TORONTO 407 opens 67km and passes 200k trips/day

TORONTO

407 opens 67km and passes 200k trips/day

After a year of tolling on Toronto’s 407 Express Toll Route (ETR) 67km (41mi) of the first phase is open and weekday trips have reached 200k/day. 36km of the central section of the road opened for traffic Jun 7 97 without toll. Up to 300k trips/day were registered on 407-free.

Traffic plummeted spectacularly to 110k trips/day when tolls began Oct 14. Traffic was flat for a few months but has been heading up steeply all this year, in part because another 31km has been opened in three stages. In the first week of Sept, with the last 11km stretch open, trips averaged 196k/day. The last stretch opened Sept 4 at the western end provides the toll road with excellent connections to the motorway network in the west, but there are poor connections at the eastern end. A final 2km leg is built but barriered off because the provincial authorities say traffic would disrupt a local community. They want the highway extended eastward and then connected south to H401, the east-west megaroad of Ontario.

407ETR traffic is now running above the forecasts made in the planning stage, but no financial results have been published. The project was designed, and is operated by the private sector, but is owned by the province. Feb 20 this year the provincial gov announced its intention to privatize the road and to have the private sector finance major extensions east and west. Only on Aug 28 did they announce appointment of financial advisers for the divestiture, so this appears to be moving slowly. (The advisers are Merrill Lynch Canada and RBD Dominion.)

Jennifer D’Angelo, Canadian Hwys head of operations on the road told us recently the advanced tolling systems in use on the highway are “working great.” Close to 70% of trips are now tolled by transponder, the balance by video license plate recognition and bill-by-mail. The toll road is unique in the world for having no onsite toll collection at all, but is open to occasional users without transponders through the video toll system. 407ETR is an example of some of the best features of modern urban motorway design. It has 29 interchanges in its 67km so it taps and feeds the local street system well, distributing traffic better than traditional toll roads with widely spaced ICs. The facility is a mix of 2x3 and 2x2-mainline lanes (with empty median space to go to 2x5-lanes.) It flows freely because of good accel/decel lanes, multi-lane ramps, the acute-angle bridging (or ‘basketweave’) of close entry and exit ramps and several 3-level ICs which reduce weaving turbulence by avoiding adjacent loops on both intersecting facilities.

407ETR operates varied toll rates, with rush hours being 10c/km, other weekday time 7c and night-times and weekends 4c (all c-Can about 0.7USc.) The system uses a trip toll method registering entries and exits with toll equipment mounted on gantries over the 127 entry and exit ramps which operate at full highway speeds. A central system matches entry and exit registrations, and computes the trip toll.

Variable toll rates, automatic video tolling, and toll-by-mail have been readily accepted in a 4m pop community that has never had an automobile-era toll facility previously. (Contacts Pamela Wing OTCC 407ETR 416 326 9384, Jodie Parmar, Privatization Office 416 325 2189)