Ironically there seems to be a less resistive path if the highway were routed North of the golf course as there appears to be just a bunch of open space there vs private homes.
That's a lot more sensitive environmental land though. The south alignment is mostly woodlot without any wetlands from my understanding, while north of the course is mostly wetland.
The south alignment also only requires a single dwelling from my understanding, and some acreage from a few other residential properties. It's actually a lot less damaging in terms of private property impacts than the initial alignment through the golf course and marina, and as mentioned has a better environmental impact.
Regarding the points northern light posted, I'll put my thoughts on them in bold below:
1) A route change to avoid a golf course owed by the family of a setting Conservative MPP, which will result in additional destruction of forest and private residences
The MPP immediately declared a conflict on the matter upon joining the Ministry of Transportation, and they apparently have a process so that he does not even get circulated on information on the highway. I'm not really sure what else the government is expected to do about it, drop him as transport minister because of it? I also addressed the property impacts above, they are very minor overall still.
2) Plans to possibly toll the route, including at rates equal to or higher than 407E
This to me seems like it's standard government due diligence, confirming options, that's all. By the sounds of the results of the study, tolling the road didn't work out favorably and I doubt they will implement it. Especially at rates higher than 407E, which was likely a "sounding" option just to test extremes of options, and not seriously considered.
3) The very low environmental score (lowest possible) achieved by the proposal in a gov't report which suggested alternative investments.
I can no longer find the full study, but this slide deck from the public open houses at the time is still available online and indicates that the Bradford Bypass when tied to a new Highway 427 extension would significantly improve traffic over simply widening existing corridors. It doesn't indicate it's impact without the 427 extension, but it certainly indicates that simply widening existing corridors isn't going to cut it given the huge growth that's happening in Simcoe County. And that's only on the provincial highway network, many of the trips the Bradford Bypass is replacing is on local arterial roads as Yonge St is currently the only major crossing of the marsh today forcing all traffic to funnel through that one crossing and into downtown Bradford.
4) The connections of assorted developers to lands near the proposed extension.
This is a constant theme The Star is trying to push on the Ford Government, and I'm just not buying it. The most they have managed to come up with so far is that the PCs take donations from developers just like every other party. Of course developers own land near the highway, it's a high growth area that has been designated to handle a lot of the GTHA's new low-density growth in the coming decades, for better or for worse. It's been pretty clear from the start that this highway is a pet project of Mulroney's as it's directly in her riding and is something she has championed profusely. The local municipality is also very supportive of and it is a very popular project in Bradford as locals realize how challenging and frustrating it is to access Newmarket today.
The one other major point made by the article is the lack of a complete redo of the Environmental Assessment, which it makes out that the province is plowing ahead with the highway without any additional study. That isn't true, the PCs did pare back EA requirements for a lot of highway projects with previously completed EAs, though there is still a decent amount of work required before beginning. Which is why you see MTO re-evaluating things like how the highway crosses the marsh, as well as other smaller tweaks to the project. They aren't doing no changes, but instead are critically reviewing the EA (which was completed in 2002, not 1997 as the article suggests) and making adjustments where required, compared to the previous requirements would would have required a full restart, years of additional work duplicating information likely to have not changed much if at all since 2002, just to end up with a project likely very similar if not identical to what they will end up building. I'm just not sure of the utility of such an exercise.
