Wharncliffe Rd. Transformation - CN Tracks

[Nintentario]

At this point they should just scrap the whole idea and use the funds for a BRT up Wonderland. By the time this project is done and we finally get 4-lanes of cars roaring through we'll have another decade of wildfires, and ten of the hottest summers of our lives. Instead we could solve this enormous private-vehicle-problem by just giving up on it and embracing transit.

Maybe we should just road diet Wharncliffe at this point and start planning the North-South BRT lines that should go up Wharncliffe, Wonderland, Adelaide instead.

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[Djeffery]

Except the bridge, which is part of the main rail line for southern Ontario is over 100 years old and needs to be replaced. Think of the greenhouse gasses filling the air when it finally gives up the ghost and all that freight gets shunted to trucking. Not to mention, the money spent on this wouldn't make a dent in a major BRT project that hasn't even been blueskied in anyone's imagination, let alone being anywhere ready to be built.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by Nintentario

Maybe we should just road diet Wharncliffe at this point and start planning the North-South BRT lines that should go up Wharncliffe, Wonderland, Adelaide instead.

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A road diet was proposed for Wharncliffe from Byron Ave (where Robert Q is) to Base Line. The lanes here are narrow and there's no median or turning lanes- it would go from 4 lanes to 3, with one of those being a centre turn lane, with the lane width increased. There's also room for bike lanes.

It was one of the concepts for a plan to reconstruct this stretch. Instead the plan is to optimize Wharncliffe. I can't find the document on the 'new' city website showing the proposal however... it was from maybe 10 years ago.

Regardless, getting the overpass rebuilt would redirect southbound cars turning left from Stanley to Horton. That makes total sense so Stanley can be a quieter street until it turns into York.

Yes widening can be a bad omen for induced demand and such, but the whole road is 4 lanes except here. This is fixing a bottleneck to make it flow better overall, not really adding much in terms of capacity.

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by haljackey

Regardless, getting the overpass rebuilt would redirect northbound cars turning left from Stanley to Horton. That makes total sense so Stanley can be a quieter street until it turns into York.

Yes widening can be a bad omen for induced demand and such, but the whole road is 4 lanes except here. This is fixing a bottleneck to make it flow better overall, not really adding much in terms of capacity.

There aren't any lefts from Stanley. Not sure if you meant southbound turning left, which they presently can't do going onto Horton but would after this. Or if you meant the northbound turning left onto that short residential leg of Springbank and then having to make another left onto the 4 lane leg where Horton becomes Springbank. I wonder if after this project is done, they could do away with that light. Would be a pain for the people in the neighbourhood to make that left, but how many of them would there be to justify having a light? Maybe because of the curve, they might keep it.

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

There aren't any lefts from Stanley. Not sure if you meant southbound turning left, which they presently can't do going onto Horton but would after this. Or if you meant the northbound turning left onto that short residential leg of Springbank and then having to make another left onto the 4 lane leg where Horton becomes Springbank. I wonder if after this project is done, they could do away with that light. Would be a pain for the people in the neighbourhood to make that left, but how many of them would there be to justify having a light? Maybe because of the curve, they might keep it.

Yes sorry I meant southbound traffic turning left to Stanley would use Horton after this project is done. For northbound traffic, I think there will be a left at Horton as well and perhaps no left turn allowed (median?) at Springbank where the current left turn is. That would likely get rid of the Springbank and Horton traffic light yes, guess we'll see.

Strangely, the project website says this project will start in 2025, despite it not being on the budget until at least 2028. Just needs a update perhaps?

https://london.ca/projects/wharncliffe-road-south-improvements

[Djeffery]

Unless they plan to prevent a left onto Stanley, I think there will still be a fair amount of traffic that does go that way. It will be nice to be able to make lefts from either direction onto Horton though.

[jammer139]

Back in the news. This should be a case study on how not to do municipal infrastructure projects.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/horton-wharncliffe-9.7051364

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by jammer139

Back in the news. This should be a case study on how not to do municipal infrastructure projects.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/horton-wharncliffe-9.7051364

Ah, the project always in the news but nothing ever gets done

The article says there's a 39 million dollar gap in funding, but the latest estimate is 2 years old. That's gotta be closer to 50 mil now.

Maybe we can push to get some more upper level funding to build this? Carney wants to spend big on infrastructure so perhaps there's a new source coming soon to tap in to? I doubt we can press CN to contribute more unless the existing overpass completely dissolves (it looks to be in pretty bad shape).

[Djeffery]

Had to chuckle at the end of the CTV news on Tuesday, they jumped on the 2016 flashback thing going around on social media so they went back to Jan 20, 2016 and highlighted the local news stories being covered. Sure enough, there was Darryl Newcombe standing at the corner of Horton and Wharncliffe with the CN overpass behind him, talking about the upcoming construction plans for that intersection.

Cool little feature if you want to check it out.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/london/video/2026/01/21/jan-20-2026-what-year-is-it/

[jammer139]

The never ending trip to the dentist chair that is this underpass proposal. Costs will now no doubt be well over $100M given the Adelaide underpass was over $90M a couple of years ago.

Meanwhile the BRT finanical status update report has not been seen in over a year since we last heard they were $175M over budget which the city has to cover since the Feds/Prov contributions are fixed.

Beginning to think voters will not be given a BRT budget update before the Oct election.



https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/coun...ffe-underpass-project-after-repeat-crash