What's happening with the Bradford bypass?

'More to say in the future,' says York-Simcoe MPP Caroline Mulroney, who serves as minister of transportation

Yorkregion.com
Dec. 11, 2019
Kim Zarzour

What’s going on with the Bradford bypass?

Liberal MPP Michael Coteau put that question to York-Simcoe MPP Caroline Mulroney, who serves as transportation minister, in the legislature Dec. 9.

And the answer? Be patient. It’s coming.

At Queen's Park, Coteau pointed out Premier Doug Ford was in Bradford last August “with big fanfare” about the Highway 400-404 Link.

Mulroney told citizens getting the Bradford Bypass built was her “No. 1 priority,” Coteau noted.

“But what progress has actually been made since August? The good people of York -- Simcoe want to know.”

In response, Mulroney said the previous Liberal government had cancelled the environmental assessment in 2003 and the Ford government is in the process of restarting it.

“As we move forward, we’ll have more to say in the future,” she said.

In an interview with Nov. 22, Mulroney reiterated that statement, saying updating the existing environmental assessments “takes some time.”

The province has not released many details about its plans for the bypass that would link Highway 400 to Highway 404 via a 16.2-kilometre, four-lane highway between Lines 8 and 9 in Bradford to East Gwillimbury.

Local commuters and businesses have complained for years about increasing traffic clogging Yonge, Bathurst Street and Queensville Sideroad as drivers attempt to make their way east and west through East Gwillimbury and Bradford.

Coteau called Mulroney’s response a “partisan attack” against the Liberals who, he said, put the Bradford link back on the growth plan in 2017.