Northbound Red Hill Valley Parkway – Differences Between Old & Re-Paved Surfaces
Gorski Consulting tested the old surface of the northbound Red Hill Valley Parkway in Hamilton, Ontario and then re-tested the surface after it was re-paved. This article discusses some of the differences.
This view of the northound lanes of the Red Hill Valley was taken during testing by Gorski Consulting on June 16, 2019 just after the surface was re-paved.
The table below shows the data from the old surface that was obtained from testing on May 15, 2019. This was just before the roadway was shut down in preparation for re-paving.
The table below shows the data from the newly, re-paved, northbound surface from testing obtained June 16, 2019. This was at a time when the southbound lanes were still to be re-paved.
Comparing the two tables it can be noted that the reported testing commenced at an “earlier” location (i.e. further westward) in the May 15th testing on the old surface. The first row of the May 15th data shows a portion of the 30 seconds of travel where the first 21.5 seconds were obtained from west of the Pritchard Road overpass. This portion of the surface produced the highest motion of the test vehicle (Lateral Rotation = 0.0309, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0190). In contrast the data from June 16th (on the newly paved surface) begins after passing the Pritchard Road overpass and the first data is from 10 seconds west of the Mud Street overpass. This difference in starting points was part of the reason why there was such a difference in the “Overall” averages of motion. While we are not aware of the specific boundary where the Lincoln Alexander Parkway becomes defined as the Red Hill Valley Parkway, the larger vehicle motions caused on the surface west of Pritchard are more consistent with the higher motions obtained throughout the Lincoln Alexander Parkway.
Comparisons can begin to be made when the test vehicle approaches the Mud Street overpass. In the table of the old surface data, the second row indicates that the road segment begins at 5.65 seconds before reaching the Mud Street overpass. At a speed of 86 km/h (23.9 metres per second) this means that the reported segment started at 135 metres west of Mud Street. In contrast the road segment in the first row of the table from the re-paved surface began at 10.0 seconds prior to reaching the Mud Street overpass. At an average of 88 km/h (24.4 metres per second) this means that we started documenting the data at about 244 metres prior to reaching the Mud Street overpass. So, this means that the documenting of the data from the re-paved surface began about 109 metres earlier. In other words, the second row of data of the old surface is comparable to the first row of data of the re-paved surface, except that the new data was started about 109 metres further west (i.e. “earlier”).
When we look at those two road segments starting west of Mud Street, we can note following vehicle motions:
Old Surface: Lateral Rotation = 0.0290, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0116
New Surface: Lateral Rotation = 0.0129, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0093
So there is a reduced level of motion of the test vehicle on the re-paved surface, particularly in the lateral motion.
The old surface data shows that the next seven road segments (i.e. next 7 rows of data) are illustrated in a green colour meaning that they are below 0.0200 radians per second. So this means that the surfaces of the road segments are in good condition. The distance over these seven road segments goes from 582 metres north of Mud Street to 765 metres north of Queenston Road. Taking the average of all these seven road segments gives us the following average: Lateral Rotation = 0.0152, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0127.
In comparison we can look at the seven road segments from the table of re-paved surfaces: from 489 metres north of Mud Street to 892 metres north of Queenston Road. Taking the average of all seven road road segments gives us the following: Lateral Rotation = 0.0133, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0101.
Comparing the differences in these averages shows that there has been an improvement, as expected, in the surface of the Red Hill Valley Parkway, after the re-paving was completed. Yet, the quality of the surface before the re-paving was “not bad”, or well below the 0.0200 threshold.
We can make a further comparison of the Red Hill Valley data to the data that we obtained on May 5, 2019 on the westbound Highway 401 from Wonderland Road to Tilbury, Ontario. This data was reported in a news article of May 29, 2019 entitled “Additional Road Data From Westbound Highway 401 Testing”. The overall average of the Highway 401 data was: Lateral Rotation = 0.0126, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0096. We would consider this data as the “gold standard” for road surfaces because there is no other road data that we have collected which produced lower test-vehicle motions at highway speeds.
We can see that the re-paved Red Hill Valley road segments are not far behind the quality of the Highway 401 data. The lateral rotation on the Red Hill Valley was 0.0133 versus Highway 401 which was 0.0126. And for the Longitudinal rotation the Red Hill Valley was 0.0101 while Highway 401 was 0.0096. All these values are well below the 0.0200 threshold for what we defined to be a “good” road surface. Furthermore, the old surface of the Red Hill Valley was of lower quality but certainly well below the 0.0200 threshold and much lower than the results obtained from testing along the Lincoln Alexander Parkway.
Testing Of Re-Paved, Northbound Red Hill Valley Parkway
No obvious problems were detected when the re-paved, northbound Red Hill Valley Parkway was re-tested on June 16, 2019. This is the conclusion drawn after Gorski Consulting conducted testing in response to a driving instructor’s complaint to the Hamilton Spectator newspaper that the re-paved surface was “a disaster”. The “Letter-to-the Editor” of the Hamilton Spectator is shown below:
“Newly-paved road a disaster
RE: Red Hill
I had the displeasure of using the newly-paved downbound portion of the Red Hill Expressway. It is a disaster.
In my normal day of work, I teach bus and truck driving for a large trucking company here in Hamilton. Today I transferred one bus to London and returned with another to Hamilton. The bus is a beautiful Thomas coach. I had no trouble driving and handling it from London via 401, then 403 to the Linc in Hamilton. But once getting onto the new pavement of the Red Hill downbound, it felt as if my tires were out of balance and the steering started to shimmy, plus the ride was a bit bouncy. My conclusion is that the paving was rushed and not tested at high-speed driving. This is why the pavement is uneven. I predict that there will be some anxious moments by drivers in the next few days.
To further exacerbate the Red Hill’s downbound problem, the road marking where the road comes up to Barton Street is incorrectly painted. This intersection since its inception has had three lanes, one left turning lane, middle lane turning both left or right, and the curb lane turning right. The pavement markings were correct prior to repaving. But now there are two left turning lanes and one right turning lane despite the signage on the post advising drivers otherwise. Tsk, tsk, tsk, rushing things causes a big mess that will have to be corrected later.
I suggest that the City of Hamilton should have some big vehicle go downhill, obeying the speed limit and see what is the experience.
Dez Miklós, Hamilton”
On June 16, 2019, Gorski Conculting conducted testing along both the Lincoln Alexander and the Red Hill Valley Parkway, in the same manner as the previously-reported testing of May 15, 2019. The test vehicle was driven eastbound on the Lincoln Alexander then northbound on the Red Hill Valley. Since the southbound Red Hill Valley had not yet been re-paved the test vehicle was driven along Centennial Parkway back to the east end of the Lincoln Alexander and testing was conducted westbound back toward Highway 403. As per the previous testing of May 15th, the test results were separated into tables: eastbound Lincoln Alexander, northbound Red Hill Valley and westbound Lincoln Alexander. These tables are shown below.
It can be recalled from previous discussions that values in green that are below 0.0200 radians per second indicate a road surface that is generally in good conditions. Values in black that are from 0.0200 to 0.0500 indicate that some problems likely exist in the road segment. Values in red that are at 0.0500 and above indicate that the road segment contains major problems through a large portion of the measured distance.
High-speed, controlled-access expressways such as those shown in these tables should exhibit the highest levels of service and should generally not exhibit averages above 0.0200 radians per second. It is clear that a number of road segments along the Lincoln Alexander Parkway contain values well above 0.0200 and one, along westbound Dartnall Road contained an average well over 0.0400 radians per second.
None of the data along the re-paved, northbound portion of the Red Hill Valley Parkway indicated any obvious problems. The complainant who wrote to the Hamilton Spectator newspaper was driving a large bus at the time of his experience and this vehicle is obviously quite different than the mid-sized, 2007 Buick Allure that was used in the testing by Gorski Consulting. There may be special conditions that might develop that may not be detected due to the differences in the vehicles being used. Unfortunately we are not in a position to locate the complainant and obtain further information about his experience.
Further discussions about these data and comparisons to other tested highways will be provided in future articles on the Gorski Consulting website.
Nothing Said of Third “Drowning” Victim in Leamington Crash
If not for the Windsor Star newspaper there would be no news what-so-ever of the triple “drowning” crash of June 16, 2019 near Leamington, Ontario. In fact not even the Windsor Star could confirm that all three occupants who were trapped in an upside down car in a roadside ditch actually drowned. The Windsor Star reported that “OPP technical collision investigators examined the crash site extensively” yet the Star also reported that “OPP have released few details about the incident”. The only objective information was left to generic photos taken from GoogleMaps and displayed in the Windsor Star article, such as the one below.
The Windsor Star caption accompanying the above photo read ” A June 2014 Google Maps image of the water-filled ditch on the east side of the intersection of Mersea Roads 1 and 19 near Leamington”. A photo from 2014? Thus it appears no one could actually attend the site to get a currrent photo of its present status.
This is an appauling example of the apathy surrounding the deaths of three teenagers from a dangerous roadside condition. Clearly a barrier is warranted at such a location and the OPP investigators or any technical investigators should be aware of that fact. If the teenagers had been killed by a drunk driver there would have been ample publicity by the OPP and news agencies throughout Ontario and beyond, and rightfully so. But clearly the picking and choosing of dangerous factors to publicize for the public’s consumption cannot be the role of police or official news agencies. When it is altered news it is no better than fake news.
The Windsor Star needs to be congratulated in keeping the public from the dark while no other news agency dared to report on this terrible tragedy.
Red Hill Valley & Lincoln Alexander Parkways – Detailed Tables of Surface Conditions
Attached in this article are the tables of individual, road-segment, surface-condition data obtained by Gorski Consulting during testing on May 15, 2019.
The first table contains data for the eastbound Lincoln Alexander Parkway.
The next table contains data for the westbound Lincoln Alexander Parkway.
The next table contains data for the northbound Red Hill Valley Parkway.
The final table, below, contains data for the southbound Red Hill Valley Parkway.
Different colour coding has been traditionally used in the Gorski Consulting Road Data to provide a quick illumination of road differences. In all four tables the data in green indicate that the road segment produced a low level of lateral and longitudinal motion of the test vehicle, below 0.0200 radians per second. Values between 0.0200 and 0.0500 have traditionally be displayed in black to signify less than ideal conditions that would likely contain some local problem areas within the road segment. If a road segment contained an average motion that was over 0.0500 then it would be displayed in red. Such a condition would generally indicate that there are major problems in the condition of the surface through a large portion of the road segment .It can be noted that none of the averages of any of the road segments are displayed in red.
There are several cautions that need to be mentioned when interpreting this data. The obvious caution is that it only displays the condition of the road interacting with the test vehicle’s tires. Thus it does not provide an indication of what problems may exist in a particular lane that have not been contacted by the test vehicle. While this may be a shortcoming, it also reflects the important issue that we would want to know what portions of a road surface are relevant to the typical travel path of a vehicle. It is important to recognize that this data is obtained from the motion of a passenger car and the motions caused in other vehicles may be different. So the motions of a large bus, heavy truck or motorcycle may be influenced differently from the passenger car in this testing.
Also the average of the motions shown in the attached tables provide very little information about specfic, local portions of roadway that may contain very rough or very smooth areas. At highway speeds of 90 km/h a vehicle travels about 25 metres per second. In the 30-second segments of roadway this represents a distance of about 750 metres. Thus many areas within that distance could contain substantial differences in their character compared to the reported average. It is essential to examine the charts of the motions, which display data at about 30 samples per second, to detect if local problems exist in a particular road segment.
As an example, the chart below shows the specific data for the westbound segment of the Lincoln Alexander Parkway between Dartnall Rd and Upper Ottawa Street. The table of average motions (shown above) indated that the average motions for this road segment were as follows: Lateral Rotation = 0.0345, Longitudinal = 0.0144. Yet looking at the actual chart of individual motions some differences emerge.
What can be seen in the above chart is there appears to be large spike in the motion data approximately in the middle of the data. The data in the first half of the chart seems to show much less motion than the data following the noted spike.
When we look closer at the first half of the data, before the spike, we get the following averages: Lateral Rotation = 0.0231, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0105. We can then compare this to the averages in the second half of the chart, after (and including) the spike: Lateral Rotation = 0.0427, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0173.
We can even look closer at the narrow band of data for the half-second interval surrounding the spike and obtain the following motions: Lateral Rotation = 0.1187, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0316.
So, clearly, what the data shows is that the westbound test vehicle moves from a length of roadway which is relatively smooth, as demonstrated in the first half of the data, then the vehicle experiences a major spike in its motion, followed by an increase in the vehicle’s motion through the remainder of the road segment. In our view, the spike may be the boundry line between the newer and smoother pavement of the Red Hill Valley and the older and rougher pavement of the Lincoln Alexander Parkway. One could explore this further by examining old photos of the Parkways and seeing where the paving began when the Red Hill Valley was being constructed. If the road segment was 750 metres long and if the spike occurred at approximately halfway, then the spike should be approximately 375 metres before reaching the Ottawa St overpass, as shown using the GoogleMaps measuring procedure below.
Since video cameras were also functioning while this data was being collected we would also be able to view those and determine precisely where this spike occurred. However we need not proceed to that detail given the illustrative nature of this exercise. Even if we are wrong in our interpretation, the point is that the methods shown here demonstrate how we can use the Gorski Consulting Road Data, video footage and other resources such as GoogleMaps to conduct detailed studies of roadways and their surfaces. The costs of conducting such activities are low in terms of the equipment needed. The major expense is in the time required to conduct the testing and, even more so, the time required to process the data. Yet it is rather non-invasive in that no traffic has been disturbed and most drivers would not even detect that road meaurements were being gathered except for the unusual number of video cameras mounted inside and outside of the test vehicle.
A recent complaint was sent to the Hamilton Spectator newspaper from an experienced bus/truck driving instructor who observed some unusual motions of his bus as it travelled through the newly-paved, northbound portion of the Red Hill Valley Parkway. Given the credentials of the complainant we thought it was worthwhile to return and conduct further testing to determine if the complainant’s comments were valid. As a result another testing session was conducted on June 16, 2019 along the northbound Red Hilll Valley Parkway and also along both directions of the Lincoln Alexander Parkway. Analysis of this additonal testing still needs to be commenced and it is likely to be time-consuming. However it may be worthwhile to examine the data on the Red Hill Valley Parkway before and after the re-paving of the surface. We hope readers stay tuned to obtain the data from that additional testing which will be posted on this Gorski Consulting website in the near future.
Full Testing Results Completed For Lincoln Alexander & Red Hill Valley Parkways – Details Shortly
The full results from testing on the Lincoln Alexander and Red Hill Valley Parkways have now been obtained from testing conducted on May 15, 2019. Earlier we reported on the test results from the eastbound Lincoln Alexander and the northbound Red Hill Valley. Now we have also completed our analysis of the southbound Red Hill Valley and the westbound Lincoln Alexander. Detailed tables of the results will be displayed shortly in a separate news item. In the meantime the overall results, separated into the four main road segments, are shown below.
EB Linc Alex Parkway: Lateral Rotation = 0.0263, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0133
WB Linc Alex Parkway: Lateral Rotation = 0.0272, Longitudinal Rotation = o.0140
Northbound Red Hill Valley Parkway: Lateral Rotation = 0.0190, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0139
Southbound Red Hill Valley Parkway: Lateral Rotation = 0.0165, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0130
What should be obvious in these broad values is that the overall condition of the surface of the Red Hill Valley Parkway is in “better” condition that the Lincoln Alexander Parkway. However there were large differences noted in the specific road segments of each road that are being hidden by the general values noted above. The worst road segment was found to be along the westbound Lincoln Alexander Parkway near the Upper Sherman Ave overpass where the surface values were: Lateral Rotation= 0.0467, Longitudinal Rotation = 0.0259.
Further details of these results will be posted shortly.
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