So the
provincial Tories are taking a look at congestion, eh? The Ontario
Progressive Conservatives and their leader John Tory plan to canvass
voters for their views on commuting. This could be a rich fishing
ground for the party, especially if they try to exploit the emotions
some of us feel when caught in traffic.
It is normal
for politicians (and columnists) to stir up dissatisfaction as a way
to influence opinions. It is also quite usual for parties out of
power to direct anger at the current government.
Voters
sometimes see through this clumsy manipulation -- all they have to
do is look back in time. Traffic congestion, especially in central
Ontario, has been developing for many years and the roots of the
problem stretch back through Grit, Tory and NDP administrations.
The
Conservatives are off across the province asking interested citizens
to air their beefs about getting from here to over there. They have
set up a website, www.gridlocked.ca, to solicit public comments, but
for some reason I can’t find those comments on the site itself.
Although John
Tory did not lead the PCs while they were in power, the party’s
record on dealing with traffic is ripe for condemnation, especially
in central Ontario. Many others across the province will not send in
messages or go to public meetings, because their commutes are
generally benign.
The Tories may
hope that the folks who do speak up will hold the Liberals under
Dalton McGuinty responsible for fiddling around while gridlock
seizes up the province. Pinning that tail on the Grits just got a
bit tougher, after the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) recently
announced a plan to upgrade some northern highways.
Fixing
crumbling arteries up north could assuage voters in ridings above
Barrie, but cottage-owning southerners may also take note. The
Liberals are touting actual dates for completing the four-laning of
busy Highways 11 and 69, the former over seven years and the latter
within 12 years.
The sitting
government is much more vulnerable in the vote-congested region they
now call the Greater Golden Horseshoe. So far the Liberals have made
most of their infrastructure announcements about transit, as well as
some ongoing reconstruction and new High Occupancy Vehicle lanes on
400-series roads -- projects mostly started by the ousted
Conservatives.
More highway
plans may come to light, but the basic challenge of central
Ontario’s transport network is space. There is little room to widen
existing expressways, so if a government wants kudos for laying
asphalt, they have to do it through open agricultural land far from
built-up areas. The Conservative-era MTO proposed to do just this,
and at the time few pointed out the link between green-field
freeways and urban sprawl.
The Liberals
have already capped development in certain areas around greater
Toronto. Those caps may not even be noticeable for a decade at
least, leaving McGuinty especially open to claims he’s promoting
sprawl with new highways.
This leaves the
Gordian knot of traffic congestion in already developed areas. Even
the big shift of funding to public transit amounts to very little in
the big picture. The chronic bottlenecks will remain, at least
during rush hour.
If the current
rulers of Queen’s Park are vulnerable on the GTA traffic issue, the
Tories look even worse. The current opposition may need to distance
themselves from the previous regime, and come up with policies that
do more than stoke commuter angst. If there is indeed an effective
way to deal with congestion, pollution and sprawl, then Ontario’s
politicians will have to prove they have truly grasped the
complexity of the challenge.