ON - New Kitchener-Guelph Freeway Numbering

[cbeach40]

Chris, do you know what becomes of the "old"  Highway 7, in other words Victoria Street?

The plan is to transfer the highway to the municipalities upon the opening of the new route. Of course, that was the plan for old Hwy 17 at Antrim, Hwy 69 at Lake Joseph, or Hwy 26 at Wasaga Beach (Beachwood Rd), among many, many others. MTO's still stuck with them, as downloading highways has been virtually nonexistent in this province for the last 10-15 years, and what has occurred has been the result of some serious negotiation to get the municipalities to accept it.

My logic is this, considering that Highways 7, 8, and 85 are freeways in the Kitchener-Waterloo area and no one bats an eye on these freeways not having 400 series numbers, it's obvious that the new road should be called Highway 7, and the old one could be something along the lines of RR-107 if downloading does occur.

I wouldn't quite say no one bats an eye - the collision stats at the decision points for 7/8, 7, 8, and 85 skew higher than comparable locations elsewhere in the province. Not to say that the lack of route continuity is the culprit, but it's certainly not helping anyone.

In terms of 7 to either side, the section to the west is accessible via a nearly 50 km overlap with Highway 8. While the portion from Guelph east is under review as part of the GTA West study, so who knows if that is even long for this world as a provincial highway. Or it could be around for a long time. But do you want to handcuff yourselves there?

For Highway 6 south of 401, the section from Highway 5 to the Hamilton-Wellingtonj boundary is yet to be determined its future configuration - whether it remains as a five lane conventional highway or is upgraded to 400-series standards. So no idea what its future is either.

Speaking of the term "downloading" , it doesn't refer to a downgrade per se, but rather governments passing the buck on responsibility. Didn't Chretien's government in the early 1990s download certain responsibilities to provinces? I assume download comes from the province being higher than the region/county or city, and if something that was maintained by the city then had its maintenance controlled by the province, it would be referred to as "uploading" . Indeed I recall that term being floated around in the early 2010s in articles suggesting that the Gardiner between Hwy 427 and Humber River be "uploaded"  to the province.

Some services were transferred from the Federal Government to the provinces - the ferry docks at Leamington-Kingsville-Pelee, for example. As I stated before, the practice has been in place for ages. Just in the 1990s a the Tories came up with a trendy tech-y name for it that's stuck around a bit since.

[WillWeaverRVA]

Downgrade the old route to County/Township 7 (or 77), make the new route Hwy 7, and when the freeway connection to 401 is complete renumber the new route to 437.

[aboges26]

447 would be my pick if someone made me planner (as in "4" lanes "4" highway "7"  ).  Considering the GTA West study, I wouldn't route whatever number is chosen for the new freeway down the Hanlon after upgrades as that has a foreseeable destiny for a 400 series number taking over Highway 6 from Hamilton to points north of Guelph (in a perfect world).

If 448 is ever built out by Markham and GTA West is built with an extension east to meet it, 447 would sure complement and not seem like an outlier choice.

Thank you for sharing the map of what is programmed, cbeach40, and crowdsourcing for the new number.  I have always viewed MTO as being a premier transportation agency/department/ministry and this just makes me love MTO even more!

[dmuzika]

Here's an opportunity to combine hockey and roads.

Coincidentally, the numbers both involve '7'. My proposal is if 407 is already in use, then the 477 might be a possibility (unless there are plans for Hwy 77).

[MisterSG1]

My logic is this, considering that Highways 7, 8, and 85 are freeways in the Kitchener-Waterloo area and no one bats an eye on these freeways not having 400 series numbers, it's obvious that the new road should be called Highway 7, and the old one could be something along the lines of RR-107 if downloading does occur.

I wouldn't quite say no one bats an eye - the collision stats at the decision points for 7/8, 7, 8, and 85 skew higher than comparable locations elsewhere in the province. Not to say that the lack of route continuity is the culprit, but it's certainly not helping anyone.
[/quote]

I know this is a few months old, but only got to responding now.

Interesting, cbeach40, do you know why this is the case. Which of the main 3 decision points has the most collisions? I assume there are 3 main ones we are referring to, Hwy 401 WB/Hwy 8, Hwy 7/Hwy 7/8/Hwy 8 interchange (yes that's definitely confusing to think about), and the Hwy 7/Hwy 85 interchange. I have always noticed that there is a fair amount of aggressive driving on the 401 WB approach to the Hwy 8 exit.

How do collision stats compare to 403/407 ETR in Mississauga? Because to be fair in my humble opinion, they don't give you enough signs warning you that you have to essentially "exit" to stay on Hwy 403. It's not much of a problem at all regarding Hwy 403 EB through there, but I'm specifically wondering about Hwy 403 WB.



Here's an idea I have, from what I've heard from people (mind you it's people I can count with one hand), the portion of the road known as 7/8, 7, and 85 through Kitchener/Waterloo is commonly called "the expressway" even if there's three distinct route segments. Since the name "Conestoga Parkway" has been on pretty much any GPS software and map program around, (I first encountered that name using Microsoft Streets & Trips 2002) as well as it explicitly mentions in the MTO Handbook and online as one of the roads a G1 driver cannot use. Perhaps one solution could be to reintroduce the Conestoga Parkway name.

It's just an idea, personally I'd like to see all of the Conestoga Parkway get it's own unique 400 series number, but I understand this would be pretty much impossible as it would require the highway routes of 7 and 8 to be eliminated through Kitchener.

Another problem, depending on how you look at it, is that the Conestoga Parkway could more simply be understood as following the shape of a backwards "L", this is problematic because the cardinal directions at some point would have to switch from east to north (if you were headed from Stratford to St Jacobs) or from south to west. I don't know if drivers struggle with a similar situation on I-69 in Michigan.

Personally, I don't see how this can be done to ease simplicity of the routes. Perhaps a downloading of Hwy 7 from the western end of the conestoga parkway to the western city limits of Brampton could make this doable, with the new Hwy 7 freeway also getting a unique highway number, I don't know, I'm just floating this idea around.

[cbeach40]

I wouldn't quite say no one bats an eye - the collision stats at the decision points for 7/8, 7, 8, and 85 skew higher than comparable locations elsewhere in the province. Not to say that the lack of route continuity is the culprit, but it's certainly not helping anyone.

I know this is a few months old, but only got to responding now.

Interesting, cbeach40, do you know why this is the case. Which of the main 3 decision points has the most collisions? I assume there are 3 main ones we are referring to, Hwy 401 WB/Hwy 8, Hwy 7/Hwy 7/8/Hwy 8 interchange (yes that's definitely confusing to think about), and the Hwy 7/Hwy 85 interchange. I have always noticed that there is a fair amount of aggressive driving on the 401 WB approach to the Hwy 8 exit.

How do collision stats compare to 403/407 ETR in Mississauga? Because to be fair in my humble opinion, they don't give you enough signs warning you that you have to essentially "exit" to stay on Hwy 403. It's not much of a problem at all regarding Hwy 403 EB through there, but I'm specifically wondering about Hwy 403 WB.

The main decision points are the three approaches to the Kitchener interchange (EB 7/8, WB 7, WB 8) and the two approaches to the Victoria St interchange (EB 7, SB 85). The Highway 401-8 interchange doesn't have quite the same high proportion of lane change collisions as those ones, but rear end collisions unsurprisingly make up the vast bulk of the collisions at that point.

Hwy 403 at the 407 and 401-410 interchanges were definitely two of my comparable locations. The proportion of the collisions there that are lane change type is roughly half of what the Kitchener locations have.