Climate Emergency? What Climate Emergency? Ford is Hell Bent on Expanding the Garden City Skyway for Ever More Trucks and Cars

A News Commentary by Doug Draper, followed by a News Release from Ontario’s Ford Government

Re- Posted April 10^th on Niagara At Large

(A Brief Foreword Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – In the days leading up to the April 8th solar eclipse, news came out that was important and did not necessarily get the attention it deserved because of all the understandable hoopla over the eclipse. The news about the Ford government planning to move ahead with a costly expansion of the Garden City Skyway is one of them and that is why we are posting it again here.)

“Building more roads to prevent congestion is like a fat man loosening his belt to prevent obesity”

This is something that the late Lewis Mumford, a celebrated historian for his time and a philosopher of technology, said back in 1965 when at least some in the field of building more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly ways of moving people and goods around began to realize that building and expanding ever more roads and highways was only going to make a bad problem worse.

Of course, it is  doubtful Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a college drop-out who seems to take pride in his ‘I’m just one of the guys’, Homer Simpson persona, has a clue who Lewis Mumford is.

 Given his girth, however, one might think that Ford might have some idea how loosening your belt to solve a weight problem makes about as much sense as spending countless billions of dollars widening  roads and highways to  solve traffic congestion.

But apparently not.

This April 5^th, Ford”  governing Conservatives put out a news release (the full test of which is included below) announcing that they have “issued a request for proposals” to prospective building contractors for expanding (as in twinning) the Garden City Skyway that on carries car and truck traffic over the Welland Canal on a stretch of the QEW cutting through St. Catharines.

The expansion of this four-lane skyway, which is sure to cost we, the taxpayers of Ontario  (many of us already struggling to pay the grocery bills) hundreds of millions of dollars, is necessary, insists the Ford news release, in order to “to connect more people to jobs and provide a crucial link between Ontario’s international border crossings and the Greater Golden Horseshoe.”

Notice that even in the face of a global climate crisis that could lead to the collapse of the natural resources we need for sustaining life on this planet, , Ford and company are not willing to  make serious changes around  the sources of energy we use and the way people and goods move around.

Instead, Ford and his minions are fixated on building more roads and highways, and on joining in a cross-country federal and provincial Conservative Party campaign to “Axe The Tax”-  that “tax” being the price Canada’s Liberal government is using as a disincentive around the burning of ever more climate-ravaging carbon fuels like oil and gas.

You hardly ever witness any efforts by Ford and company make a concerted effort to shift  to cleaner sources of energy like wind and solar or to require developers to equip future houses and buildings with carbon-free heat pumps rather than furnaces that burn gas.

In fact, one of the first things Ford did when he became Premier more than five years ago was to rip up dozens of contracts to build renewable energy projects across the province.

You also don’t see Ford making a significant effort to do what many other regions in Europe and around the world have already done-  make  building a 21^st Century public transit system and pedestrian and cycling friendly communities a priority over building and widening more and more roads highways for trucks and cars.

When was the last time who heard Ford encouraging people to carpool back and forth to work or to leave their cars at home and use the public transit systems we now have?

Instead, it is more road and highway construction and expansion of a Garden City Skyway that, to the extent it is on the route for traffic crossing the Canada-U.S. border, how well is that going to work when all that traffic reaches the Peace Bridge and other border crossings that haven’t been expanded for decades and possibly never will?

Aren’t there enough bottlenecks at those bridge crossings already?

In the Ford government news release, there is St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe, whose city, along with the Niagara’s regional government, not so long ago declared a “climate emergency,” celebrating the Ford government’s plans to move ahead with the Garden Skyway expansion because it “will allow people and goods to travel more freely” and because, (to use a tired old line almost every politician uses for continuing on with business as usual) it is good for “economic growth.”

This is the same Mat Siscoe who, in his capacity as a Niagara Regional Councillor, recently joined 13 others Councillors at the Region in opposing and ultimately defeating a motion tabled by Pelham Regional Councillor Diana Huson that would have seen Niagara’s regional government join a growing number of other municipalities across the province in asking Ford not to overturn a decision by the Ontario Energy Board to stop subsidizing  Enbridge’s construction of  gas pipelines.

Apparently for our provincial government and for too many of our municipal Councillors in Niagara, the record set for extreme, health-threatening, heat waves last summer, along with last year’s record number of wildfires and all of the choking smoke those fires filled the air we breath across the country – not to mention the increasing frequency of destructive and costly floods and wind storms – are not enough for them to take  the climate emergency we are facing serious enough to work decisively for change.

How much closer to the point of no return do we have to get?

There is a chance that future generations will curse them for their failture to act decisively enough to address what scientists around the world agree is an “existential threat” to our survival.

• Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

Now here is the News Release from the Ford government on the ongoing plans to expand the Garden City Skyway – 

Ontario Advances Construction to Expand Garden City Skyway

Province building two, four-lane bridges to help fight gridlock and move people and goods across the Greater Golden Horseshoe

April 05, 2024

ST. CATHARINES – The Ontario government has issued a Request for Proposals to advance the expansion of the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) Garden City Skyway, marking another milestone in the province’s plan to reduce gridlock, connect more people to jobs and provide a crucial link between Ontario’s international border crossings and the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

“With Ontario’s population growing at a historic rate, we need to ensure our transportation infrastructure keeps pace,” said Prabmeet Sarkaria, Minister of Transportation. “The new and expanded Garden City Skyway will be a game-changer, meaning less congestion and faster travel for the people of St. Catharines and Niagara Region.”

The Skyway expansion includes construction of a new four-lane, 2.2-kilometre bridge across the Welland Canal, as well as the rehabilitation and full deck replacement of the current bridge. Once complete, each bridge will have four lanes with the new bridge carrying Toronto-bound traffic and the upgraded existing bridge carrying Niagara-bound traffic.

“The Request for Proposals (RFP) is an important step on the path to expanding the Garden City Skyway. With the projected increases in population and jobs throughout the Greater Golden Horseshoe in the coming years, this expansion will allow people and goods to travel more freely through Niagara,” said Mat Siscoe, Mayor of St. Catharines.

“The City of St. Catharines is looking forward to the completion of this project and the economic growth that will accompany it.”

The expansion of the Garden City Skyway is among the more than 100 actions identified in the government’s Connecting the GGH: A Transportation Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe.

Quick Facts

• On average, 106,000 vehicles cross the Garden City Skyway bridge daily.
• By 2051, the Greater Golden Horseshoe’s population is estimated to grow from 10 million to almost 15 million people. Over the same period, the region’s employment figures will grow from almost five million to seven million jobs.
• The Greater Golden Horseshoe sees $1.16 trillion in goods transported annually on its highways.
• The government of Ontario has committed more than $3 billion in funding for the 2024–25 Ontario Highways Program, which features 650 expansion and rehabilitation projects.

Quotes

“

“Our government is delivering on its plan to build by investing in critical infrastructure like the Garden City Skyway. Drivers know that under the leadership of Premier Ford, our government is getting it done by building better roads to reduce gridlock and get people moving. By strengthening the link between the Greater Golden Horseshoe and U.S. border crossings, we’re supporting our province’s supply chain, strengthening our economy and building a better Ontario.” – Sam Oosterhoff, Conservative MPP for Niagara West

A Brief P.S. from Doug Draper –  Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff is quoted here talking about “building better roads.” How about using some of the money is government Conservatives would use on expanding the Garden City Skyway and building new highways on repairing the surfaces of roads we already have. He might start with Pelham Street  which is in or near his own riding and runs between the the Town of Fonthill and Welland. The current surface condition of that road, like too many others across Niagara, is a disgrace.

As for the jobs the Ford government is promising all that news highway and bridge construction will bring, it could have created plenty of good-paying jobs building and operating those renewable energy projects it blew up.

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“A Politician Thinks Of The Next Election. A Leader Thinks Of The Next Generation.” – Bernie Sanders