[jn_12]

^ It's not "anal". You wouldn't expect people to write Marcum or Turonto and if people kept making those errors you'd find the general ignorance of people to be annoying as hell. If you can't get that right, your knowledge of the area can't be much better.

I believe the bridge would have to be the longest (50+ KM) and deepest (100-120 metres) in the world.

Thanks for that. It really deflates this idea with reality. It probably makes the price even larger than our $10b estimate. You're probably looking at double or even triple that, which makes this idea even more absurd.

What if they had a ferry to take the trucks from Toronto < -> Niagara. That'd reduce the amount of trucks on the QEW for sure. Fuel savings probably be well worth it.

Although a bridge is a bit too extreme... If they're going to do that, why don't they build a bridge to the US from Toronto... I'm sure that'd work out.

There was a ferry at one point. And there were rumblings earlier in the decade that they wanted to reintroduce this service. I can't imagine they'd be able to recoup any of the costs though since time is money and no one would willingly put their truck on a boat when there is perfectly good highway infrastructure in place.

How about "St. Catherine's"... that's nails on a chalkboard

Totally.

Not going to happen, and not even a good idea. We could build a high speed rail line from St Catharines to Toronto for less, and it'd be faster.

Exactly. That would be an immensely better investment.

 

[andomano]

^ It's not "anal". You wouldn't expect people to write Marcum or Turonto and if people kept making those errors you'd find the general ignorance of people to be annoying as hell. If you can't get that right, your knowledge of the area can't be much better.

It's more about the way people pronounce the city, so they spell it that way also. Very few people pronounce it Nia-ga-ra, but instead Nia-gra.

Toronto is colloquially pronounced, Ter-ron-noe (or variations of that), and very few, mostly Americans (I find) actually pronounce the second 't'. But, it is very seldolmly spelled incorrectly


Ferries wouldn't really save much time. If you add in the time for loading and unloading, I would assume that it would pretty much equal the time driving around the Horseshoe.

 

[M II A II R II K]

And there could be large tolls which would be offset by the amount of money in gas would have been spent on driving around the lake anyway. And then there's how heavily trafficked it would be.

One ironic thing is that it would be easier and quicker to get to St. Catharines from downtown Toronto as opposed to going to Pickering or Brampton.

And plus I suppose there'd be a point about the Niagara municipalities getting swamped the suburbanites and sub-divisions popping up all over the place, and in Welland and Grimsby too. Unless they don't sell all the land or re-zone anything on what's already there then no one can build on them.

 

[Aaron]

Regarding the spelling of the city where I am regrettably from, who cares? I have lots of friends from lots of places and most of them mispell it. They're not ignorant and it says nothing about their "knowledge of the region". Unfortunately, we're saddled with a unique version of the name, "Catherine", and there are various theories floating around about how that came to be.

 

[adma]

Keep in mind that there's been a number of proposals over the years to remedy NYC/Long Island's traffic problems by bridging Long Island Sound, and none have come to pass, and not unjustifiably so--real Robert-Moses-in-his-dotage stuff...

 

[Millstone]

Regarding the spelling of the city where I am regrettably from, who cares? I have lots of friends from lots of places and most of them mispell it. They're not ignorant and it says nothing about their "knowledge of the region". Unfortunately, we're saddled with a unique version of the name, "Catherine", and there are various theories floating around about how that came to be.

The only theories are whether her real name was with an A or E. In fact, more sources claim it was an E. (it was named for Catherine Hamilton, Robert Hamilton Sr.'s wife, mother of George Hamilton who founded the city of the same name.)

 

[EnviroTO]

Definitely not worth it financially or environmentally. The Confederation Bridge is the only way to drive between the island and mainland. There is already a way to drive to St.Catharines. For the cost of a bridge going that distance in water that deep and allowing ships to pass under you could build the Windsor-Quebec High Speed Rail. The majority of Ontarians would use the bridge seldomly, or never at all. The tolls on the Confederation Bridge are $42.50 per car so paying off a bridge four times longer and far more complex to build would mean tolls of more than $200 per trip. Nobody in their right mind would pay for that when there is a free alternative. With the Confederation Bridge the only other alternative is the ferry which costs more.

 

[adma]

I've got a neat idea. How about a tunnel crossing the Niagara River 500m from the Falls: bore it through the bedrock and shoot a superhighway through it, etc...

 

[kendrew]

I've got a neat idea. How about a tunnel crossing the Niagara River 500m from the Falls: bore it through the bedrock and shoot a superhighway through it, etc...

How about instead of a bridge we build a tunnel across the lake? That might be cheaper than a bridge

 

[ShonTron]

So what next? A tunnel across Long Island Sound finally connecting it with Connecticut? There needs to be a quicker like between The Hamptons and Yale!

Or how about a bridge between Benton Harbor, Michigan and Chicago? It would do wonders for improving Benton Harbor's economy!

 

[adma]

Benton Harbor and Milwaukee, so as to bypass Chicago altogether? Or maybe Benton Harbor and Kenosha, to bypass both Chi and Mil?

Maybe take Hwy 6 all the way from Caledonia to Cleveland...

 

[SunriseChampion]

Makes you wonder.....why are those crazy British Columbians still relying on ferries to get to and fro between the Island and the Mainland. Crazy bastards!

 

[kendrew]

If we're making all those different routes, I propose either a "Bridge City" or "Tunnel City" and make all the routes intersect each other on the bridges and we can have multiple intersecting highways... I wonder how a highway interchange would look if it was all underwater as a tunnel.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Or how about a bridge between Benton Harbor, Michigan and Chicago? It would do wonders for improving Benton Harbor's economy!

Benton Harbor and Milwaukee, so as to bypass Chicago altogether? Or maybe Benton Harbor and Kenosha, to bypass both Chi and Mil?

Well, there is a seemingly pointless ferry between Muskegon and Milwaukee...crazy ideas are much, much less crazy when there's already a shred of real demand for them.

 

[Jonny5]

How about a canal from Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario... it can go right down the Don!