59 Carden St.

Hanlon assumptions

Posted by Magda
At yesterday's meeting -- the first of three to redesign the Hanlon -- ministry staff explained the assumptions they used when coming up with the current plan for Hanlon improvements.

• All access to the Hanlon will be via interchanges -- no more traffic lights.
• There won't be any overlapping entrance/exit ramps.
• It will follow current highway standards.
• The posted speed will be 100 km/h.
• The alignment and profile of the highway won't change.
• College Avenue won't be extended west.
• Stone Road won't be extended west (pending approval by the city).
• Northbound ramps at College won't be considered.

I've never seen *this* before...

Posted by Magda
I'm just back from a the first of three meetings the ministry of transportation is holding about the Hanlon.

I've never seen a process like this. The residents are frustrated with the proposal to replace intersections on the Hanlon with interchanges, flyovers or road closures, as they made abundantly clear a few months ago. The ministry has responded by throwing the door wide open and asking residents what they want. The meeting facilitator said several times that it isn't just a "tweaking" -- that they're free to make all manner of changes. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of the process.

Read more tomorrow, and over the next couple of weeks as the process unfolds.

How much will it cost?

Posted by Magda
There are just two pages about the cost of highways in the five-pound provincial briefing package on the  Hanlon.

The document describes generic costs for highways, taken from recent ministry contracts, and says more detailed cost analysis is being done.

It doesn't actually seem to relate to the Hanlon, since it doesn't provide costs of interchanges, which is what is proposed.

But the numbers are interesting.

• A new four-lane highway costs $2.2 million per kilometre.
• A two-lane ramp costs $960,000 per kilometre.
• Traffic lights cost $150,000 each.

Traffic flow

Posted by Magda
27,000: average vehicles a day on the Hanlon near Maltby, today
49,500: average vehicles a day near College, today

Traffic predictions for Clair to Kortright:
35,600 vehicles a day in 2012
43,000 in 2017
62,700 in 2027

Predictions for Kortright to College
42,300 in 2012
50,700 in 2017
72,800 in 2027

Predictions for College to Wellington
54,300 in 2012
62,300 in 2017
82,000 in 2027

(These numbers come from the province's Community Workshop Briefing Package on the Hanlon.)

Good call

Posted by Magda
In 1990, the city wrote a letter to the province about the potential of closing the Kortright/Hanlon intersection.

"In that the at grade intersection conditino will remain in place at the Hanlon Expressway and Kortright Road for a number of years, it seems likely that development may have to be allowed to proceed without addressing the future access to the area. The problem will not become acute until the ministry proceeds to construct the flyover at the Hanlon/Kortright intersection," writes city engineer R.D. Funnell.

Those words sound prophetic now, with residents upset about impacts on John Gamble Park and the YMCA frustrated about the loss of access seemingly facing it.

How it all came about

Posted by Magda
From that not-so-brief briefing package...
1969: a provincial study identifies the corridor from Clair Road to Woodlawn as a major north-south link connecting the 401 to Highway 7.

1972: the Hanlon is built.

1994: a provincial report looks into building interchanges on the Hanlon from south of the Speed River to Woodlawn.

2000: the interchange at Wellington is built.

2004: the province identifies need to remove at-grade intersections and put in flyovers and interchanges.

2007: province initiates an environmental assessment to look at removing all traffic lights on the Hanlon.

(The Hanlon at Laird photo is taken by Dave Carter.)

It's not exactly brief...

Posted by Magda
I'm just starting to dig into a Ministry of Transportation "community workshop briefing package" on the proposed improvements to the Hanlon. It clocks in at five pounds. I guess they meant the name to be ironic.

"Very futuristic"

Posted by Magda
A lot of the discussion around Hanlon upgrades is related to giving easy road access to south-end industry, particularly the Hanlon Creek business park.

Councillor Leanne Piper asked in committee this morning whether there's any talk of connecting the business parks with rail.

"That, with all due respect, would be very futuristic," said Rajan Philips, the city's transportation planning engineer.

Really? I visited the Roxton Furniture in Elmira last year on a Doors Open tour. They'd chosen that location decades ago, precisely because it was on the rail line -- the best and cheapest way at the time of getting supplies in and furniture out. Of course, they don't use that anymore -- so maybe it's the old-fashioned kind of futuristic.

That sounds familiar...

Posted by Magda
I was a little startled at this morning's city committee meeting when the words in an anti-Hanlon presentation started to sound pretty familiar -- but with a twist.

Presenter Joan Agosta was painting a verbal picture for council of a functioning, modern public transit system that takes people up and down the Hanlon.

Only she was reading a story I'd written this fall. What's more, the story was about Highway 7, not the Hanlon.

Hanlon study

Posted by Magda
The last meeting about potential Hanlon Expressway expansions drew 300 people. Now you can take a look at the environmental assessment that'll be discussed March 7.