A Different Windsor Champs Elysee

Shhhhhhhhh. Keep it between us. I don't want to give the bureaucrats another idea. Or Mike Hurst either. He'll come up with another slogan for the DRTP corridor ---"Double-deck Windsor" as an example--as he will try to sell it for this purpose too.

It could actually work with not too much disruption to our existing road system and not look bad either if the Tampa elevated road artist rendition is accurate. In fact, if the elevated section is constructed higher than required to cross city streets, such a design could take the traffic noise away from ground level.

How about looking at an elevated roadway to the new border crossing

Not possible you say? What if DRIC or the Governments decide that Windsor has blown it. We have waited too long and the $300M BIF funds can be used in other areas of Canada and Ontario for infrastructure (and to keep the Governing Party in power in Government at election time coming this year).

However, there is a need to do something in Windsor to move trucks. I have heard that a rough plan has been developed that could build an elevated road on Huron Church Road between E C Row and the new border crossing for well under $100M.

Will that be our future? It might be if it is so inexpensive and practical. Let's see a la Gord Henderson what other countries are doing to solve congestion problems quickly and inexpensively. Combine this with a totally reconstructed E C Row at Senior Level expense and here is another option for us that we should consider!

And if you do not like it on Huron Church, build it on EC Row for trucks! Trucks above and over the wide median while preserving future expansion for local use.

Bangalore-Mysore Toll Road, India

India's technology capital Bangalore is to get an $87 million toll motorway to help battle the city's growing congestion problems. It is due to open in April 2007 and 33% of the cost will be paid for by the business tenants.

This forms part of the larger 111km, four-lane Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP), a realisation of over a decade's planning to solve the growing congestion problems of India's technology capital.

The proposal is to build a four-lane elevated concrete toll expressway (expandable to six at a later date) to link Bangalore with a key job-spinning suburb to tackle traffic problems stemming from high levels of growth.

ITALIAN-THAI DEVELOPMENT PUBLIC COMPANY LIMITED

ITD has the distinction of being the first private road and highway contractor in Thailand and the only Thai contractor with a continuous record of road and highway construction since the Thai Government first invited private contractors to participate in road construction in 1963.

From the simplest of laterite fill road formations to the complexity of elevated expressways and interchanges, railways and bridges, ITD has an impressive list of successfully completed projects. Some projects, such as the steel prefabricated flyovers constructed over some of the busiest intersections in Bangkok, required innovative construction methods to be developed by ITD's project implementation teams to minimise time on site and to maintain traffic flow...

Elevated expressways and bridge projects are strongly supported by ITD's "in-house" ISO 9002 certified precast concrete factory and structural steel fabrication facilities, along with a comprehensive inventory of general and specialist plant and equipment. ITD generally fabricates its own specialised elevated expressway segment launching equipment. [Just think of the jobs we could have in Windsor to support such a road!]

Tampa's El opens

Tampa's brilliant 14.5km (9mi) long elevated reversible express lanes (El) opened for inbound traffic 6am Tuesday July 18. The St Petersburg Times editorialized:

"Commuters said they shaved a quarter hour or more from their drive into work, a savings of time and frustration beyond any rational measure."

Tampa Tribune reporters said that the trip on the El was 10mins in the rush hour compared to 20mins on the old lower lanes.

They got these quotes from motorists:

"Awesome," Aida Gonzalez of Valrico said after exiting the highway at Meridian Avenue and Twiggs Street. "Oh my God! It took like 10 minutes or so."

Elaine Cook said her first trip on the one-way highway was "fun" but "a little bit scary."

"I didn't want to be the first one on the news to go off the side," Cook said. "But it was nice looking down at all the people bumper-to-bumper into Tampa on the crosstown."

"I loved it," said Susan Hinson of Brandon.

High concrete box girder

Two thirds of the project is elevated concrete box girder construction down the median of the existing 2x2 lanes of the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway, the major route into downtown Tampa and the port of Tampa from the east. It was constructed Figg Bridge of Tallahassee for the Tampa-Hillsborough County Expressway Authority (THCEA), one of three major metropolitan toll authorities in Florida (the others being in Orlando and Miami.) Figg specialize in prefabricated concrete box girder construction.

The facility has variously been named a bridge, a bridgeway, reversible elevated express lanes, Pat's Folly (after its champion, former Tampa Expressway Authority CEO Pat McCue). We'll call it the Tampa El after the New York City and Chicago abbreviation for Elevated.

It grew from two lanes to 3 plus 2 shoulders

The project started as just two lanes in a deck about 11m (36ft) wide but grew to the present three 3.65m (12ft) travel land and a breakdown shoulder of 3m (10ft) on both sides for a total deck of 17m (56ft) over most of its length. The far eastern end at Brandon is only two travel lanes. The El is high so that full sized vehicles can travel under its cantilevered sides. There is space to widen the local lanes inward to 2x3 from the present 2x2 by going under the El.

With traffic highly directional - inbound or westwards mornings and outbound or eastwards evenings - the express lanes facility will be reversed in direction in the middle of the day allowing up to 5 lanes (3 express over much of the distance, 2 lanes at the eastern end in Brandon plus the regular 2 lanes of the established surface expressway. The reversible feature can also be tailored to large traffic flows to or from downtown sports stadiums, the convention center and cruise ships in the port. The importance of the facility will be enhanced by a planned north-south I-4 Connector road through Ybor City, a trendy area of lofts, shopping and eating in old brick tobacco warehouses to the immediate northeast of the downtown.

The El is for downtown-bound or downtown-originating traffic with only one intermediate entry/exit point. At its western end near downtown the El feeds into Meridian Boulevard an attractively landscaped and signalized distributor road that was built by the Expressway Authority as part of the overall project. There are similar high quality distributor improvements off the eastern end in Brandon.

Elevated expressway: 68 km, 4-lane speedway

New Delhi, April 17, 2005: An elevated expressway above Ring Road now seems to be a distinct possibility with the Delhi Government seriously examining the feasibility study that was submitted last week.

The report on the Rs 4,600-crore project for the 68.5-km expressway—second only to the Delhi Metro in scale and size—was prepared by Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS).

It divides the Ring Road into six segments, and using statistics, explains the need for an elevated expressway and Metro rail. The exponential growth of vehicles—currently numbering around 44 lakh—at the rate of 6.45 per cent each year, has forced the Government to look for more road space. Analysed by Wilbur Smith Associates, the report says the current travel time on Ring Road is a tiring 2.5 hours. The current average speed of traffic on it is 25 kmph—in some sections, it is even below 16 kmph.

Using a sophisticated multi-modal transportation model using the software, TransCAD, the report has projected that there will be a traffic gridlock by 2020, as the average speed on Ring Road would then be a mere 7 kmph.

To avoid traffic congestion, delays and pollution, the report underlines the need to provide increased road capacity as the Delhi Metro, High Capacity Bus System, Electric Trolley Buses and Light Rail Transit system would not be able to take care of all the congestion on Ring Road. So, a 50.5-km long expressway is proposed to be built above Ring Road. Of this, 45.5 km will run elevated.