Specter Of ‘Mid-Peninsula Highway’ Still Cutting Through The Heart Of Niagara’s Green Lands

A Commentary by Doug Draper 

The Burlington Skyway has finally been re-opened, just in time for the work week following the August 2^nd to 4^th holiday weekend in Ontario, but not before die-hard proponents for a “mid-peninsula highway’ argue for the need for it again.

Proposed rought for Mid-Pen Highway with a couple of options for entering and exiting at the west and east ends.

According to an August 2^nd story in The Hamilton Spectator, at least a couple of elected members of that city’s council pointed to an incident that saw a dump truck, with its bucket up, slamming into the Skyway’s structure and shutting it down for the better part of four days as a reason for an “alternative” highway to keep all that QEW traffic unsnarled.

To quote a few lines from The Spectator story; “Two city councillors, Sam Merulla and Brad Clark, argued Friday the crash is a reminder of the need for a controversial, long-planned mid-peninsula highway.”

“Clark argued in an email to a resident the city will see traffic “chaos” more frequently without an alternate corridor that runs from the border to GTA via Hamilton.” The Specator story continued. “Merulla agreed. ‘This really brings into focus how we’re held hostage by a single incident on a single transportation corridor,’ he said.”

Apparently there are still political relics from the 20^th century out there who just can’t give up on the unimaginative idea of constructing g a large swath of asphalt above the Niagara Escarpment – right through some of the best farm country in Niagara, Ontario, and through woodlots, wetlands and other environmentally significant features along the way. In fairness to Hamilton, Niagara has some of those political relics here too who insist on reprising the mid-peninsula highway idea many of the rest of us keep hoping is, for all time, a tumor in remission.

The idea of constructing this alternative highway to the QEW was conceived and most forcibly pushed , possibly to few peoples’ surprise, during the 1990s when former Ontario premier Mike Harris and his neo-cons were running the province and doing everything they could to gut environmental reviews and other programs that stood in the way of their 1950s, black-and-wide revison of economic growth. 

It was an already retrograde idea from the years of mid-20^th Century, Robert Moses-style road concruction when it was first conceived a decade and a half ago and it is an even more awful idea now for a number of reasons, including a few I list below.

First of all, cutting a new multi-lane, 400-series highway across Niagara between the Hamilton area and Canada/U.S. border crossing near Buffalo would, as I have already mentioned, destroy more of what little we have left of our farm country and green spaces. 

Further to that, as history across this continent has shown time and time again, you can’t build another major highway route withoug soon attracing strip malls, large malls, and other low density growth along it, cementing over even more of what we have left of our green lands.

Will this swamp of water from a flash flood on a stretch of the QEW this August 4th become another excuse for constructing an alternative highway? Maybe it would be better to stop burning so much climate changing carbon in the first place?

And further to all that, if you care about keeping spending under control in this province, constructing this new highway, even if a private partner were found to share in the expense, would cost billions of dollars that we don’t have at the moment unless you are willing to accept a sizable hike in your income taxes, along with toll fees to use this route.

Finally, why continue to perpetuate a cycle of building more highways, which encourages more car traffic, which means building more highways, encouraging more cars, etc., etc., etc., well into the 21^st century?

Why can’t Neanderthals like Clark and others consider other alternatives, like expanding Go train and bus services into the Hamilton, Niagara area, encouraging more carpooling and planning communities that make it more attractive for people to live closer to where they work and play? It is beyond their capacity to think through a vision for a 21^st century future, apparently 

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them might also want to now use extraordinary flash floods that incapacitated a section of the QEW in the Burlington area this August 4^th as one more reason why need an “alternative highway.” It might never occur to them that the increasing volumes of high carbon transportation they seek too accommodate well in to the 21^st century might be contributing to climatic conditions resulting in these severe storms to begin with.

We have municipal elections across Ontario this October. Let’s all of us wake up and focus on defeating any and all of the last-century, no-vision-for-the-future people still clogging up seats, like cars bogged down in gridlock, on our municipal councils.

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