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  #541  
Old Posted May 2, 2012, 4:38 PM
go_leafs_go02 go_leafs_go02 is offline
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Maybe the province is re-uploading all the provincial highways from the 1990s?

Would love to see that happen to be honest
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  #542  
Old Posted May 2, 2012, 11:47 PM
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So Google fixed the Highbury Avenue N/S confusion, butfor some reason all of it is now labelled as part of "Ontario Hwy 126". Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but Highway 126 has been gone for more than 20 years. So where the HELL are these Google people getting their information? Are they all still using the 1987 Ontario Road Map, or do they just have some obsession with resurrecting dead highways?
When Google Maps first launched back in...2004, or whatever it was, they had Highway 126 marked on the map as if the highway still existed. It disappeared a number of years later. Highway 135 was also marked.

When I first started using Google MapMaker, they did have Highbury classified as "Ontario 126" internally, but only as an "obscure name". This means it was not supposed to show up on the map, but still be found in the right place should someone search for it. Obviously someone thought it would be funny to make it an active name that would show up.

I would really like to know where they get their information. Not one published map I've seen in the past 20 years has mentioned Highway 126, anywhere.

I might also add that I returned to MapMaker under a different name, but I've been focusing on Mexico City and some of the surrounding area. I'm running into the same problems there with the same Google Reviewers as I did in Ontario. There's a highway north of Mexico City, which is the principal alternative route to a toll freeway, which Google Maps had marked as a Minor Artery and with no highway number. The highway is part of the federal network, I personally drove it less than a month ago and can vouch for the highway number posted (132), and official government documents show it as such. I promoted the whole thing to a National Highway (particularly as Directions refused to use most of that route if trying to avoid the toll highway), but good old Google Reviewer Nancy (who has been responsible for some of the mess in London) went and changed everything without any explanation. Some of it was even changed to a Local Road. I've stepped away once again, after I reported Nancy's changes for abuse with some harsh words for Google. Google Maps is an absolute disaster in Mexico right now, and I basically told them that if they even want to compete with Bing Maps (which has a far more accurate map), they need to let people who know the area make changes without interference from people in California who have never been to the area.

If such a major highway is a combination of a Local Road and a Major Artery, I don't know how in hell London's Florence Street can be a National Highway.

I'm honestly starting to think that Google doesn't even care about its mapping product.
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  #543  
Old Posted May 3, 2012, 9:22 PM
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Originally Posted by go_leafs_go02 View Post
Maybe the province is re-uploading all the provincial highways from the 1990s?

Would love to see that happen to be honest
I'd like to see the return of a coherent, province-wide numbering scheme with local maintenance. For example, Highway 7 would once again be contiguous across Ontario, but all the currently downloaded parts would continue to be maintained by the municipalities.

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I would really like to know where they get their information. Not one published map I've seen in the past 20 years has mentioned Highway 126, anywhere.

I've stepped away once again, after I reported Nancy's changes for abuse with some harsh words for Google. Google Maps is an absolute disaster in Mexico right now, and I basically told them that if they even want to compete with Bing Maps (which has a far more accurate map), they need to let people who know the area make changes without interference from people in California who have never been to the area.

If such a major highway is a combination of a Local Road and a Major Artery, I don't know how in hell London's Florence Street can be a National Highway.

I'm honestly starting to think that Google doesn't even care about its mapping product.
Bing Maps isn't perfect either (Highway 2 still exists along Dundas, Florence and York Streets, and Wharncliffe is still Highway 4) but for Christ's sake, at least they got the Highbury N./S. separation right, and at least they classify the appropriate parts as an expressway!

Google really needs to shut down this Nancy person. She's not just screwing up London maps, she's screwing up maps all over the world. To be honest, she sounds like one of those pseudo-intellectual soccer moms who's convinced that Babby's First Atlas is correct beyond any doubt.
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  #544  
Old Posted May 4, 2012, 3:35 AM
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Bing Maps isn't perfect either (Highway 2 still exists along Dundas, Florence and York Streets, and Wharncliffe is still Highway 4) but for Christ's sake, at least they got the Highbury N./S. separation right, and at least they classify the appropriate parts as an expressway!

Google really needs to shut down this Nancy person. She's not just screwing up London maps, she's screwing up maps all over the world. To be honest, she sounds like one of those pseudo-intellectual soccer moms who's convinced that Babby's First Atlas is correct beyond any doubt.
Yeah, Bing has a few mistakes in Mexico too; however, their road classifications there, and the accuracy of street names, are far superior to Google. The biggest difference is if you want to avoid Toll Roads. Bing has all of Mexico's toll highways properly categorized. Google has virtually none of them.

If I drew a map at the age of 6, it would've been more accurate than Google's product.
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  #545  
Old Posted May 17, 2012, 2:29 AM
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Attended the London Transportation Master Plan meeting. By 2030, London will have 2 new bus routes and 2 new roads! Yay for progress and having the balls to implement such innovative proposals!

That is really all I have to report from the event.
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  #546  
Old Posted May 17, 2012, 3:51 AM
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What are the 2 new roads?
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  #547  
Old Posted May 17, 2012, 2:22 PM
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Any more details than that? That does not sounds all that great for a 2030 plan...adding 2 roads and 2 bus routes in 20 years?

I must be missing something here, because it sounds substantial by your post?
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  #548  
Old Posted May 17, 2012, 3:23 PM
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Here's a pdf of the pamphlet I got yesterday if anyone's interested: http://www.london.ca/Transportation_...011_forweb.pdf

So much for LRT and freeways, we get 2 'semi-express' bus routes (maybe BRT in the future), and a short extension of the VMP at-grade expressway in the east. They 'talked' about maybe building a VMP-like road in the west in like 50 years... no interchanges on either though. Road widenings/reconstruction will be selective at best. LRT 'may' be considered in later master plans.

...pathetic. I almost think I have a knack for this sort of thing because I live in a city that is so behind when it comes to transportation planning.


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What are the 2 new roads?
Bradley extension from White Oak to Colonel Talbot and north and south extensions of the VMP.


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Originally Posted by MrSlippery519 View Post
Any more details than that? That does not sounds all that great for a 2030 plan...adding 2 roads and 2 bus routes in 20 years?

I must be missing something here, because it sounds substantial by your post?
I'm being sarcastic lol. This plan is pathetic. It's even more so when you compare this to KW and other Canadian cities.
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  #549  
Old Posted May 17, 2012, 5:28 PM
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I'm being sarcastic lol. This plan is pathetic. It's even more so when you compare this to KW and other Canadian cities.
Damn I was hoping I was missing something and the "2" roads were something huge lol.

Quite lame to say the least
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  #550  
Old Posted May 19, 2012, 10:13 PM
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Originally Posted by haljackey View Post
Here's a pdf of the pamphlet I got yesterday if anyone's interested: http://www.london.ca/Transportation_...011_forweb.pdf

So much for LRT and freeways, we get 2 'semi-express' bus routes (maybe BRT in the future), and a short extension of the VMP at-grade expressway in the east. They 'talked' about maybe building a VMP-like road in the west in like 50 years... no interchanges on either though. Road widenings/reconstruction will be selective at best. LRT 'may' be considered in later master plans.

...pathetic. I almost think I have a knack for this sort of thing because I live in a city that is so behind when it comes to transportation planning.
To be fair, it would be difficult to feasibly implement LRT somewhere like London. The traffic patterns make it extremely difficult to build a coherent, navigable route, since it would involve trackage through the University campus, which is not exactly rail-friendly. But I definitely see your point, because they could at least try to determine where the feasible LRT routes would be, rather than just avoiding the topic completely. It also ignores the need to attract industry to London by providing appropriate transportation (read: VMP freeway), and it ignores key missing links in the road system (still no sign of the Gainsborough-Windermere bridge). At least the report acknowledges that the city's bike lane network has room for improvement, but I don't know why Queens Avenue and Western Road are listed as "priority routes" if they already have bike lanes.

Look on the bright side, though: Toronto is currently trying to implement traffic planning initiatives that will actively aim to make congestion worse (LRT boulevards, 40 km/h arterial speed limits), but London is taking a hands-off approach. Not as progressive as K-W or even Hamilton, but at least it's not utterly destructive.
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  #551  
Old Posted May 22, 2012, 3:10 PM
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To be fair, it would be difficult to feasibly implement LRT somewhere like London. The traffic patterns make it extremely difficult to build a coherent, navigable route, since it would involve trackage through the University campus, which is not exactly rail-friendly. But I definitely see your point, because they could at least try to determine where the feasible LRT routes would be, rather than just avoiding the topic completely. It also ignores the need to attract industry to London by providing appropriate transportation (read: VMP freeway), and it ignores key missing links in the road system (still no sign of the Gainsborough-Windermere bridge). At least the report acknowledges that the city's bike lane network has room for improvement, but I don't know why Queens Avenue and Western Road are listed as "priority routes" if they already have bike lanes.

Look on the bright side, though: Toronto is currently trying to implement traffic planning initiatives that will actively aim to make congestion worse (LRT boulevards, 40 km/h arterial speed limits), but London is taking a hands-off approach. Not as progressive as K-W or even Hamilton, but at least it's not utterly destructive.
If we ever have LRT in London, I think it will be on existing railway tracks, although those don't serve very many key points in the city aside from downtown. Railways do come close to UWO and Fanshawe, but not close enough; at this point the only way to reach either of them would be to build underground spur lines. Not impossible, but very expensive, although I think it would be cool to have subway stations on both campuses. Aside from that, the only major commercial, residential, or institutional areas served by the railways include Hyde Park/Oakridge, some parts of West London, some of the Dundas East area, the Western Fair District, Victoria Hospital, the Westminster neighbourhood near Pond Mills Road, and perhaps most importantly, London International Airport. Still, those are better than nothing (Ottawa's O-Train doesn't come close to serving the whole city), and such a system definitely needs to have connections to St. Thomas, Strathroy, Sarnia, Chatham, Ingersoll, and Woodstock.

I think mass transit in London, if it ever happens, will be BRT, supplemented by a regional rail network, possibly connected with GO, connecting the aforemented communities with Downtown London and certain suburban locations. BRT will probably happen in my lifetime; regional LRT or HRT is likely much further away.

LRT (or BRT) boulevards are a bad idea if there is insufficient ROW. Spadina Ave in Toronto seems to function well with a streetcar line down the middle from what I've seen, but I know that many Torontonians complain about St. Clair Ave West since it got a streetcar line down the middle several years ago. Perhaps the best thing the TTC did was putting the northern terminus of the Spadina line underground, instead of having a congested above-ground station right at Spadina and Bloor. I have also seen BRT boulevards in Mexico City, but in most cases they function well as roads with very wide ROW were chosen, and 3 or 4 regular lanes each way still are in operation.
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  #552  
Old Posted May 22, 2012, 4:18 PM
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I've always envisioned the CP line either combined with the CN line or rerouted around the city. That right of way, although slim, could be used for a busway or LRT. If right of way was purchased around it, a tight 4-lane expressway could go in, and it would be a nice fit since there are already some overpasses built for it.

The CP rail yard could be redeveloped into something cool as well.
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  #553  
Old Posted May 23, 2012, 12:09 AM
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I've always envisioned the CP line either combined with the CN line or rerouted around the city. That right of way, although slim, could be used for a busway or LRT. If right of way was purchased around it, a tight 4-lane expressway could go in, and it would be a nice fit since there are already some overpasses built for it.

The CP rail yard could be redeveloped into something cool as well.
I've thought about that, although it seems as though increasing freight traffic could make that a problem. CP has talked about putting a second track through London to accommodate increased traffic, and the new Sarnia Road bridge was built to accommodate this.

At best, I think that passenger rail on the CP line would have to share with freight, as is already done on the CP lines in the Toronto area which have GO Transit running on them (such as the Milton-Toronto line).
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  #554  
Old Posted May 24, 2012, 12:31 AM
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If we ever have LRT in London, I think it will be on existing railway tracks, although those don't serve very many key points in the city aside from downtown. Railways do come close to UWO and Fanshawe, but not close enough; at this point the only way to reach either of them would be to build underground spur lines. Not impossible, but very expensive, although I think it would be cool to have subway stations on both campuses. Aside from that, the only major commercial, residential, or institutional areas served by the railways include Hyde Park/Oakridge, some parts of West London, some of the Dundas East area, the Western Fair District, Victoria Hospital, the Westminster neighbourhood near Pond Mills Road, and perhaps most importantly, London International Airport. Still, those are better than nothing (Ottawa's O-Train doesn't come close to serving the whole city), and such a system definitely needs to have connections to St. Thomas, Strathroy, Sarnia, Chatham, Ingersoll, and Woodstock.

I think mass transit in London, if it ever happens, will be BRT, supplemented by a regional rail network, possibly connected with GO, connecting the aforemented communities with Downtown London and certain suburban locations. BRT will probably happen in my lifetime; regional LRT or HRT is likely much further away.
Personally, I think the CP rail lines are a bad fit for mass transit, simply because they were never built to actually serve anything internally. When the railway was built, it was a bypass out on the edge of town. Furthermore, the heaviest transit users- students- would get nothing out of it. Haljackey's expressway idea would actually be more feasible (if CP ever decided that it wanted to re-route the tracks), but that presents its own logistical challenges (I'd like to see them sneak the highway through Richmond and Oxford).

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LRT (or BRT) boulevards are a bad idea if there is insufficient ROW. Spadina Ave in Toronto seems to function well with a streetcar line down the middle from what I've seen, but I know that many Torontonians complain about St. Clair Ave West since it got a streetcar line down the middle several years ago. Perhaps the best thing the TTC did was putting the northern terminus of the Spadina line underground, instead of having a congested above-ground station right at Spadina and Bloor. I have also seen BRT boulevards in Mexico City, but in most cases they function well as roads with very wide ROW were chosen, and 3 or 4 regular lanes each way still are in operation.
All good points, all true, but be very careful mentioning that anywhere else on SSP. You musn't upset the Cult of Transit City.

London has serious issues with ROW allocation. Hardly any streets can be expanded beyond 4 lanes, and that makes it difficult for any mass transit infrastructure to be installed. The only "central" East-West road that could accomodate anything is Oxford Street, and even there you would have to make the traffic lanes narrower and get rid of the central left-turn lane. Other corridors, like Richmond and Wharncliffe, are completely unusable, which is unfortunate since they have some of the heaviest transit traffic.
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  #555  
Old Posted May 27, 2012, 6:01 PM
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I saw some reports on another website that the Google Streetview car has been spotted in Hamilton and Windsor. It has been three years since Southern Ontario was done, so the timing is good to get imagery updated where things have changed.

They'll get the shock of a lifetime when they try and drive London's Very Own National Highway and they realize how poor of a cross-town route it is today.
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  #556  
Old Posted May 28, 2012, 12:54 AM
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London has serious issues with ROW allocation. Hardly any streets can be expanded beyond 4 lanes, and that makes it difficult for any mass transit infrastructure to be installed. The only "central" East-West road that could accomodate anything is Oxford Street, and even there you would have to make the traffic lanes narrower and get rid of the central left-turn lane. Other corridors, like Richmond and Wharncliffe, are completely unusable, which is unfortunate since they have some of the heaviest transit traffic.
Richmond, north of Oxford, can be expanded. If mass transit were implemented on Richmond south of Oxford, it would have to be converted to one-way southbound traffic with northbound traffic having to use another street. Wellington would seem like a natural fit, but there is the issue of the area around the CP tracks.
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  #557  
Old Posted May 29, 2012, 4:31 AM
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Richmond, north of Oxford, can be expanded. If mass transit were implemented on Richmond south of Oxford, it would have to be converted to one-way southbound traffic with northbound traffic having to use another street. Wellington would seem like a natural fit, but there is the issue of the area around the CP tracks.
Really disappointing that London's "master" plan is so utterly weak... but expected.

Even if they don't want to widen that stretch of Richmond, they can at least get parking off of the street, something that would likely do a whole lot to improve traffic flow.
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  #558  
Old Posted May 30, 2012, 8:19 PM
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Even if they don't want to widen that stretch of Richmond, they can at least get parking off of the street, something that would likely do a whole lot to improve traffic flow.
I've been saying that a while. It makes sense having parking at certain times (weekends, even daytime before rush hour) but it's utter stupidity to have cars rush hour parked on Richmond. Plenty of side streets to park and walk without making downtown a zoo.

I just saw the plan, pretty pathetic as has been said earlier BRT instead of LRT and that is only contingent on senior level funding, no plans of interchanges in VMP.

There are some glimmers of hope. Calls for Wellington to be 6 lanes from the 401 to Horton is a huge surprise IMO. Oxford to be 6 lanes from Richmond to Hyde Park are also interesting. Both those would undoubtedly require serious expropriation, and huge infrastructure investments (2 new bridges and an widened overpass) though would be a huge relief to traffic. Unfortunately that sorta leads me to believe that they won't happen but always nice to plan.
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  #559  
Old Posted May 31, 2012, 3:13 AM
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...And isn't Richmond's on-street parking a relatively new thing?


Anyways, looks like the city is going along with putting roundabouts on Sunningdale. I think it's a good call, as vehicles here travel at high speeds. Roundabouts will slow them down.

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  #560  
Old Posted May 31, 2012, 3:54 AM
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There are some glimmers of hope. Calls for Wellington to be 6 lanes from the 401 to Horton is a huge surprise IMO. Oxford to be 6 lanes from Richmond to Hyde Park are also interesting. Both those would undoubtedly require serious expropriation, and huge infrastructure investments (2 new bridges and an widened overpass) though would be a huge relief to traffic. Unfortunately that sorta leads me to believe that they won't happen but always nice to plan.
There have been calls to widen Wellington to 6 lanes from the 401 to Horton since the 1970s. The biggest problem with Wellington is north of Baseline Road...that could be more controversial than the Horton West extension. The rest of Wellington can be easily widened.

Oxford can easily be widened west of Platt's Lane, but east of there, like Wellington, expropriation and demolition would likely need to take place.
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