Province of Ontario Research Thread

[GabrielT]

Hello,
I want to start this thread and have it in the list of public research. As I have time I will keep on adding stuff.

First off, in Canada, it is the responsibility of the province to plan, build and maintain their roads through the provincial ministry of transportation.
In Ontario it is called the MTO ( Ministry of Transportation of Ontario).
"The King's Highway" is the name of the road system.

In my Opinion on how the province should be represented regarding SCALING at 1:20 :

For ATS at a 1:20 scale, we don't want to over pack the DLC because we would loose the sense of distance between areas of the province. I recommend the main trans-provincial roads only with spurs to some cities / industries along the way.

Highway 11, 17, 400 / 69 and the 401 are the main roads that would make sense in an Ontario DLC.

The 402, the QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way), the 416 and the 417 could finish off the DLC nicely.

As for the Golden Horseshoe (Niagara to Durham via Hamilton), I recommend only the QEW up to the 427 and up to the 401 at the Pearson International Airport area where most of the warehouses are. There could be a bit of Dixie Road where there is a real Flying J truck stop (only one in the area at Dixie and Britannia) and many companies around there.

I also believe that it should be Mississauga to be marked as a city and not Toronto because yes Toronto has lots of industries but I feel that the industries in Toronto are all over the place mixed within residential areas and trying to represent this at this scale would ruined the game experience, while having a certain hub around Dixie Road could make it to represent the Toronto area (this is my opinion);

in Toronto itself I only see the junction with the 401 / 400 and a somewhat representation of the collector / express system (but again at 1:20 it would be a very short representation... so maybe not)...
I don't recommend modeling the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway, again because of scaling issue BUT I will say that the downtown area offers Redpath Sugar and the port of Toronto (industries possible there and downtown outlook as well for a SCS viewpoint!!!).

I believe that the only main interchange within Toronto City would be the 401 @ 400 because the 400 (with a piece of the 69 which is by the way being twinned and that will become the 400 eventually) is the only expressway that links South Central Ontario to Sudbury (the door to Northern Ontario) and connect to Manitoba in Canadian Land only.

As for Durham, it would be good to implement the General Motors Oshawa Assembly Plant and the Darlington Nuclear Power plant.

My opinion on The "407 ETR":

In Ontario, we have one inter-regional major expressway owned and maintained by a private company. It is a tolled road with a state of the art toll collection system using cameras and your license plate; there are no booths (you receive the bill in your mail at the address linked to your license plate or you can also register with a transponder and pay the bill online).
407 ETR (express toll road) is its name. Vehicles having a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating of 5000 Kilograms and more driving on this road must have a transponder (yes, even if you don't have one, you still can go on the road, there are no physical barriers, but when the camera and employees find out, you will get a big fine on the bill.
In ATS, I am not sure that the 407 ETR is relevant because it is fairly close to the 401 and because the road is owned by a private company maybe there could be some licensing hurdle... however the latest eastern portion of the 407 is still a toll road but owned by the MTO as well as the 412 and the 418, but again too close to the 401, might as well ditch the 407 as a whole... (just my opinion)...

Others:

Right hand turns on a red light are permitted throughout the province.
Right hand turns on a red light are not permitted where prohibition signs are in place on the light pole (very rare though).

Ontario King's Highway Reassurance Shields example:



Ontario King's Highway Advance Approach Shields example:




work in progress, more to add

[GT182]

What border crossings to New York do you think should be represented on the ATS map?

My thoughts are Buffalo, Darlingside across Wellesley Island to I-81 south of Alexandria Bay, Johnstown to the west side of Ogdensburg, Cornwall to Rt 37 on the east side of Massena at Roosevelt Town.

I see the Province de Québec was mention and should be included too.

Dundee to Ft. Covington..... this is a small but well used crossing for cars and the big rigs. It's the only crossing I know of with a bar/restaurant divided by the border. And yes there is a white line on the floor signifying the border. The main border crossing to Montreal is at Champlain, NY with I-87. And a smaller one at Rouses Point which also is the crossing point to northern Vermont across Lake Champlain..... the home of Champ, Nessie's long lost cousin. All of these are important to enter and exit Canada.

I lived in each "town" mentioned from Ogdensburg [when the St. Lawrence Seaway was being built] to Rouses Point. And Yes the Seaway should include the US/Canadian power dam and the dam that makes Lake St. Francis in the St. Lawrence River, both on the Robert Moses State Park. Well that's the original name given, but it was changed in the 90s after I moved way. Plus at least the Eisenhower Lock, Barnhart Island (Robert Moses State Park). The Snell Lock is cut off to public access and it's parking lot is only used for storage.

Highways would be State Rt 12 from 81 to St Rt 37, Rt 11 from Watertown, NY to 37, and 37 continuing on to Malone, NY where is picks up the same Rt 11 from Watertown. Rt II continues on the it's end in Rouses Point. Turn left at the end and it Rt 2 thru town and into Vermont.

There is more but I'll wait until this discussion gets going more. Just use Google or a Bing Map of NY and you'll see all mentioned in detail.

At least I know there are 3 of us from the cold country. You, me, and another ATS member from Montreal. So my thanks GabrielT for starting this thread.

[GabrielT]

Hello to you sir, I really appreciate that you bring your own feedback on the topic

Ontario to New York State crossings at a 1:20 scale map, in my opinion, should be:

I-81 to the King Highway 137 in Hill Island / Alexandria Bay

I-190 to the King Highway 405 in Niagara-on-the-Lake / Lewiston OR QEW to I-190 in Fort Erie / Buffalo

I don't think that both crossings would fit at that scale and I believe that the most efficient way to get to I-90 from "let's say" the Greater Toronto Area is through the 405 at Niagara-on-the-Lake through the I-190 and I-290 combination... there is a toll bridge though at Grand Island, using a camera system called tollsbymailny.com... oh well the I-90 is tolled too so either way you have to pay... tolls will have to be implemented maybe they can put EZ-Pass lanes and regular booth lanes, let's see...

Cornwall is too close to Montréal and Ogdensburg is too close to I-81 crossing, so at 1:20 scale map the game map would be too much crammed and it is not good, we need a sense of distance between areas of the map.

The next crossing must be the Québec Autoroute 15 to I-87 in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle / Champlain, NY.

[GT182]

I believe you are correct because of the map scale SCS is using now. I was just throwing out border crossings to give an idea to what's there in NY for the 2 Provinces. Tho I hope that someday SCS changes the scale so more can be added. But going back, if you look at the Texas in the C2C mod, there is a lot there. Far more than what could or should be in Northern NY that is important.

Stay warm up there in Toronto.

[GabrielT]

Yes sir!

[GT182]

Yes I-81 to the King Highway 137 in Hill Island / Alexandria Bay is a must by all means. Ogdensburg is too close to Massena which is a must. Champlain/Blackpool is a must as it is the end of I-87. Rouses Point is a must due to Rt 11 ends there at the lake Rt 2 North carries over from there to the bridge crossing Lake Champlain and on into VT, and onward to I-89 and Burlington, VT.

Trivia:
I bet many don't know that I-87 from Albany, well maybe Glens Falls, to Champlain, NY was the nations most scenic highway in 1966 and 1967.

[IamTheOne]

Would you include Cornwall, together with the 138?

[GT182]

I would.

[Bob123412]

My two cents

Now I can't comment on northern Ontario because I rarely strayed from the 401 but from my experiences...

Borders:

Sarina ON/ Port Huron MI
Windsor ON/ Detroit MI
Queenston ON/ Lewiston NY (Niagara Falls)
Lansdowne ON/ Alexandria Bay NY
Now I never used any of the smaller ones but I would probably include Cornwall aswell as It is in the middle between Champlain and Lansdowne

Cities I frequented:
Ottawa
Cornwall
Kingston
Cambridge/Kitchener
Hamilton
London

To Address the GTA Issue.

If You look at other areas that have been released sch as San Fran or Seattle, Looking on google a lot of the cities clustered in that area are just as close together. In fact the 405/5 in Seattle are slightly father apart than the 401/407 (according to google). A little bit of distortion I don't think anyone would really care to much.

The easy way out would be call the whole area "The Greater Toronto Area" and just scatter a whole load of industries and warehouses across the whole region. However I think It should be divided as follows

Mississauga/Etobicoke/Oakville
Toronto
Vaughn
Brampton
And Some Combination of Pickering/Ajax/Whitby/Oshawa

[GabrielT]

Thanks for adding your view on the topic!!!!