Premier Ford: Don’t turn our communities and Greenbelt into asphalt and sprawl

By Keith Brooks, Programs Director, Environmental Defence Canada

“Premier Ford: Don’t spend $10 Billion to turn our communities and Greenbelt into asphalt and sprawl”

That is the message we need the government to hear.

That’s why we took out a full page ad in yesterday’s Toronto Star, endorsed by more than 100 community groups, from local ratepayers associations to cycling groups, from farmers to doctors.

Together these groups represent the real communities that live and work around the routes of the proposed Highways 413 and the Bradford Bypass, and who are telling the Ontario government that they want public transit and sustainable cities, not more asphalt and sprawl.

Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass would bulldoze hundreds of acres of Greenbelt and thousands of acres of prime farmland – while adding more cars to the GTA’s gridlock. The highways won’t solve congestion. They will just make sprawl developers even richer by allowing huge areas of land around the highways to be bulldozed for more car-dependent subdivisions. There’s a better way: communities want great public transit and affordable homes in walkable, livable neighbourhoods – not more highways.

Take action today to add your voice to the more than a hundred local community organisations whose message we shared with the government yesterday.

Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney has the power to cancel these highways, which would cost upwards of $10 Billion of taxpayers’ money to build and add millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions into our atmosphere. Highway 413 alone would add over 17 million tonnes of CO2 by 2050, and cause over $1 billion in health damages from air pollution.¹

Communities along the routes have said no to these highways. You can do the same. Take action today to add your voice and call on the Ontario government to cancel Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass.