Recommendations of the city’s draft Transportation Master Plan (TMP) unveiled last week include over $700 million for new road construction plus more pressure on the Ontario government to expand existing provincial highways and build new ones. Improving transit is also emphasized but the required bus purchase plan is described as “unfunded” and the claim for past ridership growth is much larger than HSR numbers.
The plan renews support for a new expressway to the airport as well as widening the Linc and Red Hill parkways and Highway 8 to Niagara. Other road building is concentrated on the south mountain and the Waterdown area as well as urban boundary expansion lands in lower Stoney Creek.
The presentation made Tuesday evening by the president of Thompson Ho Transportation Incorporated consultants openly challenged Queen’s Park smart growth policies, calling for the city to instead ensure that it gets what it wants such as a mid-peninsula highway.
“We need to be bold with our provincial and regional partners,” declared Jack Thompson. “We have to engage the Ministry of Transportation and regional stakeholders to make sure that the provincial facilities which are on the periphery of Hamilton and run through Hamilton are addressing the needs of the Hamilton community.”
“So we all know that twenty years ago the Ministry of Transportation was doing the mid-peninsula corridor,” continued Thompson. “It was going to relieve the QEW corridor. It was going to provide more access. That passed by the wayside. They started the Niagara to GTA corridor. Now it’s fallen off the radar. So the city has to be bold and keep pushing the province to provide adequate interregional transportation service.”
The Niagara to GTA corridor was simply a renaming of the mid-peninsula highway and examined the same expressway before rejecting it nearly three years ago as unnecessary and calling for improved transit instead. That provincial shift in emphasis away from more road building didn’t sit well with Hamilton politicians and the new Transportation Master Plan reflects that despite the costs.
It calls for widening of the 403, “a new link between the RHVP (Red Hill Valley Parkway) and the airport” as well as “consideration of a high occupancy vehicle lane on the Linc and RHVP with future consideration for high-occupancy toll lanes.”
The road price tag is $728 million by 2031, or nearly $50 million a year. That would consume over half the current roads budget and almost certainly worsen the shortfall in maintenance and replacement of existing city infrastructure that has climbed to $3.5 billion, and is increasing at $200 million a year.
When asked about this financial challenge, Thompson said he couldn’t address that. “We’re trying to identify what’s required for the future. If the city as a whole does not have the money because of this operating deficit then maybe they have to put some sort of slow down in the process.”
The estimated spending on transit over the next 15 years is $355 million – but the $300 million HSR says it needs for growth to 2024 is acknowledged as unfunded – a fact confirmed by the city’s ten-year capital budget forecasts. The display panel on transit incorrectly claims HSR ridership increased by 30 percent between 2001 and 2011, although it notes that rides per capita decreased during this decade, and that population growth was only 6 percent.
HSR numbers filed annually with the province show ridership growth of less than 6 percent over the same ten years and even slower expansion since 2011. Rides per capita were 48.5 in 2001 and fell to 41.2 in 2011. In correspondence with CATCH last week, Thompson said the 30 percent growth number was based on a provincial survey carried out every five years and promised to revise the panel to utilize HSR statistics instead.
The official plan goals are to “provide a comprehensive and attainable transportation blueprint for Hamilton as whole that balances all modes of transportation to become a healthier city.” Reducing dependency on single occupant vehicles and improving “options for walking cycling and transit” as well as to “maintain and improve the efficiency of goods movement” are identified as “ultimate goals”.
Currently 84 percent of trips in Hamilton are in vehicles, and that share is over 60 percent even for trips under one kilometre in length. The finalized TMP is expected to be presented to city council in the fall.