Toll-free Hwy 407 for truckers better than building 413 through Caledon farmland – report

A report commissioned by Environmental Defence declares subsidizing Highway 407 for truckers is the far better option for dealing with congestion on GTA roads than building the controversial Highway 413.

The report, The Freight Escape: How to Get Trucks Off the 401 Without Blowing a Hole in the Greenbelt, concludes that removing the tolls for trucks will ease congestion for all road users save taxpayers at least $6 billion.

The report, prepared by English research firm Eunomia Research & Consulting, says getting trucks off the 401 and stopping the construction of the proposed Highway 413 will also preserve more than 2,000 acres of farmland and about 400 acres of the Greenbelt.

Highway 413 would be a four-to-six lane controlled-access highway that connects the existing 401 and the 407 ETR interchange just east of Milton, roughly follows the Halton Hills-Brampton boundary before cutting across Caledon on its way to Highway 400 in King Township.

The road, which is estimated to cost $6 billion (with some sources pegging the final total at closer to $10 billion), has been controversial from its inception and cries for its cancellation have only grown louder since the Greenbelt scandal rocked the Doug Ford government earlier this year.

“Traffic congestion in the GTHA is a big problem, especially for the trucking and hauling sector. Travel times are long, wasted fuel costs are high and everybody agrees that action needs to be taken,” said Environmental Defence Executive Director Tim Gray. “The Ontario government could make things better by putting trucks on the 407 immediately, but instead is pushing Highway 413 as an expensive, destructive and sprawl-enabling alternative that has been shown by previous studies to save drivers less than 60 seconds.”

“In fact,” Gray continued, “the highway would be nothing but another favour to friends of Premier Doug Ford who stand to benefit from sprawl at the expense of the rest of Ontario.”

Eunomia’s research found subsidizing the toll for trucks on the 407 would address the key aim of reducing congestion on the 401 while eliminating the risk of negative environmental impacts.

“Subsidizing the toll on the 407 ETR is a preferable approach to constructing Highway 413,” the report stated.  “The solution will achieve the same goal of improving journey times for truckers and alleviating congestion on the 401, all while avoiding the very real negative financial and environmental impacts of the proposed Highway 413.”

The 407 ETR toll for truckers is as much as $1.87 per km during peak hours and at peak locations; a cost that has been deterring use because commercial road users are not willing to pay the price, despite the time savings that would come from avoiding the congested 401.

The report, which included input from Transport Action Ontario, found that subsidizing truckers on 407 will get 12,000 to 21,000 trucks off the 401 and reduce their travel time by as much as 80 minutes.

As well, the $4 billion cost of the plan would be paid out over 30 years and would help fund the pensions of Canadians as the 407 is 50.1 per cent owned by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

“The proposed Highway 413 would come at serious financial costs,” Gray said. “Experts have warned against the cumulative damages that this mega project would cause, yet the Ontario government continues to push it forward as the only solution to reducing traffic for truckers despite clear evidence to the contrary.”

“The trucking industry and the driving public would benefit from less gridlock on the 401 and all of us will be richer – financially and environmentally – if Highway 413 is not built and Highway 407 is used properly.”

The full report is available here.