Let’s not spend billions on the “Greenbelt Expressway”
Comments on the GTA West Corridor due by June 30, 2011
Your help is needed. The Ontario Ministry of Transportation is planning a new super-highway through one of the most sensitive parts of the Greenbelt in Vaughan. Sustainable Vaughan is asking you to oppose the new GTA West Corridor. We demand the Province prove this Highway will not have a negative impact on Vaughan and demand they prove this highway is needed with further studies, cost benefit analysis and alternatives.
As it stands, the proposed “Greenbelt Expressway” will cut through the City of Vaughan and negatively impact the Greenbelt and the Natural Heritage System, encompassing the Purpleville Creek headwaters (endangered red side dace habitat), the East Humber River and the Cold Creek area. The area also includes prime agricultural lands that support Ontario’s agricultural industry.
Severing the Greenbelt with a network of road systems will result in the slow and incremental erosion of our natural heritage in favour of increased automobile-oriented infrastructure in what the province itself has designated as significant, protected lands. A highway will open the door to increased opportunities for development in the Greenbelt.
The Draft GTA West Corridor Environmental Assessment study recognizes that the natural features of this area are important and must be protected. The Greenbelt Plan policy 4.2.1.2(d) stipulates that “New or expanding infrastructure shall avoid key natural heritage features or key hydrologic features unless need has been demonstrated and it has been established that there is no reasonable alternative”.
The impacts on the City of Vaughan would also be significant. The city already remains largely dependent on its highways and traffic congestion is growing worse each year. As previous highway expansion projects have demonstrated, the “Greenbelt Express” will only exacerbate the city’s congestion problem.
Please write Premier McGuinty today and tell him there are better alternatives than this Greenbelt Expressway!
Email comments to
Mr. Neil Ahmed, P. Eng., Consultant Project Manager
The Minister of Transportation, Hon. Kathleen Wynne
and Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario
dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
To comment online visit, http://www.gta-west.com/comment-form.php
To find out more about the Highway please visit, http://www.gta-west.com/index.html
The "Greenbelt Express"
Sustainable Vaughan 