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March 22, 2005
MID-PENINSULA CORRIDOR - THE SEQUEL STARTS IN HAMILTON
by CATCH (Citizens at City Hall)
 The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has re-started its environmental assessment of a transportation corridor running through Niagara, Hamilton and Halton - and it appears determined to avoid any chance of the angry public meetings that helped sink its first attempt two years ago.
MTO has unveiled its draft terms of reference for the assessment and will hold its first "public information centre" (PIC) in Hamilton on March 31. A Burlington PIC is set for April 5, followed by others in St. Catharines , Milton and Welland . There will also be one at the Rockton World's Fairground on April 13.
Each PIC will run from 4 to 8 pm , but there won't be any formal presentations or opportunity for public statements. " The PICs will be arranged as drop-in centres (open house format) to allow the public to see results, exchange information, and ask one-on-one questions of the Project Team", says the document released last week. As if to underline that rule, the Hamilton PIC is taking place in the Renaissance Banquet Centre at 2289 Barton Street East (near Nash).
The draft terms of reference also carefully avoid any mention of a mid peninsula highway. The new terminology is "transportation corridor" and the document suggests this might include transit, rail, marine, air, or "roadways". However, MTO's expertise is limited to road-building, so the draft bluntly warns that the process will be halted if some " transportation mode or solution . outside the jurisdiction of MTO" is chosen. If that occurs, MTO "will refer the planning alternative to the appropriate agency or jurisdiction for further review and action." In the previous process, MTO officials simply dismissed questions about trains with a curt "we don't do rail".
The earlier plans for a mid-peninsula highway fell victim to vigorous and well-organized citizen opposition, especially from Flamborough and Burlington . Councillors in the latter municipality delivered the coup-de-grace to the plans by filing a lawsuit against MTO, at about the same time as a court ruling banned scoped environmental assessments if they didn't include crucial elements such as an examination of need and alternatives.
That ruling has since been overturned, but the MTO has decided to go with "an un-scoped Environmental Assessment that will first identify problems and opportunities associated with the existing and future transportation network, and then consider all reasonable solutions."
MTO had excluded consideration of need from the original Mid-Pen assessment because they had already done a separate study that allegedly proved an expressway was needed. The new terms of reference promise to revisit need, but the document carefully devotes several pages to descriptions of congestion, growth, trucking and other "transportation problems". Specifically, it warns that truck traffic is expected to grow "by 3% to 6% per annum between 2001 and 2031 creating significant strain on the existing transportation network."
The terms of reference also seem to have drawn other conclusions that may be open to challenge. For example, it says that " John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport is a future economic growth centre and major development area in the region". It notes that the airport handled 900,000 passengers in 2001, but doesn't mention the drop to under 700,000 last year and this year. Instead we are told the 900,000 figure "is projected to increase significantly in the future."
The proposed assessment plan is "two-phase". The first part will focus on need and what type of transportation method or combination of methods should be utilized. The controversial selection of a location (called "study area") won't take place until later during a part of the process that doesn't have any PICs. Impacts of the proposal on the ecological and social environment including the "identification of significant features" are also relegated to the period after a decision has been taken of what to build.
This process division means a highway could be chosen before any implications for air pollution, damage to natural areas, or support of sprawl are even considered - something that was widely criticized in the original process.
Some of the guidelines for the assessment are curious, including the promise to "minimize impacts to rural/urban areas". And there are some strikingly muddy explanations such as this description of weighting: "Generally, more weight is assigned to those features which are felt to be more important in assessing impacts generated by alternatives, and less weight is given to those features which are considered to be less important."
The first round of PICs is supposed to allow these things to be clarified or challenged. The complete draft terms of reference can be viewed at http://www.niagara-gta.com/Draft_EA_ToR_Support_Docs_Jan_07_05.pdf and written submissions can be made until May 6.
CATCH (Citizens at City Hall) monitors Hamilton civic affairs. Detailed reports of City Hall meetings can be reviewed at www.environmenthamilton.org/CATCH. You can receive all CATCH free updates by sending an email to CATCH@cogeco.ca.
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