Province seeks input on alternatives to new 400-series highway

YorkRegion.com
Oct. 11, 2016
By Adam Martin-Robbins

The province wants to pick your brain as it explores alternatives to building a 400-series highway stretching from Vaughan to Milton.

After years of planning, the GTA West Corridor came to a screeching halt last December when Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca, MPP for Vaughan, announced the Environmental Assessment was suspended pending an internal review.

Last Friday, he announced an advisory panel appointed to assess “potential alternative approaches” to the major highway is seeking public input.

Gail Beggs, a former deputy minister, is the chairperson for the panel, which also includes environmental lawyer Rod Northey and Matthias Sweet, an assistant professor at Ryerson University.

According to the ministry, the panel has reviewed material dating back more than a decade and is now seeking feedback through online submissions, a questionnaire and stakeholder consultation.

The questionnaire can be found at www.gtawestreview.com. Questions or comments may also be submitted to gtawestreview@ontario.ca.

Environmentalists have long called for the highway to be scrapped, but several municipalities, including Vaughan, argue the highway provides a critical east-west link needed to reduce pressure on existing roads and ensure lands slated for industrial/commercial development are connected to the highway system.

With files from Brampton Guardian