Roads all the Rage at Province

A call for updated thinking around transportation from the Spec:

The Spectator’s View: A government obsessed with highways

What’s the best way to deal with growing congestion in the Golden Horseshoe? Back in the ’50s and ’60s, the answer was simple: Build more roads. Apparently, things haven’t changed much, at least not in the mind of the Ontario government. 

This week, Transportation Minister Bob Chiarelli outlined the latest “highway expansion options” for the Hamilton and Halton areas. The good news is that Queen’s Park seems to be leaning away from a new superhighway cutting through Halton, up the escarpment and across to Niagara. The bad news is the province can’t see past roads. More lanes from Hamilton to St. Catharines, a new highway between Highway 406 and Fort Erie, widening Highway 6 and widening to 10 lanes or even adding a second level to Highway 403 through Hamilton. 

No mention of rail. No mention of where an expanded GO might fit into taking cars off highways. Sooner or later, the government needs to recognize simply adding more highway won’t solve the problem. We need future thinking, not rear-view vision. 

Howard Elliott

December 21, 2012

mid-pen planning

Bridge across lake floated at planning meeting TheSpec.com - Local - Bridge across lake floated at planning meeting

Daniel Nolan, The Hamilton Spectator

BURLINGTON (Dec 2, 2009)

There's no shortage of ideas to relieve traffic congestion between Niagara and Toronto.

The group studying alternatives to a mid-peninsula highway between Fort Erie and Burlington has compiled 150 ideas from the public and municipalities, ranging from optimizing existing transportation links to new road infrastructures.

Now they need to narrow it down and make recommendations to the province by the end of 2010.

The ideas were on display last night at the last of three public information centres staged as part of the lengthy Niagara to GTA Corridor Planning and Environmental Assessment Study.

Dozens of people wandered through the centre at the Burlington Holiday Inn. The other information nights were held in Welland and Ancaster, which were on the route of a highway that was proposed by the former Conservative government, and shelved by the Liberals for this study.

Some new ideas:

* Upgrade Centennial Parkway to a freeway link.

* Build a 400 series highway between Niagara and Milton.

* Extend the Red Hill Valley Parkway to Fort Erie.

* Twin the Burlington Skyway Bridge.

* Build a Hamilton Bay tunnel.

* Build a bridge across Lake Ontario for cars and transit.

Transportation Ministry spokesperson Will MacKenzie said the group has received a "lot of good ideas," but noted that was the purpose of the process.

"We need to have the public involved to have the process work," he said. "If we say 'Do this, do that' and then people disagree then we have a big brouhaha."

The mid-peninsula highway was derailed partly because of Burlington's opposition to it impacting the Niagara Escarpment to link up with the Freeman interchange (QEW/403/407).

MacKenzie admitted a new highway has not been ruled out, but the province is looking at coping with growth in 2031.

"Even if it were recommended to be a highway, that doesn't mean a shovel will be in the ground two years from now," he said.

Royce Curry, a former member of the Halton Transport Development Committee, suggested a lake bridge between Oakville and St. Catharines. He believed it would end congestion where the QEW meets the 403.

He acknowledged it would take courage and admitted, "How many people do we have to do that?"

Mid Pen

[from an e-mail sent by the Ontario Public Interest Research Group at Brock University]

Photo of Red Hill Valley destruction, by Cees Van Gemerden

"For forty years the people of the greater Hamilton area fought long and hard against the creation of the Red Hill Expressway. Canada's second largest urban park, a UN recognized Biosphere, home to countless migratory bird, insects, and animals on native land, was lost to this cultures definition of "progress". This new highway in one of the regions most polluted places, is only existing health and environmental problems worse. Despite this, the failure to prevent the construction of the Red Hill Expressway was a success at bringing people from across the city together. People from different places, with different values, with different perspectives stood together. It is in this spirit of solidarity that our regional community has to stand up together once again and stop yet another highway from being built.

The Mid-Peninsula Highway has been part of Ontario Ministry of Transportation planning since as far back as the 1950s, but was resurrected in the early 1990s to relieve traffic congestion along the Queen Elizabeth Way, which runs through tender fruitlands and is not well-suited to expansion beyond its current configuration. The governments of Premier Mike Harris and Ernie Eves planned to fast-track the highway's construction, but the project has been delayed by the Dalton McGuinty government through re-initiating the environmental assessment that was completed by the previous governments.

The QEW-Highway 420 interchange has been once considered as the eastern terminus of the route (which could see the Mid-Peninsula bypass being signed as Highway 420), since the interchange is designed for westward expansion, however this has likely been dropped in favour of a routing directly to Fort Erie.

The route will most likely begin at Peace Bridge or its planned twin bridge in Fort Erie. It will then head west across the peninsula, crossing the Welland Canal and passing south of Hamilton to connect to Highway 403. Later, it is likely that it will either connect with Highway 407 on the northern edge of Burlington. It is expected that the City of Hamilton will extend the Red Hill Valley Parkway south to connect with the Mid-Peninsula Highway in Stoney Creek, and that an extension to Highway 401 in Milton will form the first leg of the GTA East-West Corridor

In an age of global warming, Kyoto targets, peak oil, loss of biodiversity, soil erosion, and a failing health care system, the last thing this province needs to be spending its resources on is yet another major highway. We need to pressure for transportation alternatives to reduce reliance on the automobile.

The Niagara to GTA Corridor Planning and Environmental Assessment Study http://niagara-gta.com/ (aka: The Mid-Peninsula Highway) is holding three public consultations in Hamilton Halton and Niagara within the next couple weeks to listen to the public feedback regarding Phase 1. They are:

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
4pm-8pm
Rockton World Fairground
812 Old Highway 8, Rockton

Thursday, June 14th, 2007
4pm-8pm
Quality Hotel St. Catharines
Chardonnay/ Concord Ballroom
327 Ontario St. St. Catharines

Monday, June 18th, 2007
4pm-8pm Holliday Inn Burlington
Halton Hall
3063 South Service Road, Burlington


If you can not make it to any of these events contact your local city councilor, and MPP

Find your MPP: "http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/go2.jsp?Page=/members/members_main&menuItem=mpps_header&locale=en"

More information on the proposed project: NGTA Project Team:
"http://www.niagara-gta.com"