DavidH
Senior Member
It's taken them a while, but video flyovers showing the entire route are now available from the bottom of:
http://www.407eastea.com/pic5.html#
http://www.407eastea.com/pic5.html#
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- Thread starter TJ O'Pootertoot
- Start date
DavidH
Senior Member
The draft EA report is available at http://www.407eastea.com/draftenviro_report.htm
This will be available for public review until July 20, after which it will be formally submitted to the Environment Minister for approval.
This will be available for public review until July 20, after which it will be formally submitted to the Environment Minister for approval.
kettal
Banned
Who is this highway supposed to serve? It cuts right through the protected greenbelt lands.
nfitz
Superstar
Through Pickering, Whitby, and Oshawa it's surrounded by land that is to be developed. It is only between Oshawa and 115 that it's in the Greenbelt, where it's there to divert traffic off the 401. Ultimately, it completes the missing link between the piece of 7 that already been converted to expressway from 35 to Peterborough, keeping all the Peterborough traffic off 401, and provides an alternate route for traffic from the 401. As the gap on 7 between Peterborough and Ottawa is slowly closed over the next century it will carry more traffic.
andomano
Active Member
It's almost like they don't want people to see it - 60 Mb file. You've been warned.
lordmandeep
Banned
Yes 401 is a nightmare from before Oshawa where it is 5 lanes to Highway 135...
I wonder if there are plans to widen the highway there...
Hate Highways all you want, but improving the 401 is needed. Its the lifeline of this province...
I think 3 lanes should happen all the way to Windsor and to Kingston.
I wonder if there are plans to widen the highway there...
Hate Highways all you want, but improving the 401 is needed. Its the lifeline of this province...
I think 3 lanes should happen all the way to Windsor and to Kingston.
DavidH
Senior Member
Considering how open the EA process has been (five (?) sets of public meetings, all documents available online, all documents for the draft available in print at multiple locations in the region, etc - I don't anyone can say they don't want people to see it. And it's not as if there is anything really new in this draft. Those who have been following the process will find that this is just a summary of everything that has been presented before.
I think it's more that people don't know how to carefully author PDF files to make file sizes manageable for those without broadband connections. The original version of the GO 2020 document online was 60MB and that mostly for high-resolution versions of "nice" photos that weren't actually important. At least the 60MB here is going into useful content.
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nfitz
Superstar
60 MB seems pretty reasonable to me. Better than the GO Georgetown document ... it was probably as big, but they had broken it up into over 100-hundred files!
Even if one has got 28.8 kb/s it's only a 5-hour downoad. Set it up when you go to bed ...
Even if one has got 28.8 kb/s it's only a 5-hour downoad. Set it up when you go to bed ...
UD2
Active Member
This highway should be free. Infact, the entire highway system should be free.
nfitz
Superstar
So we should let people use highways for free ... but make them pay to use transit? I'd think that we should at least provide equal costs/incentives for either mode ... but surely we should be making transit free, and making people pay to commute by road!
UD2
Active Member
We do pay. It's called gas taxes and license plate stickers.
Transit a user who doesn’t own cars pay to subsidize car users in paying taxes for road works.
On the other hand, a driver who doesn't take transit pay taxes to subsidize transit.
It’s all fair.
It goes deeper in that. Drivers who buy cars are supporting a large part of the economy, and thus taxation income. Those are the car companies, the part companies, the transportation companies, the dealerships, the insurance companies, tow truck industry, the repair shops, the car washes, the gas stations, the refineries, and every other industry that supports those above said?
In addition, our road repairs currently are subsidized by car users paying through various fees and taxes. If you take $1 million cars off the road of Toronto, who’s going to cover the $130M loss of plate sticker revenue?
I support transit. But I don’t support transit zealots, as with bicycle zealots and environmental zealots.
Too many people go too naively to the extreme these days.
Better to find a middle ground.
In the case of the 407, I don’t believe in profit making infrastructure.
nfitz
Superstar
That doesn't cover a fraction of the cost. Transit users pay about $1,000 a year simply for the passes. The Ontario gas tax is only 14.7 ¢/L. Assuming a very poor mileage of 100 km/ 10 L, thats about 1.5 ¢/km. So someone who commutes 25 km each way to work (many commute less!), and works 250 days a year, is only commuting 12,500 km a year; which is only $187.50
License (sic) plate stickers are not expensive either ... even with the Toronto tax ... and heck, many of use who use transit, still pay those, as it doesn't mean we don't own cars!
With gas taxes so low, it's no where near fair!
When the Ontario government - pre-Harris - started building 407, it was going to take 20-years to build from 401 to Markham Road. In other words, it wouldn't actually be finished yet; that's what private got you.
DavidH
Senior Member
In fairness, the speed up on construction of the 407 had nothing to do with the privatization of the highway, which was already complete when sold. What sped it up was the NDP decision to apply tolls and expedite construction.
I have no problem having tolls on the 407 extension, but it is critical that we plan out how this is going to work so that we don't end up with a set of independent toll collection systems.
Ideally, the 407 Consortium could keep ownership of the current 407 segments including the right to set toll prices - simply because we can't do anything about that - but the actual toll implementation would pass over to Metrolinx. Metrolinx would also operate the tolls on the extension (which will be owned by the province) and any other toll roads that are set up in due course, including possible municipal toll roads. This would include provision of transponders, billing, and customer care.
Essentially, the current 407 toll transponders would become the highway toll equivalent of the Presto card.
nfitz
Superstar
To be fair ... you may well be right - hard to remember the timing. It certainly wasn't complete though ... the first leg from 401 to McCowan Road didn't open until 1997 - about 55 km; I thought that it was already privately owned by then. And it certainly was before construction started on the remaining 50 or so km.
I'm so with you there. And I wish that they could also co-ordinate with EZ-Pass!
DavidH
Senior Member
Correct, I'm referring to the original central portion. The previous eastern (Markham to Brock?) and western extensions (401 to QEW) were built by the 407 Consortium under terms of their purchase agreement.
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