Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek said the Ontario government is “taking a promise and making it an action item” with plans to spend more than $1 billion to improve safety on a deadly stretch of Highway 401 in Southwestern Ontario west of London.
Yurek said there are still a lot of details to untangle about widening the 128-kilometre section of highway between London and Tilbury from four to six lanes and adding a concrete median barrier.
When asked for a cost estimate for the project – included in the first budget delivered by the Ontario Progressive Conservatives on Thursday – Yurek said, “I know it’s over a billion dollars roughly to complete.”
Yurek said the project was a priority for the provincial government.
“I’m wanting this done sooner rather than later,” Yurek said. “That’s why it’s in this budget, this year, so we can get to work on it.”
The project, he added, “should hopefully be well into the construction” by the next provincial election.
Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley, who worked with former Windsor and London mayors in the late 1980s and early 1990s to advocate for 401 concrete barriers in those areas, applauded the Ford government for doing what was promised during the election campaign.
“The fact that it was in budget says to me that this is going to happen,” Bradley said. “The other option (of installing high-tension cable barriers), I don’t think was as good as this.”
Bradley said the effectiveness of the concrete medians can be demonstrated by what was put in place between London and Woodstock, and beyond.
Yurek said the environmental assessment on the highway project will begin shortly and, once completed, will move to the design phase before contracting out to get shovels in the ground. He hoped to use some sections of highway that have previous environmental assessments already attached.
“I’m working with the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks to see if they will allow those environmental assessments to stand or whether I have to do new ones or not,” Yurek said. “We could really speed up the process if we’re allowed to use the older environmental assessments.”
The minister said if the old environmental assessments are allowed that would likely cover the project from Tilbury east to Elgin County, which doesn’t have an assessment on it yet.
Yurek doesn’t know the details yet on whether the extra lanes will be placed in the existing median area or expanded on each side, saying that will be determined by the engineers who design the project.
“Either way we’re still going to make it six lanes and put the concrete barrier in,” he said.
Yurek and Chatham-Kent-Leamington MPP Rick Nicholls joined forces with the Build the Barrier citizen group, founded by Chatham-Kent resident Alysson Storey, to push for concrete barriers to be installed on this stretch of highway known as Carnage Alley.
“Local advocacy does work. The people in the Chatham-Kent area were very out there and at the forefront in pushing their plan and getting involved with the local MPPs, and that makes a difference,” Yurek said.
He said the Ford government is acting on a promise made during the last election campaign, “and we’re doing it early.”
Bradley also praised the efforts of Storey.
“The power of an individual with a just cause can do incredible things and she did a great job … making the case to the government, making the case to the public that this was the right thing to do,” he said.
Storey said in a media release she is cautiously optimistic now there is commitment in writing to widen the highway.
“Minister Yurek lives in Carnage Alley and has worked with us on this issue since Day 1,” she said. “He knows first hand the dangers drivers face on a daily basis on this outdated stretch of highway.
“I have no doubt the reason why this was included in the budget is because he pushed for it, and we are very thankful for that. We just cannot ignore the fact there have been at least 15 incidents in Carnage Alley, including three fatalities, between London and Tilbury in 2019 alone.”
The regional push for safety upgrades stemmed from a September 2017 median cross-over crash near Dutton that killed Londoner Sarah Payne, 42, and her five-year-old daughter, Freya, and injured her six-year-old son. Payne was a close friend of Storey.
Amid mounting public pressure, the former Liberal government at Queen’s Park built high-tension wire cable barriers, which didn’t fully satisfy some safety advocates. Near the end of the Liberal government’s time in office, its transportation minister said median barriers would come, but not right away.
– With Postmedia News files
from Chatham Daily News http://bit.ly/2GkmZlS
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