On Humber Station Road, just south of Bolton, the Muia family are among those waiting and worrying about the fate of the highway. The 413 hangs over them like a shadow, figuratively for now but perhaps literally some day.
The highway would pass right over the roof of the family house at the location of what will be the Humber Station interchange. Their two-acre property will become pavement and concrete, bridges and ramps.
Vince Muia is 86 and he wasn’t planning on going anywhere. “I hoped to pass away at my property,” he said.
When the highway was first conceived some two decades ago, it was meant to be part of a bypass that extended all the way to Fort Erie. Now, only the 60-km stretch from Milton to Vaughan remains.
The environmental concerns that have dominated discussion around the highway — rallying together citizens from across the GTA — are not new. The detrimental impacts to the GTA’s farmland, waterways and Greenbelt have been discussed for the past two decades — and that was, in part, why the project was shelved by the Liberals.
When the Progressive Conservatives revived the project late in 2018, they also pledged to review the environmental assessment (EA) for the highway, allowing for a more “streamlined process for assessing potential environmental impacts.” This would allow for early works along the highway route such as new bridge construction or expansion to begin before the completion of the EA, expected in 2022.
“The previous Liberal government prematurely cancelled the environmental assessment on the GTA West Corridor, never released the lands, and, as a result, left hundreds of landowners in limbo for years without any plan to alleviate congestion in the Greater Toronto Area,” Yelich said.
“Our government is doing the due diligence that was never done on this project by following through with the Environmental Assessment process, which is among the most stringent assessment processes in the country, to determine if the GTA West Corridor is a viable project for York, Peel and Halton regions,” Yelich added. “We are fully committed to the consultation process.”
Ontario’s NDP and Liberal leaders are both pledging to kill the 413 highway, saying it’s costly, harmful and unnecessary.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Ford is “benefiting his developer buddies who in turn end up filling the coffers” of the PC party while Liberal Leader Steve Del Duca said the premier is “focused exclusively on rewarding billionaire Conservative donors.”
The findings of the Observer/Torstar investigation raise questions about why the 413 highway was resurrected by the Ford government shortly after it was axed, who stands to benefit if it’s built and why the government has taken such contentious steps to speed development along the route.
