flar
Active Member
SeanTrans: those are pretty neat shots of the highway, did you take those?
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ShonTron
Moderator
Yep! I took them from a Dash 8-100 on my way to BWI.
I also got neat shots of MCC and Port Credit, I'm wondering where to stick them.
I also got neat shots of MCC and Port Credit, I'm wondering where to stick them.
Lone Primate
Active Member
Fait accompli
Well, the Red Hill Creek Expressway opened this morning. I happened to be visiting my folks on the Mountain and availed myself of the opportunity. Drove down to the QE, and then back up again. Took about seven minutes, either way. The cops were on it like white on rice, hauling folks over, letting them know it's not to be used as a speedway. It was surprisingly busy for the first day. The Spectator included an article by former mayor Jack MacDonald in which he lamented the millions lost to the city in revenue and jobs that went elsewhere or never came while 54 years of dithering went on. Apparently, the city is also suing the feds for $75 million due to costs attributed to obstruction. Should be interesting. Anyway, it's open at last, the Highway 6 reroute is open, and the airport's right there. Hopefully this will be the start of the city's renaissance.
Well, the Red Hill Creek Expressway opened this morning. I happened to be visiting my folks on the Mountain and availed myself of the opportunity. Drove down to the QE, and then back up again. Took about seven minutes, either way. The cops were on it like white on rice, hauling folks over, letting them know it's not to be used as a speedway. It was surprisingly busy for the first day. The Spectator included an article by former mayor Jack MacDonald in which he lamented the millions lost to the city in revenue and jobs that went elsewhere or never came while 54 years of dithering went on. Apparently, the city is also suing the feds for $75 million due to costs attributed to obstruction. Should be interesting. Anyway, it's open at last, the Highway 6 reroute is open, and the airport's right there. Hopefully this will be the start of the city's renaissance.
RedRocket191
Senior Member
If a new freeway brings about a renaissance, I will eat my hat.
Lone Primate
Active Member
RedRocket191
Senior Member
They are fond of their ketchup in Steeltown. I'll have them set you some aside.
I prefer BBQ sauce, thanks.
adma
Superstar
ShonTron
Moderator
I drove the highway earlier today. The police were very visible today as well. It's a nice highway, but poor Red Hill Creek looks more like it was shoved aside, and "unprecedented" mitigation work barely helps (at least it wasn't shoved into a sterile concrete channel, but that's the best I can say).
It is also not very well lit at night. It's also arguably very sub-standard, a narrow grassy median without guard-rails, never mind an "Ontario tall-wall", and some of the flyovers and ramps (particularly to/from the QEW) are tight and will sure to have scruff marks once all those Fluke trucks use it.
I really have to laugh at this. A by-pass highway has never helped revitalize an inner city, though I'll gladly eat my words if the RHVP does this (yeah, right). I'm sure the same things were said about destroying a neighbourhood to build the wide, sterile York Boulevard, or making King and Main one-way streets in the 1950s, or Lloyd Jackson Square. Two-way all day GO Trains to Toronto would make more of a difference, and would have probably cost less.
It is also not very well lit at night. It's also arguably very sub-standard, a narrow grassy median without guard-rails, never mind an "Ontario tall-wall", and some of the flyovers and ramps (particularly to/from the QEW) are tight and will sure to have scruff marks once all those Fluke trucks use it.
I really have to laugh at this. A by-pass highway has never helped revitalize an inner city, though I'll gladly eat my words if the RHVP does this (yeah, right). I'm sure the same things were said about destroying a neighbourhood to build the wide, sterile York Boulevard, or making King and Main one-way streets in the 1950s, or Lloyd Jackson Square. Two-way all day GO Trains to Toronto would make more of a difference, and would have probably cost less.
Kiwi
Active Member
I can see the RHVP helping the inner city in some ways such as getting rid of trucks on city roads like Main St.
This expressway will one day have less traffic on Main and King St and finally make these streets two ways more viable and therefore revitalize the inner core as one way Main and King is a barrier.
This expressway will one day have less traffic on Main and King St and finally make these streets two ways more viable and therefore revitalize the inner core as one way Main and King is a barrier.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
I really don't think it's occasional trucks driving by that are causing the problems on King and Main.
There are a few examples where an expressway has helped the city, Brantford being the most obvious example, but I doubt this highway will do much for downtown Hamilton. It it helps develop the Mount Hope area industrial parks, that's at least some benefit.
There are a few examples where an expressway has helped the city, Brantford being the most obvious example, but I doubt this highway will do much for downtown Hamilton. It it helps develop the Mount Hope area industrial parks, that's at least some benefit.
Lone Primate
Active Member
They're not revitalizing the inner city. The idea is to leverage the international airport and the new accesses to it to facilitate light industry on the Mountain on the just-in-time transit network. It's the same kind of thing that happened the entire length of the 401 in the GTA in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, particularly in Mississauga and Brampton adjacent to Pearson. Then along the 404, then along the 403, the QEW in south Halton... I can't see anything particular about Hamilton that ought to prevent history repeating itself on the Niagara Peninsula, half an hour from the border.
flar
Active Member
They're hoping history will repeat itself and it is true that highway access is a practical necessity these days to open up big industrial parks. However I see a major obstacle preventing a Mississauga type boom on the mountain. There is more and more opposition to land eating developments now and this is especially true in the environmentally sensitive Hamilton area. The GTA ate up a lot of good farmland, but Hamilton eats up a world biosphere reserve, farmland, and some of the best fruit growing land in Canada. Opposition to the aerotropolis is fierce and with the greenbelt it becomes harder and harder to just plunk down thousands of acres of warehouses and subdivisions.
Still, some land is already serviced and ready, so there will be some new developments in the short term.
Kiwi
Active Member
Yes, you are right it isn’t trucks that are a barrier towards two way conversions of King and Main it's also regular car traffic. Majority of the traffic on Main and King are people getting on and off the 403 to and from East Hamilton/Stoney Creek. We have to admit King and Main is basically an expressway with synchronized lighting and has more lanes than RHVP does. They'll be far more car population coming out of Main St than RHVP will ever produce.
Eventually less and less cars and trucks will be using Main and King because of RHVP and two way conversion will be more viable, therefore helping to revitalize the inner city. It isn't happening now because there's way too much car traffic that uses the Main and King St.
Lone Primate
Active Member
I think it's an overstatement calling King and Main an "expressway". The Linc is an expressway; you can cross the city on it in seven or eight minutes. No one parks on it, there are no lights (synchronized lights are great, as long as you catch the bounce), there's no one turning off side streets onto it... I think they're streamlined, yeah, but they're nothing like an expressway. And there's no place for one downtown anyway.
Up on the Mountain, it's different. There's still room for some development, there's nothing anyone really has to tear down that's going to be upsetting (of course, there are ALWAYS people who find a reason), and the airport's there. To me, it has all the elements to reshape Hamilton.
Toronto used to have lots of heavy industry, right up to the 60s. I used to ride the train through its remnants every day 10 or 12 years ago... big fields of broken brick like you'd see in Roger & Me, only in Toronto (and, admittedly, on a smaller scale). Heavy industry moved out of Toronto, and light industry ringed the city, out where distribution was easier. The inner city didn't die... it became something else. Hamilton wants that chance. The steel industry there is never going to be what it was in the 70s... it's more and more automated and it just doesn't supply the jobs it used to. But there are half a million people there, and they need to make a living. They're at the edge of a Great Lake, on the nexus between Canada and the US. All they need is the infrastructure, and it's finally coming together. I've heard that medical industry is particularly interested, mainly because McMaster's there. Now if they can viably make and ship pharmaceuticals from that location, it could completely change the nature of the city. The revenues from new industry and jobs, shepherded properly, can bring about the gentrification of Hamilton's downtown the same way it did Toronto's. Apparently there's already an art colony forming around James Street.
I don't mean to suggest all this is to be laid at the feet of the completion of one new road. What I do say is that this is an ongoing transformation of one of our major cities, and that the addition of the expressway is one of a number of strategic items necessary to facilitate it. What happens next, what they make of the advantages they have in location and what they've built, depends on the people of Hamilton and the politicians they elect.
Kiwi
Active Member
There's 5 lanes and on some parts of Main you can't park, you can cross from one part of Hamilton to another within 10 minutes much like the Linc. You can go 80km/h with the synchronized lightings, the city has problems with street racing on Main St. Plus because you have 5 lanes you aren't going to get caught up because someone wants to turn off onto another street. RHVP combined only have 4 lanes, each way, yet Main and King both have 5 lanes, combined 10 lanes.