Is a new GTA West highway the answer to commuter woes?

insidehalton.com
Feb. 1, 2015
By Noor Javed

It's a thought that crosses every driver's mind while sitting bumper to bumper in the middle of Highway 401 - considered the busiest highway on the continent - on any given day: When will things change? Why can't they just build another highway?

Well, the good news, commuters, is that the province might just do so. The bad news? It might not get you to your destination any faster.

The Ministry of Transportation is in the middle of planning for a new four- to six-lane 400-series highway, GTA West, that would connect north Vaughan to Milton. If approved, it would be the first major highway project built by the province since the 407 in the '80s and '90s.

Engineers are in the early stages of an extensive planning study that will take until 2018 to assess which routes will "minimize impacts to the environment, communities, and the environment." If the plan gets a green light, road work could begin sometime after 2020.

But will the additional road capacity alleviate the GTA's $6-billion (and growing) congestion problem, or are we just applying old thinking to ongoing problems?

"The research shows you can't really build your way out of traffic congestion," said Robin Lindsey, professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia.

The province, armed with policies such as the Moving Ontario Plan and Metrolinx's Big Move, believes more roads, combined with a massive investment in transit, is the answer.

"There is no magic-bullet solution here," said Steven Del Duca, Ontario's minister of transportation.

Del Duca said the GTA West corridor, which will run through parts of greenbelt and farmland in Caledon, is being studied now in anticipation of potential future. According to the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance, the project will cost between $4 billion and $5 billion. But the province says it's too early to confirm the price.

Sony Rai, part of the group Sustainable Vaughan, believes there is too much emphasis placed on building highways and not enough to finding alternate solutions.

Highways represent "an old idea about growth within the GTA," he said.

"The question elected officials across the GTA should be asking is: What type of public transit infrastructure network should we be creating at the north of the GTA, and how can this infrastructure alleviate car dependency?" said Rai.

The GTA West project is being outfitted with some transit potential, including a possible truck-only route, HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) lanes and a dedicated transitway that would initially accommodate bus rapid transit and possibly rail transit in the future.

All good things, Rai admits. But any solution with a highway in it is not a real solution, he argues.

Rai believes its time to put the brakes on the highway plan and focus on creating a transit-first policy.

"Instead of paying for a highway, the province needs to consider an east-west rail network linking to existing commuter rail lines," he said. "The stations and connection points along this rail corridor should become places for higher density housing and employment uses."

"This idea is not new; unfortunately we have a province planning for cities of the past 100 years, not the next 100 years."