1. PROJECT INFORMATION
A description of the project being reviewed
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1.2 Name and extent of the project 1.3 Project description |
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1.1 Foreword This report documents a safety review of a significant highway project prior to its opening. The mandate of the Highway 407 Safety Review Committee was to carry out the review from a safety perspective, and we did not attempt to examine such broader considerations as levels of service and economics. Nor did we examine questions of responsibility, authority, legal obligation, or related matters, since these were neither relevant to a safety evaluation of the road, nor to the technical mandate of our committee.
Our findings address two interrelated issues:
Finally, we stress that the instructive advice from this review can be applied more broadly than just to Highway 407. Our findings also touch on issues relating to the way in which road safety is considered during the highway design process generally. We have deliberately chosen to express our opinions on this issue clearly and unequivocally. This part of our work is aimed at the highway engineering design community at large. It is our hope that they will read, understand, and translate this message into direct action so that safety is considered explicitly in the design process.
1.2 Name and extent of the project The project comprised a review of Highway 407 in the Province of Ontario from Highway 410 at the westerly limit to Highway 404 at the easterly limit. The length of the section of highway reviewed was approximately 36 kilometres (km). Both the main roadway and interchange elements (see Glossary, Appendix A) of this section were included in the review.
1.3 Project description This project is the first public-private partnership in Ontario for a highway of this type. The owner of the highway is the Ontario Transportation Capital Corporation (OTCC) and the developer is Canadian Highways International Corporation (CHIC). These parties are described further in Chapter 5 of this report.
The 36km section of Highway 407 reviewed is part of an overall 69km route. This section is expected to be developed in three phases. For design purposes, it has been classified as a rural freeway divided (RFD), with a mainline design speed of 120km/h. In the initial phase of its development, it is a controlled-access freeway providing three continuous lanes in each direction. A number of interchanges are provided with other freeways and major arterial roads on the surrounding street network.
The freeway will evolve from this initial stage to a 10-lane (five in each direction) facility, at which time the road will be essentially urban in character in terms of its environment and cross-section features. Additional interchanges may be developed as the freeway evolves through Stages 2 and 3 of its development. Our review focused mainly on the physical design and construction of the road as presented in Stage 1.
A plan of the section of Highway 407 reviewed, intended to illustrate its physical extent and general relationship to the surrounding road network, is provided in Appendix B.
1.4 Ontario Provincial Police involvement This review was initiated partially as a result of several concerns raised by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). The committee met with the OPP in order to obtain a better understanding of their concerns. Many of these concerns and other issues arising from our review are addressed in Chapter 6 of this report.
1.5 The safety review committee mandate The mandate of the PEO Highway 407 Safety Review Committee, as adopted by the PEO Executive Committee, is presented below.