by Policy Options. Originally published on Policy Options
December 17, 2024
You would think the reason for building a new multi-billion dollar highway in the heart of Toronto’s traffic nightmare would be to relieve Ontario’s worst commute on Canada’s busiest highway. But that’s not the case.
When Premier Doug Ford’s Ontario government announced Bill 212 — titled the “Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act” — they marketed it as the golden ticket to solving Toronto’s traffic jams, promising that it would shave 30 minutes from the average motorist’s commute, a claim which experts quickly hit the brakes on.
The proposed six-lane, 52-km Highway 413 would “get people and goods out of gridlock, and save drivers and businesses time and money,” according to the project proposal.
On a collision course with common sense
So how will the Ontario government pull off this multibillion-dollar project? And how much will it actually cost taxpayers? Well, we’re not sure.
The province hasn’t provided any cost estimates beyond stating in its latest budget that it will spend $28 billion over 10 years on “highways.”
According to a report from Ontario’s auditor general, the price tag for Highway 413 alone may be more than $4 billion. Some critics have set this cost as high as $10 billion.
But we don’t actually know.
The Ford government gone to great lengths to conceal the cost of Highway 413, including rejecting the Ontario information and privacy commissioner’s requests for greater transparency about costs – which led the commissioner to express “significant concerns” about the project.
Meanwhile, despite significant pushback from farmers, journalists, professional associations, environmental activists, Indigenous nations, independent experts, and opposition parties, the province is actually trying to accelerate Highway 413.
In May 2024, the province reached an agreement with the federal government to fast-track the project by allowing it to bypass standard environmental regulations that are required under the federal Impact Assessment Act – a move that may prove disastrous for Ontario’s Greenbelt.
In a press release earlier this year, the premier’s office said the province plans to start construction as early as 2025.
But why the rush?
Racing toward an early election
In recent weeks the government has pumped out so many bills that it’s generated a gridlock of lawmaking, with 105 pieces of legislation, including 11 new bills, generated in less than a month. But upon closer examination, this frantic activity is anything but random.
Not only does the Highway 413 act fulfill one of Ford’s 2022 election promises, it also aligns closely with other themes in the province’s fall economic statement that look suspiciously like popular election issues – such as lowering costs for motorists by removing road tolls, freezing driver’s licence fees, and building new highways and other road-related infrastructure.
In fact, in the space of just the past few weeks, the province made announcements on every key promise from its 2022 election campaign: housing, fuel tax cuts, long-term care, hospitals, mining, energy, and now Highway 413.
Ontario’s next election isn’t scheduled until 2026, but political experts and opposition parties are all preparing for an early vote in 2025. The premier himself has publicly mused over the idea, and the Ontario Progressive Conservative financials show Ford has used record fundraising to amass a huge war chest which is more than double that of all other political parties combined.
All about the votes
Although the Progressive Conservatives are leading in opinion polls, they have cause for concern. The Ford government’s approval ratings have dropped four percentage points since August, and positive impressions of the premier have fallen 11 points since April.
Ford will also have noted how dangerous it has been this year for incumbent provincial governments seeking re-election in Canada, as New Brunswick’s Blaine Higgs and B.C.’s David Eby can attest.
In these times, parties need every vote they can get, and in Ontario there are 11 million or more to be found in the form of licensed Ontario drivers. That’s a large base of potential votes if you can appeal to it, which Ford is trying to do by eliminating licence fees and promising new roads.
The tunnel vision of Doug Ford and François Legault
For Canada, the 15-minute city is made trickier by sprawl
Unfortunately, despite the flurry of motorist-friendly announcements, it appears that some policies – including Highway 413 and Ford’s plan to rip up bike lanes – aren’t polling that well, including among Ontario’s drivers.
EKOS Research polling suggests that 74 per cent of Ontarians agree the “Greenbelt is no place for new highways,” while another poll found that half of respondents did not support Highway 413.
A recent Abacus Data poll shows while 70 per cent of Ontarians use motor vehicles as their main mode of transportation, half of them do not support Ford’s plans to remove bike lanes. When probed further, two in five Canadians felt bike lanes provide useful alternatives to car travel, and 37 per cent believe that removing bike lanes will have no effect on traffic congestion.
With a growing body of research suggesting that creating more driving lanes will not actually reduce traffic volumes, there is creeping doubt amongst Ontarians regarding the real value of such policies.
A look ahead
Heading into 2025, the Ontario government will face significant challenges – including a new and likely turbulent regime in Washington, rising cost of living concerns, and thousands of frustrated Ontarians looking for something to be optimistic about.
To ensure transparency, the government needs to adopt all recommendations contained in the auditor general’s 2022 highway management review, as well as allow a full environmental assessment to take place on Highway 413.
Ford should also offer a subsidy encouraging truckers to use the express toll Highway 407, which would remove up to 21,000 trucks daily from Highway 401 and help relieve its congestion.
And rather than spend billions on an ineffective mega-highway, the province should invest in much-needed transit infrastructure for traffic-choked southern Ontario, including GO rail corridors for Kitchener and Milton, a new GO route to Bolton, and increased bus rapid transit or light rail for Brampton, Mississauga, and Vaughan.
According to Transport Action Ontario, an advocacy group that promotes sustainable transport, targeted investments on light rail and bus rapid transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area could quadruple the number of daily passengers that a new mega-highway would move, at far less than the billions it would cost to build Highway 413.
If the Progressive Conservatives aim to win their fast-tracked election in 2025, they need to ditch the invasive and costly motorway mentality in favour of practical, evidence-informed policies that actually solve traffic problems for Ontarians.
This article first appeared on Policy Options and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
