Ministry of Transportation is indicating that the era of more roads is coming to an end. But more cars than ever are being sold.

News 100 greenBy Staff

February 27th, 2018

BURLINGTON, ON

 

The province is sending a no more roads message; is the public hearing?

If it happens in Hamilton – it impacts Burlington. The Councillors on the other side of the Bay got a letter from the Ministry of Transportation, Steven Del Duca indicating that the era of more roads is coming to an end.

The correspondence from the Minister was quietly received at the most recent Hamilton city council meeting. It said that future widening of the QEW and 403 requested by Hamilton are “dependent on further review and prioritization of expansion needs across the province”. Without those expansions, city staff say there’s no sense in trying to widen municipal expressways like the Red Hill Parkway.

QEW and 403

No more of this says the Ministry of Transportation. Double decking parts of the 403 leading into Hamilton isn’t in the cards this decade.

“Until the MTO improves the interchanges at the QEW and the number of lanes there and at the 403, it would be somewhat pointless to widen our facilities because the bottlenecks would still be in place,” the city’s manager of traffic operations told councillors in mid-January. “I think we have to sort of plan our facility to match the timing for their widening.”

Given the number of people who work in Burlington and live in Hamilton the traffic on the QEW, the 403 and the LINC are daily issues. Hamilton Mayor Eisenberger pleaded that the province give “high priority” to “the expansion of Highway 403 from two to three lanes between the Lincoln Alexander Parkway and Main Street both down bound and up bound.”

Del Duca noted that such widening had been recommended a few years ago by the larger study that rejected a new mid-peninsula highway (also still demanded by the city) but that the “recommendations are subject to environmental assessments and approvals before implementation timing to initiate this next phase will be dependent on further review and prioritization of expansion needs across the province.”

Hwy 5 and Hwy 6

A full interchange at Clappison’s Corners with a 2006 price tag of $75 million has been a Hamilton priority for years. It is the only thing that is going to prevent a mid-peninsula highway cutting through Kilbride.

Eisenberger’s pushed “the Ministry to re-prioritize upgrades to the Highway 5 and 6 interchange within the next five years.” A full interchange at Clappison’s Corners with a 2006 price tag of $75 million has been a city priority for well over a decade but it’s still not under construction.

Del Duca’s letter says it is “planned for 2022 and beyond” and that “timing to initiate construction will be dependent on the future review and prioritization of important infrastructure needs across the province.”
The provincial focus is clearly on expanding transit like LRT but some Hamilton councillors either haven’t gotten that message or don’t like it. Early in February, Queen’s Park abandoned the proposed Highway 413 from Milton to Vaughan that would have passed through Caledon well north of the 407 and that also dates back more than a decade.

The advocacy group Environmental Defence enthused that the cancellation “shows that there is growing provincial recognition that building complete communities rather than highway-led planning is better for our health, our shared climate and our wallet.”

The provincial decision came less than a month after Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner advised the province that more road building is counter-productive.

If it impacts Hamilton – Burlington feels the pinch.

What isn’t getting a lot of attention is the record vehicle sales – they have risen every year for the past five years.  Those vehicles are going to need roads to move on.  There is a crunch in there somewhere.

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4 comments to Ministry of Transportation is indicating that the era of more roads is coming to an end. But more cars than ever are being sold.

  • Susie

    Perhaps if the Government is announcing “the era of more roads is coming to an end”, then perhaps for proper balance, they should also be announcing that “hi-rises being built for population growth should also be coming to an end”! Wonder when the air traffic controllers will pave air highways for the usage of personal controlled drones? Cities now are crying no land for residential homes and there is nothing in the 25 Year Official Plan to incorporate landing pads for these air vehicles??? Hope the Government is not loosing it with Southern Ontario, as there is vastness to our Province and the North needs expansion and has all that it takes, only to be given recognition.

  • Stephen White

    The hypocrisy of this provincial government, coupled with their lack of realism, just makes me want to cringe.

    Not everyone has the ability to use public transit. I commuted by GO into Toronto for most of my career, but there are many individuals who live in Burlington and work in Mississauga, Brampton, Concord, Woodbridge and similar locales for whom public transit is neither a realistic nor a timely option. A friend of mine commuted by public transit for a year from Burlington to North Mississauga. He literally spent 3 1/2 hours a day on buses and the GO Train. Frequency and lack of synchronization between transit networks compounded his commuting issues.

    Ignoring a problem does not make it better, and it does not make it go away. Similarly, uttering noble pronouncements such as “building complete communities rather than highway-led planning is better for our health” may be a great public relations tagline for galvanizing special interest group agendas, but does little to help motorists stuck in traffic…who, by the way, are citizens too.

    If Minister De Luca is so bereft of new ideas to address the problem here are a few for him to consider:

    1) cut out the HOV lanes and let all motorists use them, not just green vehicles and multi-vehicle occupants;
    2) institute a toll on commercial vehicles using highways between 7:00 and 9:00 a.m. and 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. If we could get even a portion of these transport drivers off the roads during peak hours it would improve commuting times and reduce congestion;
    3) significant tax incentives to companies in the GTA to actively promote work-from-home and telecommuting for their employees;
    4) institute a tax credit for persons using public transit….kind of like the one Mr. Trudeau did away with a few years ago that nasty Mr. Harper and his awful Tories introduced (sic);
    5) stop trying to shoe-horn 20 million people into the GTA that is can only accommodate a lot less. That’s part of the rationale behind regional decentralization…which, by the way, can be mutually exclusive of developing agricultural and recreational lands.

  • Hans

    Maybe the next provincial government won’t try to deny reality?

  • steve

    And we’re back to the bourgeois car, again. The crunch, is, the left’s hatred of cars, and love of mass transit. It’s at the heart of green belts and intensification (overcrowding).