High occupancy toll lanes won't take over existing open highway lanes, Del Duca says

CP24.com
Aug. 25, 2015
By Chris Herhalt

The Ontario government does not intend to convert existing free and open highway lanes into high-occupancy toll lanes as part of its long-term transportation strategy, transportation minister Steven Del Duca said Tuesday.

“At this time the plan would not be to remove a general purpose lane, it would be to add or extend or expand a highway and add an (high occupancy toll) lane, or perhaps take an existing high occupancy vehicle lane and convert it to a high occupancy toll lane,” Del Duca said at Mount Pleasant GO train station in Brampton Tuesday morning.

During the Pan Am and Parapan Am games, open lanes on the Gardiner Expressway, the Don Valley Parkway, the Queen Elizabeth Way and several 400-series highways were temporarily converted into high-occupancy vehicle lanes in order to assist athletes, coaches and fans getting to and from venues.

Some feared the province’s future plans for high-occupancy toll lanes would involve removing open highway lanes and replacing them with toll lanes.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has repeatedly said that toll charges for single drivers who want to use high occupancy lanes in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area will eventually be implemented as a means of raising revenue to continue building transit infrastructure.

But Del Duca insists the issue needs a lot more study before high occupancy toll lanes come to a highway near you.

“We have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50 kilometres of pre-existing HOV lanes in the GTHA and in Ottawa, so we’re going to take a look at all of the data and we’re going to make sure we get this right, but as the Premier said yesterday and several weeks ago, they are coming.”

Del Duca, Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey and several area MPPs and councillors were at Mount Pleasant GO station to announce that starting on Sept. 8, seven new eastbound and seven new westbound GO trains will begin running between that station and Toronto’s Union Station at off-peak times each weekday.

Several GO bus routes will now stop at Pearson Airport and one eastbound train that previously departed at Bramalea Station will now depart from Mount Pleasant.

It’s part of the province’s long-term commitment to bringing “regional express rail,” with GO train frequency of up to 15 minutes, to most of the GO rail network in the next 10 years.

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