The road to hell…

is paved with good intentions…
I have updated this posting as the GTA West is getting closer to having comments filed with the MTO.
The MTO has picked the worst possible solution and have ignored reality and obvious ones.
They have ignored that they could build out 401 from Tremaine over to Winston Churchill with 12 lanes by going to a urban cross section instead of a rural cross section. That means they need no more road width and can build it in there present road allowance.
They have also ignored the fact that GO will be coming to Kitchener and have not provided for increased rail traffic.
It is the same old "paving paradise".

While the land in that area is under tremendous pressure from developers. It is still productive farmland. It will be under more pressure if it is near a major highway and the developers will push for housing.
My vision is for crops of wheat, corn or beans not houses!

A year ago they had 2 options for us to cinsider. What they did was pick them both!
At Council we voted the other night to adamantly oppose the 4-3 option. The 4-2 can bring a needed bypass to Norval.
The 4-3 may end up bringing some economic development to Halton HIlls but at what price?

My vision is for a sustainable agricultural area in Halton HIlls, not freeways or more then likely toll roads across our remainging farm land.


What it means to Halton HIlls is that our farmland south of 10 SR will be effectively frozen for 3 to 5 years. Also all the houses and businesses in this area will have to have MTO approval for any application they wish to file. How would you feel if it was your land?

We wil be out with post cards preaddressed to the Minsiter, Look for us around town th enext few weeks.
Here was the original posting.

Over the last couple of years the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has been looking at options to move goods, people and services across the gridlock that is southern Ontario. A variety of areas were looked at and it was focused down on a couple. One that will have an impact on us will be the GTA West Corridor study.


The GTA west study has looked at a variety of options that impact us here in Halton Hills from a northern route across the of the GTA to connect basically, Kitchener with the 400. This first option would be located north of Acton and would be a 8 lane 400 series highways. It would traverse the Niagara Escarpment, the Greenbelt and the Oak Ridges Moraine. There have been a lot of concerns from Guelph Eramosa mayor Chris White as it would wipe out a large swath of the best farmland in the area and could have a detrimental effect on the greenbelted farmers. The study is not recommending it go forward.
Two options are going going forward and I will summarize them below. The first one would start at the 401/407 (option 4-2) and then head north and cross into Brampton around 10 SR. This is a study area that is similar to what has been looked at by a separate study called HPBATS or the Halton peel Border Area Transportation Study. This study came out of the regions Official Plan as Peel and Brampton had appealed it as we did not agree with there vision of solving traffic from the rapid growth was to dump it into our area.
I was one of the first at Council to object to how they were advertising in our papers requesting the area east of Trafalgar south of Georgetown be frozen while they figured it out. Even a meeting with the Peel Regional Chair showed there desire to ram this threw. Peel would not even talk about the Norval bypass but they finally saw the light! I am glad all of Council showed the same concern and we have taken a long time to get to today’s MOU of working together. This route may have a great benefit to Halton Hills as we could have greater exposure on a 400 series highway for our industrial area. Mayor Rick and I have attended a multitude of meetings and open houses on this one and will keep working on it. It has a price tag of over 600 million. Not one cent has been assigned.
The one with the most dramatic impact on us would start around the 401 at Tremaine Road across the bottom of Halton Hills, cross into Brampton and connect north in a area around Mayfield. This is the option 4-3 written about in the local papers. http://www.insidehalton.com/community/haltonhills/article/853565
This route would cut across all of our agriculture area and would be the deathknell of our farming community in the south part of Halton Hills. A 400 series highway would put tremendous pressure for the area to be urbanised. To have the straight rows of corn and soybeans to be replaced by rows of houses, cars and big box stores. The area would be lost forever and our rich history of farming would be lost. There are some who would benefit as they could flip there land to other speculators. The land owners of today would not as this would be a 20 to 30 year plan.
Our Council is sending a strong message of opposition to this plan to the MTO and the Ontario government. We need to hear from you and your thoughts. Some people have taken the time to write us and the papers about it. Comments and concerns can be sent to any of us and also should be sent to the study team. More information can be found at http://www.gta-west.com My fear as it relieves a choke point at tremaine on the 401 is that the staff at the Province will think it is a wonderful thing to have 12 lanes of traffic there.
I will have more on agriculture tomorrow.