I don't beat up on our highway designers. I guarantee it is a politician that put pressure on a senior bureaucrat close to retirement that wants to make it to the end, to slash budgets. The fact we had a great design before that was proposed means the actual engineers and staff are fine and know what they're doing.
Then someone comes along and says yah no make it cheaper.
Given the NDP just produced a budget with massive deficits, I can guarantee you that is what happened because they are trying desperately to get elected next election. The reality is that they likely will lose the next election and screw every resident for the next 50 years by building a half-assed new interchange that changes nothing.
The biggest problem with the existing HWY 11 interchange is the double merge at the top with the first having a comically short merge distance that doesn't flow through to the second onramp into the dedicated third lane. That causes 2 of 3 westbound lanes on HW1 at that point backing up as people in the right lane suddenly cut into the far left fast lane causing everyone in the fast lane to slam on the brakes, the middle lane blocks up, then when the third lane shows up everyone starts randomly darting left and right causing traffic to back up dozens of KM behind it.
The configuration should be 2 through lanes, the first merge goes into the existing third dedicated lane so those people don't NEED to merge onto HWY1 in 3 feet of distance, then the second merge goes into a new dedicated fourth lane westbound. Then maybe 1 or 2 km later you merge that into the third, and then the third merges as typical or just continues until the next offramp. That is done a lot in the US, Australia, and in European countries with decent traffic; onramps that create a new dedicated lane until the next offramp. It reduces the need in more urban environments where you have closer interchanges to have cars need to merge or exit quickly causing a steadier flow through those stretches.
It's the same BS they did with Kensington in Burnaby eastbound where there is basically 2 lanes on the onramp merging into 1 lane which then hits HWY1 and is comically short on a bend causing everyone to jam up HWY1 basically going all the way to Grandview because they couldn't be bothered to just have the Kensington onramp flow into a dedicated fourth lane that continues and ends at Gaglardi. ZOMG NO a FOURTH LANE WOULD MAKE US LIKE 'MERICA.
Could you imagine if they did that? There'd be no choke point and all it would have required is one additional 3km lane. All of our urban interchanges should be designed with these auxiliary lanes imho. Yes, they cost more, but so does traffic and over the life of our highways I would be surprised if the capital costs don't get surpassed by the congestion costs within the first decade.
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