kamira51
Active Member
If i was CN, I'd hate CP even more since they swooped in and stole that Kansas City merger deal.
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ericmacm
Active Member
Because of CP coming in and stealing the KCS merger, CN was forced to form a joint intermodal service with UP and GMXT just to offer a competitive CANAMEX corridor. They definitely hate each other now if they didn't before.
robmausser
Senior Member
As far as competitive pricing and a fair market, its a way better deal for the end consumer and public. CN is way bigger than CP, so this levels the playing field a bit. Rather than creating a monopoly.
toaster29
Active Member
There's nothing novel about this highway when compared to any other 400 series Highway Ontario has built. The only real difference Is the people it serves. We don't really see as much opposition to the 400 extension to Sudbury, or the Bradford bypass even, or even when the east GTA 400 series (at the time tolls) were built - but for some reason this particular one faces the opposition.
afransen
Senior Member
A highway widening to Sudbury isn't being built on environmentally sensitive land for the primary purpose to induce sprawl. The highway itself could be tolerable if it weren't for the associated manifold larger auto-dependent land development that goes with it.
darth_freeman
Active Member
Not sure if this has been posted before (couldn't find anything in search, anyway), the 413 corridor will also be used for a new hydro electricity transmission line (Northwest GTA Transmission Corridor), likely to facilitate service to the areas south of the greenbelt from Caledon's 2051 growth plan.
https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-1503
NWGTA Transmission Corridor
https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/019-1503
NWGTA Transmission Corridor
Mr.Tang
Active Member
This seems a very slanted way to present the argument. If there is widening of a high-way in Sudbury - who is well qualified to do an environment assessment of the relative sensitivity of the impacted area? Presumably it is to spur development too (or why build it) and I would guess it will be done at a density significantly lower than in the GTA. And further, is all development "sprawl" - where do we draw that line? I get the impression if Paris's fourth arrondissement was being built there would still be people accusing it of being sprawl.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
how is the 413 more sensitive environmentally than any of those other corridors? The Bradford Bypass literally cuts right through the Holland Marsh.
The 413's most sensitive impact will be on the Humber Valley, which it will cross over on a 1km-long bridge which will be on of the largest in the provincial freeway network to minimize impacts.
afransen
Senior Member
I think there might be less opposition if we were building the 4th arrondissement instead of big box stores and tract housing. I would even be kind of okay with it if we put in appropriate transit infrastructure and built it fairly dense to start off with. Instead we will build the highway, put in relatively low density car oriented development and then consider transit after it costs 10-100x more to do so. We need to stop that pattern, and not use social justice as a reason to build more car oriented suburbia.
Sunnyside
Active Member
The primary purpose for the MTO is not to induce sprawl, its to alleviate the western GTA highway network, primarily the 401.
The primary purpose for Doug Ford is likely to accelerate sprawl, but he has been accelerating infrastructure across the board, so this isn't as clear-cut as it appears. The Ontario Line is still more significant.
It's because people are reactive about transportation needs in general. Unfortunately, bad traffic is the GTHA standard, so there is no amount of 401 traffic which would make people think, "We need the 413" compared to now.
Poisoning the proverbial wells is the low-info environmentalism, which in practice tends towards green-washed NIMBYism (not here, but in the public consciousness). I know it is grift-like because we rarely see anyone suggesting viable alternatives. These sentiments aren't bad in isolation, but push government hands (and enable bad actors) into the 'best' short/medium-term solution. Best believe if a rail alternative was proposed, similar narratives would exist.
To be clear, building our entire economy around the 400-series highways was a bad idea- but we did it. Unravelling this will take a lot more than just saying no to new highways, especially functionally justifiable ones. And it is quite self-evident those steps have not been taken (sufficiently), nor could be with the money allocated. I promise everyone that the widenings needed in lieu, as evidenced by those supplanting the mid-pen, can do significant ecological damage in their own right. So be careful what we wish for- the MTO rarely chooses a 'do nothing' alternative.
I know I've sounded like I want the 413 talking like this before, so I'll suggest a significantly more pragmatic goal; decoupling the urban expansions that are nigh-complementary to this highway from it, such that land use acts as if it Isn't there- unless, of course, we immediately build the associated transitway. And furthermore, ensuring very few local accesses besides the 400-series interchanges, and having stringent requirements for widening.
EDIT: This is sortof what @afransen said before me...
Steve X
Senior Member
Traffic is so much worse in the last 5 years not because of COVID but the feds allowed so many people to immigrate to the GTA without a transportation plan. They just let the city absorb all the problems. The province just decides to slowly build some transit lines and highway to try to patch up the problem. Meanwhile the city just installs bike lanes and place construction on every corridor like the grid can absorb it. So here we are.
People think we should build subways everywhere. They however didn't think that it takes 1.5 hours on a train to get from Renforth to Rough Hill if they even build a line. Some roads like Jane takes longer to come a trip even on weekends while running more buses than pre-pandemic but frequency is worse as they are stuck in traffic.
Meanwhile people are ordering more Amazon, Uber and whatever on demand service that increases traffic but are against more highways. Everyone is also against a congestion fee or any limits that controls their full freedom. So everyone should just enjoy the mess. Especially all the freaken Karens.
As for a better way of getting around the city, they need to build faster electric rail that connects all the hubs in the 416/905 together. So one can get from Square One to Downtown or Unionville in half an hour. A bunch of local bus service would connect those hubs to nearby employment centers on top of the current existing grid network. Meanwhile they should still build more highways like the 413 but control private vehicles.
People think we should build subways everywhere. They however didn't think that it takes 1.5 hours on a train to get from Renforth to Rough Hill if they even build a line. Some roads like Jane takes longer to come a trip even on weekends while running more buses than pre-pandemic but frequency is worse as they are stuck in traffic.
Meanwhile people are ordering more Amazon, Uber and whatever on demand service that increases traffic but are against more highways. Everyone is also against a congestion fee or any limits that controls their full freedom. So everyone should just enjoy the mess. Especially all the freaken Karens.
As for a better way of getting around the city, they need to build faster electric rail that connects all the hubs in the 416/905 together. So one can get from Square One to Downtown or Unionville in half an hour. A bunch of local bus service would connect those hubs to nearby employment centers on top of the current existing grid network. Meanwhile they should still build more highways like the 413 but control private vehicles.
afransen
Senior Member
Good thing we are building GO expansion.
kamira51
Active Member
nfitz
Superstar
The Bradford Bypass was fully approved decades ago. The EA was started during the Mulroney government, and most of the work was done under the early Chretien government and completed over a quarter-century ago in 1997. Neither federal Conservatives or Liberals had any interest in it back then. Or back in the 1970s when James Snow first announced the alignment, or the 1960s, when they started looking at this. There was significant environmental work and mitigation completed during the 20-year period from about 1977 to 1997.It still baffles me the feds intervened for 413, but not the Bradford Bypass
The problem with 413, is that it came from virtually nowhere, and is being railroaded through without the half-century of careful considerations that were made for the Bradford Bypass (originally known as Highway 89 extension).
Toronto Star, April 22 1978, Page D11
Toronto Star, July 30 1983, Page D14
ericmacm
Active Member
I wouldn't go so far as to say that it came from nowhere, MTO was planning for the GTA East-West Corridor (as it was then called) back in 2002 and it has gone through numerous revisions. It took almost 22 years for the project to come to its current form. Don't forget that some of the initial plans were calling for the next iteration, the GTA West Corridor, to cut straight through Acton area westward to Guelph so it could hook up to HWY 6. There were other alternatives assessed that were even worse, with one basically running parallel along HWY 401 all the way to Guelph. It was in 2012, at this point 12 years ago, that they decided to opt for the current alignment to maximize benefits while minimizing the environmental impact.