magnumpi

Oh my !! So after the failings of the empty, low use stupid Pan Am HOV lanes comes the HOT lane!!! FFS if I want to pay thru the nose to travel X town I will use the 407.

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/...-highways.html

Pizzawheel

Will they allow motorcycles to use the HOV lanes like they did during PAG?

Have they heard of motorcycles?

magnumpi

I Suppose, as long as 3 or more are riding on board, like they do in New Deli

Pizzawheel

That'd be more like 5 or more on board. They should pay the rider.

irfyg

What we need is more access routes into the City, not changing the ones we currently have to cost more...

Pizzawheel

You mean build more roads???

MarkG

Duh.

Building more roads costs money. Tolls bring in money. Governments will almost always choose collecting higher taxes over spending more to fix a problem... because, you know, moar moolah.

Novocastrian

Shouldn't they be called SOT lanes?

Oakvillian

the more I look at this HOT lane pilot proposal, the sillier it sounds.

First, the stretch of road they've chosen: the 403/QEW through Burlington and Oakville. This is one of the more lightly-trafficked highway segments in the GTA. Sure, it does get a bit full during morning and evening peaks, but there are many times of day when it's actually quicker to use the general purpose lanes than the existing HOV when carrying passengers. And when it snarls up, the HOV lane is as often as not the worst affected.

Second, there's already an alternate route for toll-paying drivers. The 407 meets this road right where the HOV lane starts, and bypasses all the traffic to meet the 403 at the western edge of Mississauga. I suppose it's a little bit of bother to get back onto the Toronto-bound QEW from there, but if saving time is the object, it's probably still quicker than sitting in traffic through Burlington and Oakville. And it joins the 403 just where the HOV lanes start again through that section (but that lane is not proposed for an HOT trial). So, they're offering an HOT alternative that parallels an existing toll road, but where it might actually carry some traffic out of the general purpose lanes, it's not being offered as an option.

Anybody would think that the thing is being set up to fail - so that the government can maintain that they honoured a promise but that consultation and trials showed there was not sufficient demand and the whole program will be quietly dropped.

That would be no bad thing, IMO: what Toronto really needs is a good reason for people NOT to drive into downtown, not fiddles to make it easier to do so. I would implement what London has done: a congestion charging zone for anybody driving into downtown, with "free routes" for crosstown traffic on the 401 and Gardiner/DVP, and maybe a couple of others, but every exit ramp and junction from those exempt routes would trigger a $5 a day congestion charge. If a metropolis the size and scope of London can do that successfully, so can a middling provincial city like Toronto. Of course, it would take political will, so it won't ever happen here.

Oakvillian

there's an "or" understood in there somewhere. Still available for High Occupancy, now with an added option of Toll. It's a crap acronym, but it was coined elsewhere (by a Merkin, and a Californian at that, so we ought to make allowances and forgive the lack of coherence...)

Partially discharged

Standard transportation planning analysis has shown that if you build it they will come. In other words if you have a 2 lane road (in each direction) and you add a 3rd lane to each after a certain number of years traffic volumes will be back to the same level per lane that they were when it was 2 lanes. The perception will be that there is now a 3 lane road which will allow for quick journeys and enough people will go that way in the misguided belief that their journey will be quicker.

Large SUV's and pickup trucks that aren't used for farming or construction in large urban areas in Canada plus the relative low cost of gas plus the relatively low cost of car ownership has created a lot of this problem. The sprawly nature of our suburban areas has also created the high number of vehicles on the road compared to our population.

I'd be for the idea of charging once you get off a 400 series highway in the downtown area if you don't live there.

Pizzawheel

Amen. Can we have some transit now please?

MarkG

That's what happens when you refuse to build enough transport capacity to meet demand. 'We built a new road, but those sick bastards who pay the transport taxes actually used it! It's not fair!'

But it's all kind of silly anyway. In twenty years, we'll rent a drone body at the destination when we need to 'go' somewhere. Roads will be just so passe.

Novocastrian

Roads are already passe in more civilized countries.

Gozit

What people fail to understand about this, is that sometimes people don't want to ride transit. For one, I like driving, and nothing can really live up to that. Its also alot quicker to hop in a car and drive someplace than to have to adhere to a specific schedule of the transit, etc etc. So the save the environment brigade can piss on people for driving all they want, but for the people that just want to drive, you aren't going to get them on a train or bus. I don't know, maybe its because i've grown up here and we've never used public transit very much, so its probably a cradle mentality.

I think "HOT" lanes are a good idea, but they've put them in a redundant spot where the 407 already exists. They should put them on the QEW heading eastbound towards the Gardiner/427 after it splits from 403. 401 already has a gazillion lanes, the QEW eastbound through Mississauga is the only one thats lacking IMO.