[ScreamingViking]

Never mind the city's ridiculous speed limit on the RHVP which is wholly political as well.

I will say an upload would be interesting regarding the City's plan to widen the parkways - they are going through early design processes for that now. I assume MTO would take over responsibility for that as well.

Political for sure. It's a curvy road but safe if safely driven, even before the "slippery" pavement issue was fixed.

An upload may also be key to moving past the issues with Indigenous groups, never mind others that were against the RHVP. There is much mistrust of the city and I would think that while widening the Linc would not present much of a problem (there's probably enough room in the median now, though I still don't understand why curbs were built along it) widening the highway through the valley will be contentious.

 

[innsertnamehere]

My biggest pet peeve is that the speed of traffic on the RHVP is like 85-90km/h.. when rural undivided roads have higher median speeds. It's a fully separated, limited access freeway with a median barrier and they can't seem to let cars drive as fast as they are allowed to on an rural freeway with no median separation and local accesses galore. Don't even get me started about the 60-70 limit on Nikola Tesla, which is also even more absurd as it is also a limited access freeway.. I get they may not be 110km//h speed limit roads but I would expect traffic speeds to at least be faster than rural roads given their enhanced safety features. The RHVP has a design speed of 110km/h and a speed limit of 80. It's ridiculous.

Like this has the same speed limit as this and a higher speed limit than this.. make it make sense.

 

[ShonTron]

The amount of traffic and the road geometries on the RHVP pretty much guarantee that you’re never going to comfortably drive at a speed higher than 90 km/h. That’s what you get for have a four lane highway forced in a ravine, with a steep hill. Though it was a very expensive capital project, the city definitely cut corners, and yet I’m of the opinion that it was largely a mistake in the first place.

As for Nikola Tesla, that was designed mostly to allow for through traffic in an industrial area with a lot of rail spurs and local freight traffic. Again, it was never designed for high speeds.

 

[ScreamingViking]

I'm still routinely passed on the RHVP by vehicles doing well over 100 km/h. Tesla Blvd is easy to creep beyond 90 as it is now (especially heading toward the QEW); the westward flow slowing to 60 km/h is more understandable, given the likelihood of police waiting as vehicles come off the elevated section to Ottawa St.; I think this should have originally been built like Kenilworth, with elevated through lanes and ramps to the intersection. Also coming off the QEW or Eastport and merging into the 2 left lanes before the ramp leading over Parkdale often means speeding up considerably to make it.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The amount of traffic and the road geometries on the RHVP pretty much guarantee that you’re never going to comfortably drive at a speed higher than 90 km/h. That’s what you get for have a four lane highway forced in a ravine, with a steep hill. Though it was a very expensive capital project, the city definitely cut corners, and yet I’m of the opinion that it was largely a mistake in the first place.

As for Nikola Tesla, that was designed mostly to allow for through traffic in an industrial area with a lot of rail spurs and local freight traffic. Again, it was never designed for high speeds.

The road geometries of the RHVP aren't anything worse than the 403 through downtown and yet traffic generally runs about 20km/h faster on the 403. I understand that the geometries on Nikola Tesla are pretty crap, but generally think both the RHVP and Nikola Tesla have speed limits 10km/h lower than they should be. In the case of Nikola Tesla, the whole thing should be 80km/h, including the 60km/h part right now, IMO. Maybe drop it to 60 right before the ramp down to Industrial Street instead of at Kenilworth.

The RHVP is a pretty critical connection as a whole both for the province and the City. A south bypass of Hamilton is definitely needed - whether it needed to be directly in the Red Hill Valley can be up for discussion. At the very least it has removed a lot of pressure off of local roads in getting cars down to the QEW from the mountain - roads like Kenilworth are far less busy than they were pre-RHVP.

 

[ScreamingViking]

The amount of traffic and the road geometries on the RHVP pretty much guarantee that you’re never going to comfortably drive at a speed higher than 90 km/h. That’s what you get for have a four lane highway forced in a ravine, with a steep hill. Though it was a very expensive capital project, the city definitely cut corners, and yet I’m of the opinion that it was largely a mistake in the first place.

As for Nikola Tesla, that was designed mostly to allow for through traffic in an industrial area with a lot of rail spurs and local freight traffic. Again, it was never designed for high speeds.

The design of the RHVP was a compromise to "preserve" more of the valley floor for nature... the original configuration was much straighter and 6-lanes wide. I would think the environmental groups figured it would end up wider eventually anyway, but bought time (the grade-separated section near the escarpment is quite wide and could likely support 6 lanes today, even with the interchange ramps). Tesla is very straight, and despite how narrow it is (no space along the centre median barrier, and the shoulders are not wide enough to pull over), it seems to beg for higher speed especially with the relatively low traffic level it now has most of the time.

Widenings for both the Linc and RHVP -- which are really just a single route -- will probably mean an expensive reconfiguration of the Mud St./Upper RHVP interchange, which will be welcome.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The whole stretch of the RHVP / Linc was explicitly designed to be widened to 6 lanes cheaply. All bridges already accommodate it and it mostly just requires the pouring of a central barrier and paving from my understanding.

This city is projecting the widening to cost just $137 million, or less than $10 million per km. It's a dirt cheap project as very little work is really required. Anything beyond 6 lanes would be wildly expensive, and the City has long complained to MTO about how the highways meet the 403 and QEW, both of which have relatively poor connections. The RHVP should probably have a direct, 2-lane ramp NB to the Toronto-bound QEW for example, and the merge lanes from the Linc to the 403 should probably be extended to be continuous with Highway 6.

 

[Haljackey]

Ever since the Red Hill was built, I've always taken it to get to Niagara Falls or New York State from London.

Linc and Red Hill should really be provincial freeways, whereas the freeways in K-W are more for local traffic and thus should be municipal.

I could see cities like Windsor balking about uploading their freeways to the province if Douggie is taking Toronto's freeways and now Hamilton's.

The Linc could use 6 laning now- maybe make the innermost lane an express lane to bypass local traffic. Red Hill widening could wait until that project is complete. The access ramp to QEW Niagara at the end of the Red Hill sucks too- goes from as much as 7 lanes to 3 in a short span. At least turn that bottleneck from a stubby to a longneck and stagger that merge a bit more.

 

[Northern Light]

The amount of traffic and the road geometries on the RHVP pretty much guarantee that you’re never going to comfortably drive at a speed higher than 90 km/h. That’s what you get for have a four lane highway forced in a ravine, with a steep hill. Though it was a very expensive capital project, the city definitely cut corners, and yet I’m of the opinion that it was largely a mistake in the first place.

As for Nikola Tesla, that was designed mostly to allow for through traffic in an industrial area with a lot of rail spurs and local freight traffic. Again, it was never designed for high speeds.

Agreed 100%.

While not my highest priority by a long shot, I would completely support a project that closed it and removed it and remediated the valley as much as possible (not much to be done about the blasted rock) .

I can't use harsh enough language for those approved it.

 

[Haljackey]

Agreed 100%.

While not my highest priority by a long shot, I would completely support a project that closed it and removed it and remediated the valley as much as possible (not much to be done about the blasted rock) .

I can't use harsh enough language for those approved it.

Ya seems strange this got greenlit as late as it did. This isn't the DVP- you'd think by the 2000's there would have been enough environmental and budgeting concerns to cancel the Red Hill while it was still just proposed.

But what would take it's place? Extend the Linc further east to meet the QEW directly, or possibly extend all the way to the 406? That would give you some Mid-Pen highway vibes, which actually met the fate it was supposed to.

 

[Northern Light]

Ya seems strange this got greenlit as late as it did. This isn't the DVP- you'd think by the 2000's there would have been enough environmental and budgeting concerns to cancel the Red Hill while it was still just proposed.

But what would take it's place? Extend the Linc further east to meet the QEW directly, or possibly extend all the way to the 406? That would give you some Mid-Pen highway vibes, which actually met the fate it was supposed to.

Frankly, I haven't mapped out an alternative. I just think an incredibly undesirable one was chosen, one that has failed to live up the hype of proponents, while being incredibly destructive to boot.

I acknowledge a need for some alternative, though, better control of sprawl 'on the mountain' would have addressed some of that issue (not all)

 

[TransportEnthusiast]

Political for sure. It's a curvy road but safe if safely driven, even before the "slippery" pavement issue was fixed.

An upload may also be key to moving past the issues with Indigenous groups, never mind others that were against the RHVP. There is much mistrust of the city and I would think that while widening the Linc would not present much of a problem (there's probably enough room in the median now, though I still don't understand why curbs were built along it) widening the highway through the valley will be contentious.

I believe the RHVP has enough room in the median to accommodate a widening. One side is already 3 lanes from Greenhill Rd to Upper RHVP intersection.

Widening of the 403 should be done before any widening of RHVP/Lincoln parkways.