Schedule 3 "The Schedule…

Schedule 3
"The Schedule enacts the Highway 413 Act, 2024. Section 2 of the Act provides an exemption from the Environmental Assessment Act for enterprises, activities, proposals, plans and programs for or related to Highway 413, including the Highway 413 Project and the Highway 413 early works projects."

I am 100% against this.

This highway would not be built if it underwent an environmental assessment, and that's why you don't want to do it. According to your own documentation, it would put 11 species at risk in danger of extinction (https://thenarwhal.ca/highway-413-endangered-species/). It also threatens three conservation lands (https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-highway-413-trca-land/). The preliminary Federal government response highlighted dangers to species at risk, wildlife corridors, and rivers (run off from road salt). It also highlighted key information missing, and lack of consultation with Indigenous peoples (https://thenarwhal.ca/highway-413-federal-feedback/). There also hasn't been sufficient consideration of the impacts of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Highway 413 would run through the Greenbelt, which your government knows well the people of Ontario love and want preserved.

We can't eat pavement, though. We can't breathe it, and can't drink it either. Animals can't live on. And humans are also animals! We can't live on paved highway. Air, water, food, and housing are all more valuable and important than pavement. The job of government is to protect the environment for current and future generations, not to destroy them forever.

"Recognizes the need to priority highways faster... To get people and goods out of gridlock..."

The premise of this regulation isn't back by data. Adding road capacity won't necessarily reduce gridlock because of induced demand. The new road infrastructure just attracts more and more people to drive on it as it becomes known, and then you just have gridlock in a new place. Gridlock is caused by too many single-vehicle cars on the roads. To reduce it, you need to invest in alternatives such trains and buses. Then you need to charge drivers to use highways at peak times, thus providing an incentive to get on those trains and buses instead.

"Recognizes that accidents and lane closures can worsen traffic congestion and impact the quality of life of Ontarians."

Accidents don't just affect "quality of life"; they can disable and kill people. Cyclists and pedestrians are at much great risk than people in cars, so they need greater protection.

I am in favor of "speeding up the delivery of broadband projects to provide all Ontarians with reliable internet access." This is good and should be done.

"Building Highway 413, recognizing the importance of this highway to millions of drivers from across Ontario."

I do not agree that drivers are more important than people who do not drive. In fact, non-drivers includes the most vulnerable of the province, and therefore more in need of government assistance than drivers: children and teenagers, the elderly who have lost their license (or never had it), Ontarians with disabilities that prevent them driving, low-income Ontarians who cannot afford a car. Furthermore, any other Ontarian who has chosen not to drive is as important those who do.

The route proposed for the 413 would pollute critical watersheds, pave over 2000 acres of prime farmland, and threaten critically endangered species. It will destroy wetlands that prevent basements from flooding. In all these ways, building this highway will make life worse for Ontarians and indeed for everyone else in the world.

Farmland is one of Ontario’s greatest assets, supporting an agricultural sector that provides 70,000 jobs and contributes more than $10 billion a year to provincial GDP. Highway 413 will permanently destroy parts of this important industry. This is particularly alarming given that climate change increases the possibility of food shortages in the future. In this way as well, the highway does more to damage than assist the people of Ontario.

Re: the Proposal for municipalities to get approval from the province for new bike lanes that require removal of a lane of traffic and asking or "compelling" municipalities to provide data about existing bike lanes where this has happened, to "get drivers where they need to go faster". I am 100% against this idea.

• This is a huge waste of tax dollars at both the provincial and municipal levels. I do not agree with my tax money going to paying ministry staff to micro-manage bike lanes in every single municipality in the province, or to municipal staff wasting their time compiling or gathering data about past decisions.
• It is anti-democratic and greatly reduces the ability of Ontarians to provide input. Municipal politicians are easy to contact for everyone to give their opinion about existing and proposed bike lanes. That responsibility moving to the provincial level is much less accessible. The ministry of transportation could be so deluged by messages about bike lanes by citizens from every part of the province that they won't be able to respond to them all the way municipal politicians can. Citizens can easily attend and speak at local council meetings. They cannot easily (or at all!) getting standing to speak in the Ontario Legislature.
• First of all, bike lanes don't always increase traffic congestion - see https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/bike-lanes-impacts-1.7358319. If they're not in a dedicated bike lane, they might still be on the side of the road, and they are allowed right in the car lane, in fact.
• Reducing bike lanes discriminates against people who aren't as comfortable riding right beside cars, which are often women, children, older people. These folks might then end up on sidewalks more, which endangers pedestrians.
• I don't agree that the drivers getting where they need to go faster is always a good thing. Bike lanes that slow drivers down might be annoying, but if they save lives, isn't that more important? What municipal politicians say they hear the most about is unsafe drivers. People in Ontario do care more about lives than driver speed. You are out of touch with what your citizens want.
• It will make all of our cities worse. Provincial politicians are not intimately familiar with the road structure of every municipality in Ontario. That's why they aren't in charge of local roads. They cannot possibly make better calls of what's better for every city in Ontario in terms of overall road infrastructure than the actual experts on this matter, local municipal politicians and staff. (Note that Bloor Annex BIA has made a statement in favor of the controversial bike lanes there.)
• This whole thing seems to be prompted by three specific by bike lanes in Toronto. Ontario is more than Toronto, and the entire province should not be made to suffer in a bureaucratic nightmare just because the Premier and the Minister of Transportation happen to be from the Toronto area and to care much more about what happens there than they do about the rest of the province. Set up a meeting with Mayor Chow and keep the rest of us out of your little local dispute.