I have a mild interest in civil planning, especially the placement and construction of roads. Mainly because I drive a lot. So when I see construction happening in my area I'm always curious about what it going on, what issue its addressing, and how will it affect me.
So lately while driving on the back road of Flewellyn south of Stittsville (Note: people not living in Ottawa may find this post very boring. And so may everyone else. Tough. This is my blog. ) I noticed some construction and thought nothing of it. Another house perhaps. But later in the week I was driving on Highway 7 near where it connects with the Queensway and I noticed some serious preparations for roadwork including a swath blazed through some trees heading north and south. Interesting, I thought, I wonder what they are doing here.
Next time on Flewellyn I noticed the construction again and thought it seemed to be something larger than just setting up for a house contruction. I pondered and noticed that the construction on Flewellyn was approximately directly south of the road construction on Highway 7. I suspected they may have been part of the same project despite being very far apart.
A quick trip to Google Maps (satellite) confirmed my suspicions. The swath of trees removed that starts at Highway 7 cuts down with a few minor curves to the location of the construction at Flewellyn where it seems to come to an end. North of 7 it goes on for miles and miles until I finally gave up follwoing it. That's a major north-south road and I'm not exactly sure what prompted it besides the need for a new interchange at 7 due to the fact it is being expanded to four lanes all the way to Ashton Station road over the next couple years.
Regardless, the net effect on me for the near term seems to be nothing more than construction delays since I travel almost exclusively East and West. But it interests me nonetheless.
1 comment:
Apparently the Ottawa area is expecting an awful lot of growth to the south over the next decade - something like 50000-80000 people according to the estimates that councillors have been spurting in defense of the light rail projects.
Couple this with the fact that the north-south infrastructure is terrible right now, and it's a recipe for impending gridlock. I would guess that new roads are being put in place to try to address this.
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Driving through New Brunswick last week I got to see a major new road in progress as well - it's really neat to see how the thing will eventually work.
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