Subscribe to our newsletter:
The Ontario Progressive Conservatives have introduced a bill that they say will unclog southern Ontario's congested roads and generate $2.3 billion in earnings for Ontario's workers. The bill would allow for the “streamlining” of environmental assessments and the reduction of bike lanes. It would also facilitate speedier acquisitions of property for Highway 413. Although Ontario has been long overdue for a public infrastructure overhaul, it begs the question: are the Ford Tories really focused on improving infrastructure for the average Ontarian?
According to the Ontario Government, Bill 212, the Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act and the Build Highways Faster Act, “will accelerate highway construction for designated priority projects to support the movement of goods and people across Ontario.”
Ontario's Greater Golden Horseshoe—the area surrounding Lake Ontario with the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) at its focal point—is home to the busiest highways in the world. Highways such as the 401 see upwards of 400,000 vehicles per day. In Toronto, it is estimated that commuters spend an average of 199 hours per year stuck in traffic.
The Road to Highway Congestion
The postwar prosperity of Canada saw the state undertaking major public works. The 400-series highways are one such project. Highways 400, 401, and 402 were completed in the early 1950s, cementing Canada's shift towards automobile-centric infrastructure. This shift, alongside the widespread acquisition of cars, contributed to the decline of passenger rail in Canada.
Congestion is not a new problem in Ontario. The 401 was experiencing gridlock as early as the 1960s, which prompted the construction of more lanes to carry more cars. At the same time, Canadian National (CN) and Canadian Pacific (CP) railways had taken a greater interest in bulk shipping and freight—ventures that were more lucrative than passenger or commuter rail.
The Crown corporation VIA Rail was created to make up for CP and CN's declining passenger rail service. VIA Rail experienced a series of cutbacks in 1981, 1990 and 2012.
The constant growth and expansion of highway networks and the decline of public transit created a perfect storm of factors that led to Ontario's gridlock disaster. The neoliberal policies that originated in the 1980s gutted Ontario's—and all of Canada's—railway infrastructure.
To this day, cities close to Toronto such as Guelph, Kitchener and Hamilton have limited intercity transit options. Cities as far as Thunder Bay and Owen Sound are almost entirely reliant on cars, which find themselves locked in the GTA's labyrinth of multi-lane highways.
Provincial Overreach, Private Interests, Public Infrastructure
One of Doug Ford's major election promises was the construction of Highway 413, bypassing the core of the GTA through Halton, Peel and York Regions. The Premier is pushing to make good on his promise by including provisions in Bill 212 to “streamline” environmental assessments for the proposed highway.
The bill goes as far to provide “an exemption from the Environmental Assessment Act for enterprises, activities, proposals, plans, and programs for or related to Highway 413, including the Highway 413 Project and the Highway 413 early works projects.”
In other words, this means cutting corners on environmental assessments for the last vestiges of rural land in the GTA. The proposed route is set to raze 2,000 acres of farmland, pave 400 acres of Greenbelt land in Northern Vaughan, and disrupt 220 wetlands.
Bill 212 gives the provincial government immense power to appropriate both private and municipal land. The bill would require municipalities to receive approval from the province for new bike lanes, and gives the province the authority to remove any bike lane constructed in the last five years. Under the current legislation, bike lanes fall entirely under municipal jurisdiction.
More still, and less spoken about in mainstream media, is the iron grip Bill 212 will give Queen's Park regarding the expropriation of land from private owners. The provision within the bill reads:
"A provision prohibits registered owners from applying under the Expropriations Act for the adjustment of the date of possession for land that was expropriated by the Minister for the purposes of a priority highway project."
In other words, private landowners, including homeowners and farmers, who have their land expropriated by the state for Highway 413, may not challenge their land being seized in court. The justification for this measure is to "expedite the construction of priority highway projects."
But why give Queen's Park such extensive powers to unclog roads? Efficient infrastructure is important, and the obvious argument in favour of removing bike lanes and expanding highways by cutting red tape is more lanes to hold more cars; but this logic is contentious amongst urban planners, and reportedly, the Ontario Government itself.
According to a Freedom of Information Act inquiry by The Trillium, the Ontario government estimates that by 2041, traffic on the 413 during rush hour would not exceed 50 kilometres per hour due to a phenomenon known as “induced demand.” Induced demand, as it pertains to roads, is the phenomenon where an increase in supply increases demand/consumption. In this case, bigger, easier to access roads create more incentive to drive, attracting more motorists.
One can witness induced demand on highways in any major city in North America: on the 401, which opens up to 18 lanes in Toronto, it takes 22 minutes to cross 10 kilometres during congestion. The 26-lane Katy Freeway, a portion of the I-10 in Houston, Texas, is the poster child for mega-highway congestion. Since its lane expansions in 2008, the Katy Freeway saw an average travel time increase of 30%.
Doug's Friends in High Places
So, if more lanes and bigger roads don't alleviate traffic, why doesn't the province invest in more robust public transit? The government has already expanded GO train services by 15% on existing lines in the greater Golden Horseshoe. If the goal was to alleviate traffic in this region, would it not make more sense to create more GO Transit lines and provide alternatives to being stuck in traffic?
As is the trend in Canadian politics, the goal is not to solve public issues, but rather to enrich private coffers. A 2021 National Observer investigation highlighted that eight of Ontario's biggest real estate developers own land near the proposed route of Highway 413.
The developers listed in the report are: Cortellucci, De Gasperis, Guglietti and De Meneghi families, John Di Poce, Benny Marotta, Argo Development and Fieldgate Homes. The De Gasperis family was implicated in the Greenbelt Scandal, having used seven of their companies to buy protected land that Doug Ford would have opened for development.
All the developers listed above have been prolific donators to the Ontario PCs, having donated money in the tens of thousands either to the party directly or to the Conservative third-party foundation Ontario Proud.
Access to major transit routes exponentially increases the price of real estate. Developers are slated to make accumulate millions in speculation value alone. According to the report, a plot of land along the proposed route in Caledon for $3.8 million in 2008 was valued at $40.0 million in 2021.
Reducing Your Time, Saving You Gridlock
All in all, the Auditor General estimates the cost to Ontarians for the proposed highway will be $4 billion. The project has no slated completion timeline, has bypassed environmental assessments, strips citizens impacted by its construction of homes and means and is set to raze swathes of wetlands and agricultural land.
According to the Ministry of Transportation, commuters will save 30 minutes of travel, until induced demand causes congestion to catch up. With the limitation of alternative modes of transit, such as bike lanes, or limited GO services expansion, more cars will be on the road, further contributing to the phenomenon of induced demand and gridlock on Ontario highways.
But of course, limiting transit alternatives, pushing for a new mega-highway, and banning legal channels to challenge land seizures to ensure said highway is built solves the Tories' greatest problem: ensuring that developer donations weren't for nothing.