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August
1999 Newsletter
Region
Squeezes Public Safety Again
The
Region has once again decided that creating artificial demand
for the Red Hill Expressway is more important than public
safety. In early July, the Region opened the "Linc Extension",
a new road joining the four-lane Lincoln Alexander expressway
(the Linc) with the four-lane Mud Street. But incredibly
the new road is only two lanes wide, forcing motorists
travelling at expressway speeds to perform the dangerous
maneouvre of merging into a single lane.
Why
has this new road been constructed in this strange and dangerous
way? There is plenty of regionally-owned land on both sides
of the road, so why not make the road the same width as
the two roads it connects?
It
appears that once again politics, not common sense, is in
command at the roads department. Another traffic crisis
is being intentionally created to try to convince Hamiltonians
that an expressway must be built in the Red Hill Valley.
Unfortunately this is not the first time.
A
proper Linc Extension could have been completed along with
the rest of the Linc in 1997. Instead a "dead end" was created
at Dartnall Road which directed expressway traffic to a
four-way stop. The resulting traffic chaos forced changes
and likely led to the decision to finally build the Linc
Extension.
At
the other end of the Linc, the Region rejected the advice
of the Ministry of Transportation and decided to connect
the new expressway to the 403 by means of the out-dated
and dangerous Mohawk Road interchange. This resulted in
particularly dangerous and irritating backups that extended
long distances along the 403. The Region was required to
spend $600,000 for a temporary ramp and has recently announced
it will construct a new $9 million replacement interchange
at the location.
The
Region's pro-expressway collaborators on Stoney Creek City
Council have refused for over two decades to upgrade the
King to Queenston portion of Highway 20. In 1997, a 20-year-old
"secret deal" was revealed by the Stoney Creek News. The
deal commits Stoney Creek to not making any traffic improvements
whatsoever on Highway 20 until the Red Hill Valley expressway
is constructed. The deal was revealed after staff recommended
adding a fifth turning lane to the King to Queenston section
in 1996 to deal with a large number of left turn accidents
on the roadway. These improvements have never been carried
out, the same fate that met other recommendations for improvements
going back to the early 1980s. Highway 20 remains as one
of the only major roads in the region without such turning
lanes. The continuing problems there are frequently used
as justification for a valley expressway.
Allegedly the artificially created problems on the Linc
Extension are "temporary" and will be solved by the north-south
valley expressway. No doubt these problems will now be blamed
on Sheila Copps, Friends of Red Hill or whatever whipping
boy is currently in vogue, but the truth is hard to hide.
When work on the extension began last summer, the region's
most optimistic predictions were that construction of the
valley expressway would start this summer and take three
years to complete. Consequently, it is clear that the Region
fully intended that this problem on the Linc Extension would
continue for a minimum of three years.
What
is even worse, is that the "pinch" on the Linc Extension
cannot be corrected without tearing out at least one overpass
(built at the same time as the Extension), something that
will have to be paid for by the taxpayers and will likely
cost over one million dollars. The taxpayers will also have
to pay for any lawsuits against the Region arising from
accidents caused by these stunts.
(Note
that the above was released to the media on July 12, but
received no coverage.)
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