By Lorne Small March 6, 2015
A new transit corridor is being planned for the GTA. The planned route is from the Newmarket area north of Toronto to the Milton Area to the west of Toronto. The new fifty kilometer corridor will carve its way through good farm land in the greenbelt just south of the Niagara Escarpment. The corridor will include a multi-lane limited access highway as well as a mass transit system to move people without the use of personal passenger vehicles. Reducing the human carbon footprint is part of the planning process. It is expected that the new corridor will open in the year 2031. The CFFO is one of the organizations that has been invited by the Ministry of Transport to participate in the discussions and to make suggestions on design features, final location and community impact.
Listen here:
[audio mp3="http://blackburnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MARCH-6-CFFO.mp3"][/audio] It is regrettable that good farmland must be paved over to accommodate a rapidly growing urban community. The GTA will need a more comprehensive transportation network to move goods and services to more and more people who will be living and working in the area. Currently there are about a million people applying to come and live in Canada. Their preferred location is major cities like Toronto. Projections for the next twenty years are for another two million people to come and live in the GTA. That is equivalent to the city of Montreal moving to Toronto. Naturally the transit system has to be expanded to accommodate this growth. From a positive perspective, this is many more consumers on our doorstep needing the products that farmers produce, many asking for local food. It is difficult for a farm organization like the CFFO to see approximately fifty - hundred acre farms (5,000 acres) disappear under pavement. Not only does the farmland disappear, the new transit corridor will divide farms and farm communities. Of course the land owners directly affected will be compensated, but many other residents will be inconvenienced without compensation. A project of this magnitude will change communities forever. The Ministry is asking us how to minimize the corridor's impact on rural communities. There need to be sufficient overpasses and underpasses, strategically located to allow the farming community to operate their businesses without undue disruption. Underpasses need to be wide and high enough to accommodate modern farm equipment, not only today's equipment but also new equipment that will be introduced thirty years from now. Effective planning now can make farming more workable many years into the future. Other concerns include dealing with the unseen side effects, such as the interruption of farm natural drainage systems, farm ponds and tile drains and contamination of farm water systems from roadway pollutants like salt and fuel spills. Urban sprawl can follow a new faster commuter highway. We are continually reminded by the planners that many more urban people moving to the rural countryside is not the intent of the new transportation corridor. We are assured that growth will be orderly and carefully planned in a way that public transport will be the preferred way to move people from community to community. Jobs will be in these communities as well as housing to avoid the bedroom community syndrome. Changes are coming rapidly; let's hope that through thoughtful planning we can have the best possible outcome for all of us.
______________________________________________________________________________________ Lorne Small is the president for the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario. The CFFO Commentary represents the opinions of the writer and does not necessarily represent CFFO policy. The CFFO Commentary is heard weekly on CFCO Chatham, CKNX Wingham, and UCB Canada radio stations in Chatham, Belleville, Bancroft, Brockville and Kingston. It is also archived on the CFFO website: www.christianfarmers.org. CFFO is supported by 4,000 family farmers across Ontario.
