By Doug Draper
Just when many Niagara, Ontario residents may have thought the two-decade old plan for a mid-peninsula highway was history, the controversial idea is back on the regional council agenda again.
Niagara,regional councils have supported the idea of a ‘mid-peni highway’ going back to the 1990s when Debbie Zimmerman, still sitting on the council, championed it as regional chair.
At its July 5 council meeting, a clear majority of regional councillors, including mayors across Niagara, voted in favour of asking Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation to “accelerate” an environmental assessment review on what the ministry calls the ‘Niagara to GTA corridor’, but is often referred to as the mid-peninsula corridor or highway in the Niagara region.
As part of the council’s support for moving forward with the mid-pen corridor project, it also supported resolutions asking the ministry to “accelerate the placement of a highway designation on the proposed new corridor,” and to direct regional staff “to promote the mid-peninsula corridor, specifically the connection to Highway 401, south of John Monroe Airport” in the Hamilton area.
Peter Kormos, a former MPP for the Welland riding who now represents Welland on regional council, said he believes “a majority of citizens in Niagara” are against the idea of building a new multi-lane highway across the middle of the region from the Hamilton area to the QEW and Canada/U.S. border crossing at Fort Erie. He was joined in his opposition to the resolutions by St. Catharines regional councillor Andy Petrowski, Wainfleet Mayor April Jeffs and Niagara Falls regional councillor Selina Volpatti.
Others, however, including St. Catharines regional councillor and former St. Catharines mayor Tim Rigby, Grimsby regional councillor and former Niagara regional chair Debbie Zimmerman, and Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badeway, argued that a new highway or possibly some other transportation systems (possibly a modern rail system) running through the middle and southern parts of the region is vital to Niagara’s economic future.
“We need to work with the province to make this happen,” said Badawey before 20 other regional representatives joined him in voting for the resolutions.
One Niagara regional council after another has supported a new transportation system (and more often than not, a highway has been a focus for councillors over rail or other transportation alternatives) cutting across the region, south of the Niagara Escarpment, going back to the late 1990s when Zimmerman served as regional chair. They have views a new highway, running further south between Hamilton and the GTA and the Fort Erie/Buffalo, N.Y. corridor as a catalyst to regional growth and as an alternative to a congested Queen Elizabeth Way.
Opponents to the mid-pen corridor express concern about the environmental impacts on rural farming communities the highway would cut through. They also question why governments should continue encouraging more car and truck traffic over rail and other more environmentally friendly alternatives.
The regional council’s renewed expression of support for a mid-peninsula transportation corridor comes as the province’s Ministry of Transportation is moving toward phase two of what has already been a years’ long environmental assessment review on a Niagara to GTA corridor.
The regional government also believes that a highway connection between Highway 406 and the QEW, possibly running somewhere south of Netherby Road, would “significantly accelerate the economic development in Niagara’s southern tier.”
At a recent town hall meeting in Niagara Falls, Ontario Conservation opposition leader Tim Hudak expressed his hope that a push to move forward with a mid-peninsula highway could be deprived. He added that given the high costs of such a project, a public-private partnership would likely have to be struck to see it through.
One of the last estimates of the cost of a mid-peninsula highway came from the province about a decade ago. The figure, at that time, exceeded, $1 billion.
(Niagara At Large invites our readers to share their views on this post, remembering that NAL only posts comments by individuals who also share their first and last names.)
Niagara At Large 
So; no surprises there. Why else would there be a push to site a new South Niagara hospital on Netherby Road? This has been in the pipeline for a loooong time, clearly. If it weren’t for all that pesky wildlife and nature stuff in the way, they’d have done it already. Must get that throughway in place so that Canadians can get over the border faster to buy Chinese goods even cheaper than they are here, and allow U.S. trucks to ferry in toxic waste, leave it here, and take out raw materials in exchange.
We have the “Highway of Heroes” already. How about the “Freeway of Folly”? Has a nice ring to it.
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Here we go again!
As many of you already know, I was a PR guy for the MTO for about 19 years. I was involved in the original Mid-Pen proposal and then in the Niagara-GTA proposal.
When I retired two years ago, the study team had announced that basically they could see the need for a new connection between Hwy 403 in the Hamilton area and either Hwy 401 or Hwy 407 in the Burlington-Milton area. The study team also noted the need for a new connection basically running from Welland to the QEW somewhere in the Fort Erie area. As for the section between Welland and Hamilton – the study indicated there was no need for any new freeways in that area in the next 20 to 30 years.
That did not sit well with Hudak, Zimmerman, et al. Even though there was no need for a new highway, they insist that “if you build it, they will come” and it will improve economic development in the South Niagara area. This belief is contrary to what the experts on the study team found. But I guess that tin-pot politicians are better experts.
I continue to watch the whole issue with considerable interest. One of the things that I find most interesting is the fact that most of the noise is coming from the right ….
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And what kind of detailed projection of the economic benefits to Niagara of this mid-peninsula did those Niagara Regional councillors who voted in favour use to support their views? Sorry, Tim, Debbie, Vance and the rest: “build it and they will come” just doesn’t cut it as a rationale for spending billions of dollars of taxpayers money. The global economic climate is just too complex, and too volatile.
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Thank goodness! A transportation corridor is vital for Niagara, particularly South Niagara. Of course the Luddites will be howling. I’m kind of liking “Prosperity Parkway” m’self.
Line it with wind turbines and solar farms if you must, just build the bloody thing..
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Unlike other sections, especially near the Ford plant in Oakville, the QEW
from Niagara Falls to Fort Erie is never stopped due to overcrowding.
Ergo there is no need to carve up communities and farmland for another useless highway.
Even the most wild speculation leaves me dumbfounded as to why anybody wants it, with the possible exception of landowners who think they’ll be able to cash in.
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What part of ‘obsolete before it’s built’ aren’t they getting? Planning for a healthy future, with an energy descent action plan is sensible and forward-thinking. Construction without a viable needs assessment, funding, or tangible benefits is without merit.
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They must be just scratching their heads in Japan and Europe when they see Niagara surrounded by the Great Lakes and both joined by the Welland Canal. WHY?– Because long ago they have taken advantage of moving cargo as well as people by water. Along with a modern electric rail system they have blended the two into a low pollution high volume transportation system! If there was ever a time to move into the future and away from the past it is now. Spending billions on yesterdays highways that support yesterdays oil based fuels that would would only stimulate more polluting urban sprawl. In fact not just Niagara would benefit but the GTA as well as all the communities around the Great Lakes in Canada and the US . Plus one has to ask the true cost of building these highways . To move the material to site you destroy roads by the shear weight of the gravel trucks alone . Once the highway is built how much does it cost us to repair the existing road ways we used to deliver this heavy material. So any new figure they come up with for the cost of the MID PEN you may as well double it !
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I am dead set against a new highway for both environmental and economic reasons. All this will do is encourage employment opportunities to move to this new highway, leaving those of us reliant on public transit with access to fewer job opportunities and with respect to the environment, more pollution = more health problems = more health care costs = less environmentally sound planning principles. Niagara already has an attitude problem about the private vehicle. We should be cutting down use of the private vehicle and finding other ways to transport freight, such as rail.
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