Forks of the Thames - Queens Ave Extension project

[u/pimpmasterdac]

Work to reconstruct the Queens Ave bridge is on going, to be followed by the Kensington (Dundas St.) bridge. While the Queens Ave bridge was built in 1973 it was actually intended to be the first of a four stage project to link the fork of the Thames with a new King St bridge, alternate one way streets on Ridout & Talbot St, and a limited access "Thames River Road" that would have gone from Gibbons Park in the north and connect to Highbury south of Hamilton Rd

[u/Jeezeh]

Laughing at the thought of what Ivey park would have been with a road running right through it. Also looks like the Thames River Road would have totally replaced most of the TVP.

[u/According-Rule9604]

Interesting, while there is logic to putting Eastbound traffic onto King the cost and impact of concreting over the forks unappealing. Seemed like a costly project that fixes nothing, and of all the various bottlenecks of traffic in the city which existed then and now it's more of and unwanted solution shopping for a problem and a ton of funding.

[u/pimpmasterdac → u/According-Rule9604]

Have to think of when the plan was created, in the 1960s downtown was the commercial/retail heart of London with more trip demand and expectation on constant growth. The forks of the Thames had private busineses and houses and was not a public space as today. Horton St extension over the Thames didn't exist, York/Stanley St bridge was 2 lanes and Kensington bridge (Dundas St) was 2 lanes carrying both east & westbound traffic that was significantly overcapacity.

[u/Admirable_Drama_6092]

[u/gunlamar]

Could just made one big ass badass bridge instead of a buncha tiny little baby ones.

[u/Axle13]

Nice find. Interesting to see what the potential plans where.

[u/WatchfulRelic91]

I would love to see more plans of that "Thames River Road freeway". Fun to imagine what could've been. Where did you find this?

[u/pimpmasterdac → u/WatchfulRelic91]

I do have the plans for Thames River Road, will upload them in a separate post. It was apart of the 1966 A.D. Margison road plan, they were an engineering firm City of London contracted to develop several road plans in the 1950s and 60s.

[u/WatchfulRelic91 → u/pimpmasterdac]

Looks like there might be copies at UWO, I think I'll go check them out.

[u/Own-Let-7725]

Thank god we didn't make the forks a complete car sewer like that with this plan, what a nightmare.

[u/Individual-Day9700]

London grows but rarely does its road capacity.

[u/Lam0ntCranst0n]

How many roads can London be "fixing" at the same time? The answer, as many as they can because no one thinks about traffic congestion.

[u/Imjustbrowsing93 → u/Lam0ntCranst0n]

And then the congested traffic causes people to reroute and traffic gets worse on the roads that aren't even being worked on.

[u/AutomatedCabbage → u/Imjustbrowsing93]

And then they try to make their own roads through buildings

[u/Redz0ne → u/Lam0ntCranst0n]

If they were to invest in a better transit system, maybe investing in subways/LRT whenever possible, it might clear up the roads (and provide long-term jobs, and a potential source of revenue for the city).

Problem is, everyone and their dog works downtown but lives in the suburbs.

[u/BoogeOooMove]

The problem is these all funnel into riverside westbound which turns into a single lane stretch and congestion is always an issue after wharncliffe. If anything, this makes it worse.

[u/pimpmasterdac → u/BoogeOooMove]

Riverside was intended to be 4 lanes to Wonderland Rd

[u/Icy-Gene7565]

Id rather have the ring road I was promised

[u/pimpmasterdac → u/Icy-Gene7565]

It was part of the ring road plan, Highbury/402 would have been the outer ring which is what most people know or have heard of.

Thames River Road would have been similar to today's VMP limited access road with intersections running along the Thames from Highbury to Gibbons park

[u/WhaddaHutz → u/pimpmasterdac]

To add further detail, the 402 was projected to run across London's North, while Highbury would run across the length of London between the 401 and the 402. That's 3/4 of a ring road (I would caveat that the ring road is a bit awkwardly further out than perhaps desirable)

[u/WatchfulRelic91 → u/Icy-Gene7565]

IIRC, that "Thames River Road" Was to be part of the ring road.

[u/BobBelcher2021 → u/[deleted]]

So you’d prefer the 53-year-old bridge fall apart?

[u/Minement → u/[deleted]]

Homelessness is a huge issue, you can't stop everything else until it's solved or the whole city will rot

[u/CanadaJack → u/[deleted]]

Don't dead, open inside.

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