At some future and undecided date, the 401 from Cobourg to Colborne will be widened to 6 lanes and even further in the future, it will become 8 lanes. The MTO has started an environmental assessment and related preliminary design for this stretch of road. Also at some future unknown date, Cobourg will need another interchange in the East End and has identified Nagle Road as the location. Given that the MTO was already doing the work for the nearby road, Cobourg can save money long term by piggy-backing the Nagle Road study on the bigger one so that’s what they did. The Public Information Centre (PIC) for both studies was held last Wednesday (Sept 18) at the Cobourg Lions’ Community Centre. All the information is available online at the website linked below so the main reason for the PIC is to allow people to talk to MTO and their consultants (Stantec) and have things explained. MTO and Stantec also wanted feedback from the Public and provided comment sheets for that purpose.
As would be expected, Cobourg’s Manager of Planning Services, Rob Franklin (photo at right), was there explaining things. Also in attendance were a good number of Stantec people, some MTO people and some County staff.
Highlights
- All the bridges on the sections of the 401 being studied date from the 1960’s and are approaching their end of life – so whether the 401 is widened or not, these bridges will need to either be extensively refurbished or replaced.
- Initially, the highway would be expanded from 4 to 6 lanes but bridges and property lines would be good for 8 lanes.
- The environmental assessment and preliminary design looks at multiple layouts for ramps and road widening and when a preferred design is decided, there will be another PIC – expected in May 2020.
- In the Fall of 2020, the design would go to the MTO for approval. The next step is detailed design with probably more Public meetings and after that the politicians decide when to allocate money to the project and proceed.
- As far as I can tell, there’s no reason why the Nagle interchange needs to happen at the same time as the 401 to Colborne is widened.
- In addition to Nagle Road, there are a total of 7 existing bridges that need to be replaced.
- As well as bridges there are a number of culverts that would need to be widened.
Here are a couple of photos from the event.
Links
Project Web pages
- Project Web site – Highway 401 Cobourg Colborne
- Large (60MB) pdf with all documents for Cobourg to Colborne
- Mid-size (7.5MB) pdf with Nagle Road Documents
Why Nagle Road interchange might be needed
- Housing Developments in Northeast of Cobourg (1700 units) – 28 June 2018
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Today young and old around the world are out on the streets drawing attention to Global warming and WE are going to increase the motorways to enable even more cars and
trucks to pollute the air….building bridges of concrete.whose main component is cement…
the second highest industrial source of carbon dioxide in the world…
Where are the plans to extend the Go train system further east? Trains,if they were more frequent and more affordable would get hundreds of cars off the highways every day.
Where are frequent bus trips on small buses that could travel between Cobourg and
Kingston or Oshawa and Peterborough…
We need to do more to reduce not increase our carbon footprint…
“We need to do more to reduce not increase our carbon footprint…”
Then support nuclear energy; no carbon dioxide emissions. https://youtu.be/N-yALPEpV4w
Can’t we do both?
There definitely is a place for wind and solar, but they are not capable to power a megalopolis like Toronto, all its offices and industries. Nuclear is far more reliable than wind and solar. Nuclear has a much smaller footprint on the land. All nuclear waste is contained on site. There is no plan to recycle solar panels of their toxic elements when their life expectancy expires.
Nuclear power is only “clean” in the short term.
The nuclear waste products are kept on site because no country has developed adequate long term storage solutions. Most nuclear waste would have to be kept tens of thousands of years before it became safe.
Wind and solar over have made great advances in the past twenty years and will continue to evolve and become cheaper to construct and operate. There is still a large amount of potential for hydro electric generation which can often be achieved without the need for dams. In Ontario many communities have closed local hydro generation and this could be reinstalled. Tidal power has the capacity to provide electricity for the world’s needs, and is only in the early stages of development.
Germany, Japan and Denmark are just a few of the countries who are scaling back on nuclear power. For the safety of future human generations we will have to flow this trend.
“Germany, Japan and Denmark are just a few of the countries who are scaling back on nuclear power.”
How silly of Germany to have done so. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2031786/Germany-importing-electricity-France-decision-shut-nuclear-reactors.html
It’s not entirely sure Japan will scale back nuclear. https://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKCN1VX0MD-OCATP
Denmark continues to have to utilize nuclear and obtains it from its neighbours. https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/denmark.aspx
India has 19 nuclear plants and building four more. And China is going to build 40 more nuclear plants. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/china-to-build-40-nuclear-power-plants-over-the-next-five-years-a6795401.html.
Good for them. That will save the lives of millions and millions more people by lifting them out of poverty.
Meanwhile Greg, Chinese companies are currently building 700 new coal plants around the world and not a single Canadian environmentist has raised a peep about that. https://www.mining.com/chinese-companies-build-700-coal-plants-outside-china/
“Nuclear power is only “clean” in the short term.
The nuclear waste products are kept on site because no country has developed adequate long term storage solutions. Most nuclear waste would have to be kept tens of thousands of years before it became safe.”
That is fearmongering. The GTA has enjoyed reliable clean energy for decades thanks to Darlington. The boogie-person of tens of thousands of years is typical fearmongering. In the passage of time humans began to rise above the extreme poverty of tens of thousands of years only recently in human history. Humans are not so stupid that they couldn’t figure out how to dispose of nuclear waste for “tens of thousands of years.” Sheesh. In any event, the current storage protocols of nuclear waste has been exemplary.
How fear of nuclear power is hurting the environment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZXUR4z2P9w