“KILLER HIGHWAY”

Toronto’s 407 not as bad as the cops & tabloids said —may open after all...

Toronto’s splendid new toll road 407-ETR (Express Toll Route) seems likely to open shortly — after a great hullaballoo about its safety last November and delays in getting the complex toll system tweaked (see TR#10 Dec 96 p7 “Safety sex & software”). The safety issue raised by middle level provincial police had the city’s tabloid newspapers and local TV calling the new toll road the “Killer Highway” because it lacked a central median barrier and protection for lighting masts and piers, had tight ramps and concrete pavement that lacked the traction of familiar bitumen. In response the provincial transport minister appointed an independent safety panel to revniew and report. It did so early this month — with a very thoughtful, thorough if wordy report, which transport minister Al Palladini characterized as giving the new road a “passing grade.”

The panel from Professional Engineers Ontario dismissed the suggestion that the concrete pavement lacked traction and that a central barrier would improve safety in a median of this width (22m), refuting the most sensational charges made by the police. Most of the ramps met accepted standards of radius but it found one loop that was way too sharp and underbanked, and another a bit sub-standard. But it pointed out that other features of the road went beyond the safety standards of similar roads, citing high mast illumination of all the interchanges and the extent of paved shoulders. It found fault in the shaping of slopes and wanted more end-barrier cushioning and edge rumble strips. But it said the road was as safe as other 400-series highways — the best motorway standard roads in the country.

The panel did not lay blame for inadequacies on any particular group. The design-build team and franchisee inherited a lot of design and even one interchange that the government got built before it brought in the private sector developers. The PEO report raises issues of importance to all road design not just 407 and is essential reading for anyone in the highway safety business. (see Excerpts)

Software: Meanwhile scaremongers haven’t been the only delaying factor. There was also software. System integrator Hughes said March 20 that full systems testing would not be completed until “a number of weeks beyond the original March 31 contract delivery date” adding: “Resolution of complicated technical issues surrounding the integration of the many innovative subsystems involved, which Hughes now believes have been essentially resolved, were responsible for the delay.”

This a PR-ese for problems with sub Bell, the toll revenue management software contractor and with Mark IV over deployment of its system in the demanding openroad, close-spaced interchange conditions on 407-ETR, and difficulties in getting the Hughes and Mark IV equipment to work together. Hughes added: “Performance testing on the Highway 407 has demonstrated that the toll system already meets, and in many cases exceeds, most of the stringent requirements specified in the contract with the Ontario Transportation Capital Corporation (OTCC).”

This tolling system will introduce a new toll technology to the world by combining transponder tolling of regular users with automatic license plate recognition of occasional users. John Belcher of Hughes of Canada called the system “the first truly open-road, free-flowing toll system in the world,” predicting “no stopping, slowing, queuing or merging of traffic, only a smooth, highly efficient method of communicating between the in-vehicle transponders and the roadside equipment. The system will provide low-cost, highly reliable toll collection without affecting traffic flow or requiring costly construction and maintenance of toll booths.”

Highway 407 is a 6-lane, electronic toll highway running 69 kilometres across the greater Toronto area, from Hwy 403 in Oakville to Hwy 48 in Markham. The first 36 km section now ready for opening extends from Hwy 410 in the west to Hwy 404 in the east. Designed initially to accommodate some 55k vehs/day 407-ETR will offer drivers an alternative to Hwy 401 the overcrowded east-west spinal route of the greater Toronto area. The new road has 127 bridges, 125 entry and exit ramps, and 29 interchanges, crossing a total of 13 rivers and creeks and 18 railway lines. Work is underway on the extensions on either end of the first section and the full 69km is due to be complete early 1999. (Contact Amorell Saunders OTCC 416 326 9050)

Excerpts from safety report

‘We think that roads can be built safer or less safe, but that a road cannot be classified simply as being either safe or unsafe. Meeting minimum standards does not guarantee that a road is sufficiently safe. Conversely, not meeting a minimum standard does not necessarily imply that the road is unsafe. We often know the direction in which safety is likely to change if some road design feature is altered. However, current knowledge about the amount of safety gain or loss that comes from a change in some road feature is imprecise. Also, the design choices engineers make imply trade-offs between life, limb and economics, a judgment that is at best difficult.

‘Engineering standards are important tools to help designers generate superior designs. However...engineering standards do not determine the dimensions for any given design. That is the designer’s responsibility. The role of design standards is to provide information and background to assist the designer in choosing the appropriate features, dimensions and materials for a given design. Minimum standards represent a lower limit (minimum width, for example). Designers should not go below these minimums without explicitly justifying why.

‘Simply put, dimensions that do not meet standards are not necessarily unacceptable - and dimensions that meet standards do not guarantee an acceptable design. In assessing the quality of an existing design, it is not appropriate simply to consider a checklist of standards. The design has to be reviewed with judgment...Almost all designs can likely be modified to produce a safer facility, but there is a societal cost attached. Whether that cost is appropriate and acceptable is a matter of judgment, rather than simply a matter of evaluating which of two designs is “correct” or “incorrect”. In general, the more generous a highway design’s dimensions are, the safer the road will be; however, no matter how generous the dimensions, it is impossible to make a road completely safe, if by “safe” we mean a road on which we can guarantee that there will never be a collision. We can, however, design a road to provide a reasonable level of safety.

Safety relative: ‘In short, the notion of a “safe” road is largely a myth. Design should be viewed instead as a process whereby we can make roads “more safe” or “less safe”.

‘In reviewing the organization of the Highway 407 partnership, we had difficulties establishing which agency assumed the role of the “guardian of public safety”. Although our discussion revealed that safety was implicitly considered by all agencies, we could find no single body or agency that acted explicitly as the arbiter of public safety. In the traditional process, this responsibility clearly lay with MTO. This was not necessarily the case in the partnership context. The apparent loss of a specific organization with the responsibility and authority to act on matters of road safety is of concern to this committee.

‘Adherence to standards does not guarantee a sufficiently safe design. Non-compliance does not necessarily mean that a road is not sufficiently safe. Circumstances present themselves for which there is no ready-made answer. In such situations, careful analysis and research can prove to be a designer’s greatest ally.

‘The committee finds it disconcerting that decisions affecting the future safety of roads are so strongly influenced by the habit of designing to standards. This often means that minimum standards are just met. There is no reason to think that by meeting standards the appropriate level of safety is built into roads.

‘It is simply untrue that a road built to standards is as safe as it can be. With more money it can be made safer. The consequence is that someone must decide what the appropriate balance is between the expenditure of public money and the purchase of public safety. The government did not make this difficult decision, thereby placing the two consortia in the situation of having to find substantive cost savings while maintaining safety... the value-engineering reports argued that if the standard was still met after the change, the design was safe - even when the proposed change would.. increase accident frequency or severity. The expected safety consequences of the proposed changes to the MTO design were not quantified, nor were they subjected to a cost/benefit analysis. As a result, the expected safety consequences of the cost-cutting suggestions did not play an appropriate role in the process by which the highway evolved. (Full text www.peo.ont.ca)