Blanshard + Douglas Freeway.

Our slighty-crazy, totally-serious plan to overhaul Blanshard + Douglas Streets in Victoria BC, that I envisioned in 1997.
Tell me why this won't work (constructively).

Basics:

North-South Route is given priority. All Traffic Lights are removed
Blanshard St. will become Northbound ONLY.
Douglas St. will become Southbound ONLY.
All cross-traffic must cross at an overpass, or turn right onto Blanshard / Douglas, then merge left, and exit at one of the MANY U-Turn streets.
23 U-Turn Routes between Blanshard+Douglas on existing streets
To reduce the number of lane changes to only 2, Blanshard + Douglas would remain only 3 travel lanes wide. With the Left-most and right-most lanes used only for merging.
On ~5 "Major Crossings"(Such as Ravine, Finlayson, Bay, Yates, and Fort), build straight-through overpasses or tunnels. There is not enough room for approach lanes at these overpasses, you can only cross, no turns, no cloverleafs. Cheap, Simple.
The "Super Cheap Trench Overpass" Pictured below are constructed in Africa for only $82,0000.

Concerns:

Number of Lane Changes.
Cost
Buried Utilities at underpasses
Pedestrian Crossings. Tunnels??
This is a unique idea. There are no other cities who's example we can follow.

UTurn And Lane Design:

I am contemplating each U-Turn road being East OR West Bound only, alternating so that all that is happening at each is EITHER entering or exiting. Not Both. Less Risk of accidents.

The Plan + Lane Split:

The two way sections of the road would split like they do at Uptown, where Blandshard becomes Vernon+Blanshard
Red is Blanshard (Northbound). Teal is Douglas (Southbound). Purple are the major intersections with SIMPLE overpasses. Navy is U-Turn Routes.

Plan

Overpass Budget:

The McKenzie interchange (for example) has been 2 years now just to build:

Approach lanes,
Galloping Goose overpass,
Temporary lights +Routes,
Widenning major sections,
Blasting rock,
Retaining walls,
Massive Cloverleaf,
etc.etc.

They haven't even BEGUN the overpass yet. Bridges are simple.

We don't need to do ANY of that. All this plan needs is 10 bridges, as indicated in my Examples below.

Cheap Overpasses:

Most of the cost of an overpass is in the Approaches, Lights, Cloverleafs, Curbs, etc etc etc.

The Bridge is a TINY portion of that. We are simply digging a trench+tunnel under, or building a two lane overpass over Blandshard+Douglas in these 5 "major Crossings".

We ONLY need 10 straight-through bridges for this plan.