Council. Once an EA in in place, regardless of how silly it is, Staff seem to keep bringing it forward. I am sick and tired of hearing Staff say "As previously approved by Council." Instead, I would have liked it better if the EA had not been recieved and the people responsible fired. There should have been NO WAY such an idea should have had an EA done. Staff should have seen immediately that it was not a good idea to parallel the 417 and gone back to Council to clarify things. That is all it would have taken. People were incompetent and they should not be working for the City. (I'm in a great mood tonight.)