It could be 2018 before fate of 400-series highway through Vaughan is known
The three-person advisory panel looking at alternatives to the proposed GTA-West Corridor has seen its term extended until April, 2018

YorkRegion.com
June 13, 2017
Adam Martin-Robbins

Those anxious to learn the fate of the proposed 400-series highway linking Vaughan to the Milton area could be waiting a lot longer than originally expected.

The province has extended the term of the three-person advisory panel looking at alternatives to the future highway — known variously as the GTA West Corridor and Hwy. 413 — until next spring, yorkregion.com has confirmed.

 “The GTA West Corridor EA is a complex project, and it’s important that we get it right,” Ministry of Transportation (MTO) officials wrote in an email Monday, June 12.

“On March 29, 2017, an order-in-council extended the three-person GTA West Advisory Panel term by up to a year (April 20, 2018). This extension is providing the panel some additional time to complete the report.”

MTO officials say an update on the project will be provided once the panel’s report and recommendations have been reviewed.

After two years of environmental assessments and public consultations to identify a preferred route between Hwy. 400 in Vaughan and the Hwy. 401/Hwy. 407 interchange near Milton, the province suspended work on the project in December 2015.

Months later, the province posted on the project’s website that a panel had been formed and was being “tasked with conducting a strategic assessment of the alternatives to meeting future transportation demand and other transportation infrastructure needs for passenger and goods movement in the GTA West corridor.”

Several municipalities — including Vaughan, York Region, King Township, Caledon and Peel Region — have been urging Queen’s Park to complete the environmental assessment and choose a preferred route quickly.

Those municipalities have argued the highway is needed to reduce congestion on local road networks and to provide a connection between employment lands and the provincial highway system.

Affected developers also want the studies completed and a final route determined so they can get on with development plans.

Local environmentalists, however, oppose the highway and are calling on Queen’s Park to invest in public transit instead.

They argue, among other things, the highway will cut through protected Greenbelt lands in Vaughan and pave over prime farmland in other areas while doing little to relieve traffic congestion.