Ontario should not rush ahead with GTA West highway

Thestar.com
August 26, 2020

Ontario is rushing ahead with plans for a new 400-series highway across York, Peel and Halton regions that will replace farmland with asphalt.

It’s a mistake. And a particularly expensive one at that, with a price tag reportedly in the $6-billion range.

This highway, set to run through the Greenbelt in Vaughan, across largely undeveloped land in Caledon and Brampton to Milton, was a bad idea when it was first proposed. And it was a bad idea when it was rightly put on hold in 2015 and ultimately shelved in 2018 by the previous Liberal government.

The project was killed after an expert panel determined the highway contravened the province’s planning objectives, was bad for the environment and, to boot, was not even an effective way to reduce traffic congestion. The “proposed highway in the GTA West corridor is not the best way to address changing transportation needs,” it concluded.

Nothing since then has made this project any better. It will pave over thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land, damage waterways and contribute to more urban sprawl.

And for what?

It’s expected to save drivers 30 to 60 seconds of driving time.

Surely Premier Doug Ford and Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney know all this.

And yet, not only are they going ahead with this unnecessary highway -- the government released route details earlier this month -- they’re using the pandemic as cover to skip over important parts of Ontario’s environmental assessment system that could identify concerns and potentially minimize damage.

On July 6, Ford said his government intends to fast-track the construction of highways and transit to help Ontario financially recover from the coronavirus pandemic. “We’re charting our path for economic recovery,” he said.

Two days later, the government proposed a regulation to “create a new streamlined process for assessing potential environmental impacts of the (GTA West highway) project, as well as consulting on it.”

Streamline, in the hands of the Ford government, always means a faster and less thorough process. That’s especially the case when it comes to environmental protections, which have routinely been treated as little more than red tape to be dispensed with.

When it comes to delivering on regulatory changes that benefit the development industry -- even if it’s at the expense of tenants, cities and the environment -- the Ford government can’t seem to move fast enough.

And, to be sure, this ill-judged highway has long been on the wish list of developers sitting on nearby land. It’s been further pushed by those who think more roads will ease congestion, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

So why is the Ford government moving ahead with this highway now, and without the proper environmental assessment process? Could this be a way for Ford to make good on his pre-election promise to developers to “open up chunks of the Greenbelt,” for development?

The public uproar that ensued after he was caught on video saying that forced him to walk it back, but the government has still repeatedly proposed changes that weaken environment protections, ease the way for traditional sprawl development and tinker with Greenbelt preservation.

A lot has changed since the pandemic disrupted our lives and hit the economy hard, but one thing COVID-19 has not done is transform this highway into a good idea.

There are better ways to address the region’s transportation needs -- and far better ways to spur the economy than building the expensive and destructive GTA West highway.

This project has been proposed and shelved before. The Ford government should put it back on the shelf before it’s too late.