Cancelled GTA West highway would have eased congestion, Caledon mayor says

But the panel behind the cancellation said the expansion of current highways and congestion pricing will achieve the same results.

Thestar.com
Feb. 21, 2018
By Noor Javed

While environmentalists are lauding the province's decision to cancel the multi-lane GTA West highway that was to connect Vaughan to Milton, others are calling the decision short-sighted.

Last Friday, the province announced it would not continue with the environmental assessment for the highway, dubbed 413, after an "expert advisory panel's recommendation that a proposed highway in the GTA West corridor is not the best way to address changing transportation needs."

Instead the three-person panel called for the "single transportation plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe," expansion of current highways, and congestion pricing as a way to get the same results of building a multi-billion dollar highway.

Immediately after, the Town of Caledon, north of Brampton, issued a release expressing its disappointment with the decision.

"I am disappointed that the province has discontinued the EA (environmental assessment) process, millions of dollars has been spent both municipally and provincially," said Mayor Allan Thompson, in an email to the Star. "Congestion on Caledon roads and gridlock throughout the GTA continues to grow which has a significant impact on our plans for development and overall economic competitiveness.

"The GTA West corridor has already been identified as a necessary piece of growth infrastructure to help alleviate traffic concerns which impacts residents and visitors," he said.

One of the proposed routes for the GTA West highway was to run from highway 400 in Vaughan, across Caledon and Halton Hills, and connect to highways 401/407 in Milton. While the EA had been ongoing, a large swath of land had been "locked" from development until the assessment was complete.

Thompson says major investors in the town have been waiting for this decision for the past decade — and the province should "quickly release the lands that were site plan approved and frozen for nearly 11 years."

"Now that they are no longer included in the corridor we need to allow residential and commercial/industrial development plans that have been in place for years to move forward with the goal of creating complete communities," he said.

With much of Peel Region built out, Caledon is the only municipality that is still poised for growth expected in the municipality over the next 20 years.

The Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) also expressed disappointment with the decision to cancel the highway, saying that it would have a "significant impact on the accommodation of future growth, the ability to keep people and goods moving across the GTA."

The Ministry of Transportation says that it plans to release most of the lands that were locked by the EA, and will only hold on to a third of the land for the Northwest GTA Corridor Identification Study Area, aimed to make sure that "future infrastructure is able to connect to existing energy, rail, and transportation facilities."

"The purpose of the corridor identification study is to identify lands for protection for use by future linear infrastructure, when and if it is needed, to accommodate future growth in the northwest Greater Toronto Area (GTA)," said MTO spokesman Bob Nichols. "Lands within the study area will be protected from development for the duration of the study," which is expected to go on for the next nine to 12 months.

Dave Wilkes, President and CEO, BILD, says they will take part in the upcoming study process, but the "decision to not proceed with the original corridor vision continues to leave our members with uncertainty regarding the lands that were being 'held' for this potential corridor." He says good development requires adequate infrastructure such as roads, noting how much of Milton was built up around highways 401 and 407.

But Tim Gray, the executive director with Environment Defence, says much of the land that will be released cannot be immediately developed - as it either sits in protected Greenbelt areas within the Oak Ridges Moraine or in lands called "white belt" which "sit outside the existing urban boundary" for the municipalities and are usually farmland.

"The only way the lands could be turned from farm land to urban or industrial land would be for Caledon to go through its municipal planning process, meet all the new requirement of the provincial growth plan (putting density and having transit in place), and demonstrate that more farmland should be converted to urban," he said.

"The idea that you remove these lands from the study area, and start building a subdivision tomorrow morning…that's just not the case."