Rail is key to reducing traffic congestion, not new highways

YorkRegion.com
Feb. 5, 2015
By Sony Rai

The province is planning a 400-series highway across the GTA, west of Hwy. 400.

Known as the GTA West Corridor, this new six-lane highway will extend across Vaughan to Milton and cut through Peel and Halton Regions.

Unfortunately, it will also sacrifice large swaths of the Greenbelt.

Over the next 20 years, tens of thousands of housing units and employment facilities will be developed along the length of this highway.

Due to the lack of transit options, residents and workers in this area will be dependent on cars for mobility.

In fact, the proximity of a highway will only reinforce the car as the preferred mobility option.

The residents along the route of this highway will drive, and many of them will find their way onto hwys. 427 and 400, just as you do every day.

What this highway represents is an old idea about growth within the GTA, rewarding sprawl and encouraging car-dependent development.

The GTA is under tremendous pressure to accommodate people and jobs.

Growth isn’t an issue, it’s the pattern of growth that needs to change.

This pattern has continued for decades and has resulted in the traffic congestion that plagues the entire region.

What’s most unfortunate about this project is the lack of public debate regarding its cost and need.

Every time public transit infrastructure is considered, we have an exhaustive and long debate as to how to pay for it and what form it should take.

Every time a new highway is planned, we seem to not have the same debate. This needs to change.

When the Places to Grow and Greenbelt acts were enacted, they represented a fundamental re-think about how we grow the region.

Sadly, we didn’t have that same re-think about how we move throughout this region.

The Big Move, Metrolinx’s transportation and transit plan, is largely an amalgamation of existing public transit and highway plans.

The Big Move was never conceived as a regional network connected to new growth.

Shortly after these plans were created we started to understand the impact of traffic congestion and the lack of public transit infrastructure to our quality of life and economy.

This should have stimulated a larger conversation about how we both house and move people in the northern boundary of the GTA where car dependency is highest. The Big Move requires a big re-think and this highway represents the best place to start.

We need to break out of our current, outdated model for developing the region.

That pattern involves highway and road infrastructure investment first, followed by low-density housing development followed years later by public transit investment in the form of infrequent and poorly connected bus service.

This entire formula should be turned upside down. The province should be planning for higher order transit first, followed by housing and jobs concentrated around transit stops and connections, with regional and municipal road infrastructure to service local traffic.

Rail is the key to reducing traffic congestion throughout the region, not highways.

We need to consider an east-west rail network linking to existing commuter rail lines.

Rail infrastructure will also allow us to develop vibrant, walkable towns concentrated around rail stations and connected to the entire region.

But the province is planning for cities of the past 100 years, not the next 100 years.

It’s time for real debate about the future of the Greenbelt and the region.

Please email Vaughan MPP and Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca and let him know you want a rail alternative to be studied.

Email sdelduca.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org.

Sony Rai is a past member of The Vaughan Citizen's Community Links Panel. He is a co-founder of Sustainable Vaughan. Email sustainablevaughan@gmail.com for more information.