This Time, Ford Plans To Widen A Stretch Of The QEW Highway Through Niagara North
“Building more roads to prevent congestion is like a fat man loosening his belt to prevent obesity” – the late urban planning specialist Lewis Mumford
A News Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper
Posted February 19th, 2025 on Niagara At Large
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a 20th Century highway man.
While Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford was on a campaign stop in Niagara late this January, basking in election endorsements from three area mayors – Niagara Falls’ Jim Diodati, St. Catharines’ Mat Siscoe and Welland’s Frank Campion – he introduced a plan that deserves far more attention than I believe it received.
That plan, which he pledged to execute if his Conservative government prevails in this Thursday’s February 27 provincial election, is to widen several kilometers of the Queen Elizabeth Way highway between the Burlington/Hamilton area and St. Catharines for an estimated cost to the province’s taxpayers of $20 billion.
Ford made this promise while the three mayors, along with two other municipal representatives – Port Colborne Mayor and Niagara Regional Councillor Bill Steele and St. Catharines Regional Councillor Sal Sorrento, who are running as Ford candidates in the Niagara Centre and St. Catharines provincial ridings respectively – stood beside him with those stereotypical ‘I’m-ready-for-my close-up’ smiles on their face.
In the wake of this gathering of the Tory Blue troops, a few thoughts shot through my mind.
First, what were the mayors of Niagara’s three largest cities, making up a large percentage of the residents of our region – residents of all political stripes who expect them to be represent their interests and concerns at the municipal level – so openly and unabashedly doing choosing sides in a provincial election race?
From left, Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati, St. Catharines Mayor Matt Siscoe and Welland Mayor Frank Campion openly throw their support behind Doug Ford
Second, when you look at the partisan support Ford is getting from those three mayors and combine that with the two others (Steele and Sorrento) who are as Ford candidates, and consider that all five of them also sit on Niagara’s regional council with at least a handful oothers on the council who are Ford supporters too, no wonder there has been so little push back on that council and it comes to measures Ford and his government have put in place to weaken planning and environmental protection rules, to over-ride the decision making of our local councillors and to take us backwards when it comes to addressing issues like transportation and better ways of getting ourselves around in the 21st Century.
And finally, on the question of transportation, why does the Ford government insist on spending multi-billions of dollars of our money building and widening more highways when he could be investing that money on building one of the best public transit systems in the world?
All three of the other main Ontario Parties, the NDP, the Liberals and the Greens, have repeatedly asked that question, but you don’t seen the mayors of Niagara’s three largest municipalities endorsing them, do you.
Whether it is the hair brain idea of building a multi-lane tunnel for more trucks and cars under several kilometers of Hwy 401 – a project similar to one that almost bankrupt the City of Boston, Massachusetts a few decades ago – or twinning the Garden City Skyway in St. Catharines at an astronomical cost, Ford continues to justify these plans by arguing that they are going to reduce traffic congestion.
There has never been any proof anywhere in the world that building more highways reduces congestion. All it has ever done is encourage more car and truck traffic, then have backward thinkers like Ford come back and say; ‘Well, we have to build more highways again’.
If you want to get enough vehicles off the road to reduce congestion, the best planners in Europe and other countries around the world have already proven that the most effective way to do it is to build better public transit systems.
In Niagara, that would mean investing at least some of those big bucks that would be spent on more roads and highways on more Go Transit, on more convenient and affordable bus services, on light rail and yes, on a better system of bike lanes.
By the way, an endless cycle of more roads and highways and more car and truck use also means more air pollution, including greenhouse gases, and more low-density urban sprawl that destroys more of what is left of our food-growing lands, wetlands and other natural spaces. … cleaner air saving green space
Please think about this when you go to the polls this February 27th folks.
Vote for a cleaner, greener future for our communities that is more affordable too.
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
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