Accountability, Semantics & Transparency

Files 1.055 and 1.072 mentioned in a recent Environment & Transportation Committee agenda use such terminology as "northern freeway corridor" and "peripheral freeway." A May 7th e-mail to the Mayor and to Environment & Transportation Committee pointed out:

• Freeways: divided roadways carrying traffic at high speed under free-flow conditions with access at interchanges only, typically connecting larger cities.
• Arterials: roadways where movement of through traffic is the primary consideration with land access a secondary function.
• Expressways: generally divided arterial roads with at-grade intersections.

Elected representatives are left with these questions: What city are they connecting to in Middlesex? If a freeway is preferred, why not engage all affected counties and the Province?

Buried in the January 04 State of City Address, "...we have continued our discussions with the County of Middlesex and the Province regarding the ongoing issue of a ring road." In the January 05 address neither a ring nor a peripheral expresssway is on the radar.

Back in 1972, Queens Park committed to helping with construction of Airport Rd. Thirty-three years later it's not a four-laner. Yet, some members of council would kid taxpayers that London can go it alone on a northern corridor (twice the length of initial Airport Rd) ...and in another municipality, without financial and planning assist from the province. For the sake of accountability, the January 06 State of the Capital address should reveal the amount spent on ring/peripheral road studies over the last 10 years.

Montreal, in its fight to retain the Shriner's Hospital, plays the "poor transportation access" card. Local support for a northern trade corridor provides broad regional access ...and 403 interchanges at major arterials takes pressure off an already jammed Wellington Rd.

Now, this blog encourages comment; pro, con or straddling the median. Perhaps a few brave council members will lend some transparency by accepting the challenge to sell voters on their doable 33-yr peripheral vision?

Transport Board Needed

Cities and regional governments around Toronto have a joint board whose top priority is a seamless highway system. Given the province's decreasing role in funding roads, the London area should move to such a structure to avoid turf wars over road routing, design and cost sharing.
Case in point -Middlesex and London drivers are not convinced north and west agri-expressways fix inner-city traffic woes. Although the far west has no industries, millions would be spent on a heavy-duty high-speed stub across creek and through productive woodland and cropland from the 402 to Oxford St W; far better to avoid such disruptive mid-block corridor and join two existing roads, Westdel and Denfield; thus connecting Highway 4 at Clandeboy with the 402 .
Perspectives -In 98 the Province said there were plans for widening the 401 between Wellington Rd and the 402 intersection, but no current plans for a freeway connecting Woodstock to Strathroy. Regardless, business and political leaders in the area can best advance their NAFTA priorities by pushing for that northern 403/402 link.
Reality Check -The thru-London stretch of the 401 is not capable of handling future truck and auto volumes. Perhaps with London's ring distraction, other south-west municialities will take the lead in creating a strategic Transportation Authority.
In London Business Magazine & St. Thomas Times-Journal back in 1999

Trade Corridor Needs Champion

Back in Vision 96 days, council cheered the NAFTA Highway concept and asked the province to improve the 401 between London and Windsor. Then they forgot the trade corridor and launched expensive and inconclusive reports on a self-serving commuter ring.
The 1950s design of the Woodstock to London segment never anticipated a 21st Century free trade highway. Now, looking ahead 20 years, a multi-laned 401 through London will not be able to absorb projected truck volumes. Think of a clogged six-lane Wellington Road with a cloverleaf at Commissioners Rd. Relief would be provided by a NAFTA link near the north London boundary giving new outlets for north/south arterial roads such as Adelaide St., Denfield Rd, Hyde Park Rd, and Richmond St.
The city's Transportation Master Plan shows a proposed mid-block corridor paralleling Westdel Bourne (a designated 4-lane arterial) from the 402, north beyond the Thames then easterly near the city boundary to Clarke Rd. There is no evidence of a cost/benefit analysis comparing the ring with the 403 extension and west arterial alternative.
Council believes a peripheral loop avoids gridlock. The key assumptions: future generations in the west end would take a far-out northern ring to jobs in the east end ...and would tolerate their fuel taxes going to inter-city freeway expansions in more dynamic regions, while we bear full brunt of construction and maintenance of a city expressway.
Local councils resist improving London and Middlesex traffic flows while we await a modern-day Adam Beck to champion the obvious solution to Londons future traffic woes.
In South London Reporter in May 2004

Parallel Freeway Urgent

To accommodate 50-yr build out, London vowed to protect a ring corridor even as it approved subdivisions to the north border. No problem. Just route it through the township. Result: Rather than intersect their major north/south roads with a provincially funded freeway, London and Middlesex lock horns.
Meanwhile , Dorchester, Mt. Brydges and Strathroy complain about bearing the brunt of 401 closures due to accidents and weather. When the city and its neighbours fail to see a road around such problems, the Transport Ministry naturally allocates our fuel taxes to new 400-series projects in more cohesive regions.
Queen's Park will soon legislate our region's landfills as a quick fix for GTA's trash overflow. Smart politicians might join in advancing a long-term solution -deposit residential waste in salt caverns -and use methane to generate electricity. The salt beds have remained sealed since the primordial ocean evaporated eons ago. Saline leaching never threatened our freshwater lakes. Let the finest minds in hydrology determine if aquatic life and drinking water would be at risk.
Rather than a local landfill crisis and a far-out commuter ring, better a provincially financed garbage road and trade corridor. Our NAFTA-driven economy depends on moving the freight just in time. The province knows that without a northern freeway, US gateway improvements will soon choke the sole mid-west truck route, and that for national security reasons alone a parallel freeway is imperative.
Neighbouring counties and London win big with a 403 extension sweeping by Arva over to the 402. Normally, it takes a coalition of municipalities seven years to get the province to complete a highway needs study. The garbage crisis shortens that time frame. But, as more garbage trucks pound the 401/402 and irate Michiganders quack foul, the trash coalition reacts rather than pro-acts.
In Strathroy Age Dispatch and TheLondoner in spring 2003