Wonderful Waterloo Archive

In my opinion yes this needs to be upgraded and what I saw I am happy but they would avoid all those expansions if they made full loop around k-w. That way people from stratford,new hamburg and west kitchener dont have to make extra travel to waterloo.
Ira-Needles replaces that loop somehow.

If I remember correctly, the Conestoga Parkway was originally proposed to be a full highway loop around K-W, but due to public pressure/protests they decided to scale the project back and make a convoluted "U" shape. Now we're paying the price.

You're right about this. I was looking at old maps of K/W at WPL and saw some maps from the 1950's and 60's and they showed maps of the proposed expressway as a loop like you're talking about. I think the expressway would have gone down what's now Westmount road or Fischer-Hallman I think.

waterlooer do you have those maps?? can you post them here?just curious about what they had in mind back in days.

I drive through both the courtland bottleneck and the one by lancaster every day. During the mornings, heading into Waterloo and heading back during the evening. There is definitely more traffic on the kitchener end. The Waterloo bottleneck as much due to the volume as to drivers trying to jump the queue. If drivers wouldn't use the collectors as a quick way to pass and take them all the way to almost the Lancaster overpass only to squeeze in and slam on their brakes it would work quite well and the speed in the core lanes would not be affected. The speed quickly increases right past the Lancaster overpass. And cars coming on from Lancaster do not slow things down much more. On the other end many times the traffic is backed up over highway 8. And traffic coming in from highway 8 helps feed this more. The right lane exiting at Courtland is often used by inconsiderate drivers for queue jumping in the same way as the collectors to the east. Unlike the Lancaster area the speed does not increase much past Courtland. There is a substancial amount of traffic entering the highway at Courtland and many cars exiting at Homer Watson, often the slowest part of the drive home is in the two lane westbound section immediately after the Courtland interchange.

This work defintely needs to be done, but I do agree that the Waterloo end needs upgrades too, I can see it getting much worse once the new highway 7 is built, a freeway to freeway interchange removes the ramp metering effect that the current signal controlled interchanges have on the flow of traffic onto the highway.

Part of these congestion patterns come from many people living in south, west, and south-west Kitchener and commuting into Waterloo. In my opinion, this is from Kitchener putting too high an emphasis on new residential development and Waterloo putting too high an emphasis on employment land development. This absolutely needs to balance out and Waterloo put more of an emphasis on residential development and Kitchener open up more employment lands such as through a new industrial park, etc. Again, this is not fair to taxpayers of both cities, especially Waterloo. Kitchener should not be a bedroom community for Waterloo's booming high tech and education sectors.

Part of these congestion patterns come from many people living in south, west, and south-west Kitchener and commuting into Waterloo. In my opinion, this is from Kitchener putting too high an emphasis on new residential development and Waterloo putting too high an emphasis on employment land development. This absolutely needs to balance out and Waterloo put more of an emphasis on residential development and Kitchener open up more employment lands such as through a new industrial park, etc. Again, this is not fair to taxpayers of both cities, especially Waterloo. Kitchener should not be a bedroom community for Waterloo's booming high tech and education sectors.

If I remember correctly, the Conestoga Parkway was originally proposed to be a full highway loop around K-W, but due to public pressure/protests they decided to scale the project back and make a convoluted "U" shape. Now we're paying the price.

There's a good reason why full loops aren't built anymore. A full loop highway speeds suburbia to suburbia travel, while making it far too easy to completely bypass downtown. Downtown Kitchener is starting to make real progress, people such as myself are choosing to move there, but it would kill the recovery to build the complete loop. It would also likely reduce light rail ridership to a level such that building light rail wouldn't make sense. If Waterloo Region is to be become a real urban city, something that I think everyone here wants, building more highways is a step in the wrong direction.

A completed loop highway and light rail would have similar immediate construction costs. One option promotes high-density urban development, the other supports more suburban sprawl. I think it's obvious which is which, I also think it's obvious which is better for the long-term health of our Region. There's a reason that urban Torontonians want to tear down the Gardiner, Highways create significant pedestrian and cyclist barriers, they're not compatible with vibrant urban mixed-use streets. While I have a big city vision for Waterloo Region, it's important that we have smart growth, not growth at any cost. We already have Canada's second worst auto dependency, and it's because we've got a ton of highways for a city of our size.

Look to Portland, a city that used light rail as an extremely effective tool to shape growth. The city is being revitalized, downtown is booming, and they're growing sustainably. They've had greater economic success and much cleaner air as a result of their policies. Policies that included tearing down a major freeway and converting it to a park. I'm not going to go as far as saying we should tear down the Conestoga Parkway, but we certainly shouldn't be building more freeways.

Personally I love the expressway and it would take so much longer to get to places without it.

Imagine if, instead of spending so much money on the Conestoga Parkway starting several decades ago, the same funds had been spend on rapid transit infrastructure, including LRTs, buses, GO to Toronto, more pedestrian/cyclist paths, etc. The region would have developed differently, to be sure. And in retrospect there might no longer be a need for that expressway.

I suspect the same situation exists today with the opportunity to build the LRT. Are we going to take advantage of it or simply look back in 40 years and wish that we had?

You're right. The more highways and roads we build the more cars they'll be. London Ontario doesn't really have any highways and its population is about the same as K/W. People arn't complaining about the transportation system there. I know lots of people from London that don't want to change a thing about there transportation system and think our's is way too complicated and unnecessary for our population size. Personally I love the expressway and it would take so much longer to get to places without it.

It's hard for me to imagine that, but I agree with you. The region would be such a different place (in a good way). We should put a limit on how many lanes there should be on the expressway. Our tax dollers for transportation should be going towards what you're talking about: LRT, paths, GO, buses... People in this region will have to realize there's more than 1 way to get from point A to point B by using transit, trains, walking, biking...

Speaking as someone who lived in London for 10 years before coming here in 1990--and who did his grade thirteen independent study project on London's traffic situation (what I geek I was!), I can tell you then even twenty years ago, there was lots of kvetching and moaning London's grid, which was usually locked even then. The number one complaint I hear from people who visit London nowadays is the hellacious traffic.
The Conestoga Expressway is a great thing to have, even if travelling the length of Weber Street is sometimes faster.

Ya I mean the looped highway works well. Washington DC's is a pretty good example of that.

Speaking as someone who lived in London for 10 years before coming here in 1990--and who did his grade thirteen independent study project on London's traffic situation (what I geek I was!), I can tell you then even twenty years ago, there was lots of kvetching and moaning London's grid, which was usually locked even then. The number one complaint I hear from people who visit London nowadays is the hellacious traffic.
The Conestoga Expressway is a great thing to have, even if travelling the length of Weber Street is sometimes faster.

If MTO is smart enough they should open new exit on 401 -Trussler Rd to ease pain for highway 7/8.But they dont have any plans for that yet.

I thought the MTO was planning on making an interchange with Fischer-Hallman, but I might be mistaken by Trussler.

proportion of new residential streets be named after local veterans. Such street names have poppies on their signs to indicate such

If I remember right, Guelph and Cambridge have a policy that a particular proportion of new residential streets be named after local veterans. Such street names have poppies on their signs to indicate such.

This seems a much more human-scale, and locally relevant, policy.

I'm with Urbanomicon

If I remember right, Guelph and Cambridge have a policy that a particular proportion of new residential streets be named after local veterans. Such street names have poppies on their signs to indicate such.

This seems a much more human-scale, and locally relevant, policy.

RE: K-W does not need an expressway :


This is simply not true. Anyone who has lived in London will tell you it is a royal pain to get from one side of town to another because there is no expressway. The trip can take over an hour to get from southwest to northeast London during regular traffic volumes, let alone rush-hour. In K-W no journey takes more than 20 - 30 minutes from one point to another (even west Waterloo to Cambridge can be done in 20 mins given good traffic flow and a decent speed). Many many people cite K-W as visionary in the 1960's for putting in the expressway when the population at that time did not warrant the investment.