Highway 401 Widening - Highway 8 to Townline Road

[danbrotherston]

This is the policy that has driven widening for the past 70 years, widening only makes the traffic worse, the only way to stop increasing traffic is to stop widening.

If we stopped widening, people would use other modes. If we want to remove congestion, pricing, not infinite widening is a solution that would actually reduce volumes.

Not widening, without offering alternatives, is not a realistic solution. People need transport, and so do goods.

We don't have a viable commuter rail option. Not enough frequency, and not enough speed. And not enough connectivity at either end (not everyone is commuting from DTK to Union Station). AD2WGO is like a mirage that keeps moving out, and while I hope we get it sometime not too far away, it's unclear whether we can get any substantial performance improvements with it.

And, as someone else said, GO doesn't help for goods transport.

To really ramp down highway traffic, we need real rail capacity (including first/last mile) and capability. Alas, I just don't see us getting it in the next 20 years. So I encourage, promote and support rail, but also accept the 401 as a necessary evil.

The liberals had a plan for AD2WGO in 10 years, including HSR, instead we're widening the highway.  I'm not suggesting we close the highway, but as Jeffster pointed out, even our economic incentives prioritise driving right now.

But what it really comes down too, is this attitude you are giving is a perpetual motion machine, we will never have alternatives so long as we keep making driving as easy and cheap as possible, by definition. Until we are willing to price the highway the same as we already price transit, and willing to invest in transit the way we have already invested in the highway, we will continue to have this, and saying "well you have to build the highway because there is no choice" does nothing but perpetuate the status quo.

And to suggest that we have no other options is totally false. Today, MTO could order 2000 motorcoaches, 1,000,000 flex bollards, and a few dozen toll and fine cameras, and convert the left lane of the highway into a BRT (or a BRT/HOV) lane, and run 3 minute service to every town on the high way, this would cost about the same as widening, but would actually solve some of our problems as opposed to perpetuating them. And if you tolled the highway, it might even be revenue neutral, and probably decrease travel times to boot. These are real options, yes, not well fleshed out, but there is no technical reason we cannot make these changes, it is 100% political, which I'm not saying doesn't matter, but we don't need fancy technology or new ideas, we need political will.