Traffic issues prompt further calls for Bradford Bypass

Yorkregion.com
Feb. 4, 2016
By Simon Martin

Solve one traffic problem and create another.

While residents on Leslie Street and Woodbine Avenue in East Gwillimbury marvelled at the sudden lack of traffic on their streets after the Hwy. 404 extension opened in 2014, the same can’t be said for residents living on Queensville Sideroad.

“It’s like non-stop traffic at rush hour. It’s like all the time. The peaceful Queensville Sideroad is no longer peaceful,” Holland Landing resident Anita Lutz said.

“When we first moved here, you could count the number of cars that came by; it’s a major highway now.”

With the extension of Hwy. 404 complete, commuters are now using Queensville Sideroad to make their way over to Yonge Street as an alternative to the perpetually clogged Green Lane.

While the road isn’t experiencing full-fledged traffic jams, it’s a huge change for many residents who have lived there for more than three decades.

“When I moved here, it was a gravel road. It was the country; it’s not country anymore,” resident Marguerite Hennigar said. “I wish to heaven they have a different road going across than ours.”

Hennigar hopes that some of the traffic will be alleviated after construction wraps up on 2nd Concession and Bathurst Street.

For resident Sandra Walker, the increase in traffic is not the end of the world, but it certainly is noticeable.

“We have to wait at the end of our driveway a little longer,” Walker said, adding she doesn’t blame commuters because they don’t’ have any other choice. “There’s no other way to get the other side of the lake.”

During rush hour, there is often a long backup at Hwy. 11 and Bathurst, Walker said, as commuters try to get to Bradford.

York Region responded to traffic concerns by temporarily lowering speed limits from 70 kilometres per hour to 60 km/h and from 80 km/h to 70 km/h.

Linking Hwy. 400 with Hwy. 404 in northern York Region has been discussed for years. The province eliminated the Bradford bypass from its plans in 2008, despite the route being pegged as a necessity by a Ministry of Transportation study that called for the route’s construction to be completed by 2021.

The province first identified the need for a highway linking Hwy. 400 and Hwy. 404 through parts of East Gwillimbury and Bradford in the late 1970s and, over the past four decades, the area has been protected from development and subject to a number of environmental assessments.

Last November, representatives from York Region, Simcoe County, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, Bradford West Gwillimbury and Newmarket met to see if they could lobby to get the province to put the project on its growth plan.

The challenge for the group moving forward is to get the province to place the project on its radar.

“We realize that it is not going to happen overnight. It needs to be in the growth plan first, “ East Gwillimbury Mayor Virginia Hackson said in Decemeber.

Bradford Mayor Rob Keffer, joined by Simcoe County Deputy Warden Terry Dowdall, York Region chairperson Wayne Emmerson, Hackson and mayors from Newmarket, Innisfil, Georgina and Essa Township, spoke to Del Duca for nearly an hour about the importance of the Hwy. 400/404 connecting link.

Del Duca thanked the group for taking the time to speak to him about the issue and ensured them he would speak to fellow cabinet ministers to get the ball rolling.

Councillor James Young certainly isn’t holding his breath.

“I think we know what the solutions are, but no level of government has the resources right now,” he said.

In the meantime, Queensville Sideroad will continue to be a key east-west road linking Hwy. 404 to Hwy. 400.

Councillor Marlene Johnston urged residents to have patience because once 2nd Concession and Bathurst Street construction are completed things on Queensville Sideroad might clean up a bit. Johnston believes it’s the responsibility of the province to come up with a solution.

“It’s the last crossing place before the lake,” Johnston said. “We are getting provincial traffic. It should be taken care of by the province.”

For Lutz, the increased traffic on Queensville Sideroad is just a sign of the times.

“It’s not just the highway, it’s everything,” she said. “There’s a whole different feeling living here. It’s a drag.

“What can I say? We’re country people. This is why we moved here all those years ago.”