Diverging Diamond Interchanges

[jammer139]

Calgary just opened Canada's first DDI. The design is superior to traditional interchanges in the ability to move more traffic.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...gary-1.4245773

I75 @ University in Auburn Hills, Michigan was rebuilt this way a couple of years ago.

http://www.divergingdiamond.com/index.html

[Innsertnamehere]

MTO has one planned in Barrie.

They are better for cars, but turn what is normally the most pedestrian friendly interchange, a diamond, into a very hostile environment. Peds and bikes are forced into what is more or less a concrete tunnel down the middle of the road.

[MolsonExport]

Those traffic circles are also nightmares for pedestrians. You feel like a target, playing Russian Roulette with the cars. Why do people ignore pedestrians so much here in Ontario? In BC, once a pedestrian steps off the curb, they always have the right-of-way at any crosswalk...hell there are almost no crosswalks here in London.

I live near Hyde Park Road (at South Carriage Road), and there is a nice park on the other side....which is nearly impossible for us to cross on foot.

Bugs the hell out of me. What the fark are my $7000+ yearly municipal tax dollars going towards?

[jammer139]

Wasted on tearing up Dundas St between Quebec and Kellogs to "rebuilt" it and only widened 5 ft on one side for a bike lane.

Which will all have to be rebuilt again in a couple of years for the BRT lanes.

How many times has the engineering and traffic dept wasted millions on tearing up roads and rebuilding them back to the same width.

Wasting our taxes for lack of vision and forward thinking.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Those traffic circles are also nightmares for pedestrians. You feel like a target, playing Russian Roulette with the cars. Why do people ignore pedestrians so much here in Ontario? In BC, once a pedestrian steps off the curb, they always have the right-of-way at any crosswalk...hell there are almost no crosswalks here in London.

I live near Hyde Park Road (at South Carriage Road), and there is a nice park on the other side....which is nearly impossible for us to cross on foot.

Bugs the hell out of me. What the fark are my $7000+ yearly municipal tax dollars going towards?

[haljackey]

Curious why this in the Local London section. Could this design work somewhere in the city? VMP perhaps?

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by jammer139

Wasted on tearing up Dundas St between Quebec and Kellogs to "rebuilt" it and only widened 5 ft on one side for a bike lane.

Which will all have to be rebuilt again in a couple of years for the BRT lanes.

How many times has the engineering and traffic dept wasted millions on tearing up roads and rebuilding them back to the same width.

Wasting our taxes for lack of vision and forward thinking.

Hyde Park Rd was torn up twice in the past decade. Sarnia Road is on its third tear up, but still, the bike lane peters out as you approach Western. Merge with traffic? Sure. And let's see cars merge with trains too!

[jammer139]

DDI's appear to work really well where you have high volume primary road that crosses a freeway.

Can be installed very quickly especially if you don't need to rebuild the bridge portion and you have space for the ramps.

Possible candidates in London area are Wellington-401, Wonderland-402, Highbury-401.

[jammer139]

Ontario building its first DDI in Niagara region and will open this Fall.


https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-i...orks-1.6051579

[Innsertnamehere]

It's been under construction for a while.

I quite like DDI's, I drove through a few in the US this spring and they worked quite well. If only they weren't absolutely terrible for pedestrians..