Road design, transportation and walkability

[jeffster]

The problem with an investment in a highway like that is that it's not just a neutral intervention that speeds up travelling time between Guelph and KW. It will, at least for a time. But it won't only do that. It changes the equation for how people and businesses will naturally distribute within the region. Some of that is beneficial, it allows greater economic integration between Guelph and KW, for example. But it will also, inevitably, lead to intense pressure to develop the countryside between Guelph and KW. Waterloo Region has some protection, but how durable would it be in the face of pressure to redevelop?

Maybe all of this is okay, and can be done in a way that is not overly detrimental to the environment and devastating to our surrounding agricultural land. But whatever the outcome is, once we build a road like this, we can't reevaluate the decision in 15 years and decide that on the whole, it wasn't a good investment and reverse it. This is a permanent change with very significant implications for our community and the environment. I'd argue that something like this ought to be very carefully scrutinized and studied, but has the MTO really done that? I personally don't think so.

It might spur some development -- though if it does, I would hope it would be employment lands. Kitchener and Guelph at still a pretty far apart, so I don't think we'll see in our lifetimes, nor our kids or grandkids lifetime, that type of development.

I think potentially, 60 years from now, governments might murmur about the 4 cities combining into one large city. But Kitchener could be 400,000, Cambridge could be 250,000, Guelph could be 250,000 and Waterloo could be 200,000. That gives the area, minus townships, a population of 1,150,000. We'll get our Ikea finally.