Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[danbrotherston]

Dan, the thing is we need links between the areas that can't (right now) be served well with transit.  And those links make sense as highways.

Again, that's not to say all highways make sense.  It's just that your core point is in no way sufficient as an argument against building a highway.

And the new highway 7 isn't taking away transit options. Any reasonable transit option right now is still possible (and I think everyone is in agreement it should be done). That includes buses and improving the existing train service.  But it makes no sense to me to say we should delay the highway because we didnt try transit first.  There are no transit options in the short-medium term that could solve the problem.

I'll also add that a new highway 7 should help with transit options. Sending a bus along that highway would be a lot better in a lot of cases then sending it down the current highway 7 (although that might still be nice to serve people along that route).

Why do you say we need new links?  There *are* already links between these regions, the new Highway 7 follows old highway 7.  The only difference is an increase in capacity. And, if we ignore economic development for a second, the reason you argue for building the highway is increased capacity. The reason you say that transit won't help is because it serves some places which can't effectively be served by transit, that's true. But just because some areas can't be served by transit, doesn't mean nobody can. Surely some people drive from downtown Kitchener to downtown Guelph, or within a reasonable distance of either. Those areas *can* be served. So if you built transit, *some* people would use it, and those people would no longer be using highway 7. Thus those who can't be easily served by transit would still be able to use highway 7, but with less other people competing for the limited space.

Now, I said this in an earlier comment so it seems we're just talking in circles now.

As for economic development, @mpd618 is absolutely right, but I feel like this highway is here to induce growth, that's a main economic driver that highways bring. This is my whole problem with the development. It isn't smart growth, it's traditional sprawl oriented, suburban growth, which can never be served by transit, and is only going to serve to be the "well we need to build a road because you can't serve with transit" argument later.

If capacity was actually the issue, adding transit, and widening existing highway 7 would be more than sufficient to meet that need.

Obviously, this whole discussion is academic, the highway is in progress, and will be built. Not arguing about that, obviously. But it isn't academic for a number of other highways in the province which we might build, like the mid-peninsula highway, or the greenbelt highway.