Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[the_conestoga_guy]

It's likely lip-service, but I'll post some Doug Ford quotes from today's Record article here for the sake of posterity.

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...erloo.html

In other comments, Ford said his government intends to build a new Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph, a long-approved project that has faced repeated delays.
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Ford dropped a big number not seen before when asked to comment on delays in constructing a new Highway 7, a four-lane freeway that’s proposed to run just north of the current two-lane highway.

“We’re putting I believe it’s $210 million (into) the Grand River bridges. So we’re going to start moving on that,” he said.

The province had planned to complete Highway 7 bridges over the Grand River by 2020. The bridges remain unbuilt, but the Ford government has said it may begin bridge construction next year.
Ontario approved a new Highway 7 in 2007 to improve safety and speed goods and people. More than $120 million has been spent to buy property and complete advance work, but the new highway remains without major construction or a completion date.

“I’m going to get a firecracker going and move these guys along,” Ford said. “We’re actually seeing progress now.”

The latest delay happened when the Ministry of Transportation cancelled a 2021 construction tender worth up to $27 million to replace the Frederick Street bridge that spans the expressway in Kitchener.
“There were some (requests for proposals) that had to be cancelled that are going up for re-tendering,” Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Mike Harris said on behalf of the government. “I don’t want to talk too much about that because we don’t want to really influence the market on it.”

New Democrat MPP Catherine Fife, of Waterloo, doubts the Ford government has made the new Highway 7 a priority. She warns of “serious health and economic impacts by delaying this highway further.”
“This government has been inconsistent in their messaging around the importance of Highway 7. And today’s reassurances don’t ease the minds of people in K-W or Guelph,” Fife said.