'Highway 413 will be used by very few commuters and will save very little time at an immense cost both financially and with loss of Greenbelt land,' says Barrie letter writer
BradfordToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is in response to 'LETTER: Province urged not to pave over the Greenbelt,' published July 21.
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In reading a letter to the editor entitled 'Province urged not to pave over the Greenbelt' and a response to that letter, I'm saddened that too many clearly have no idea that Highway 413 is not the Bradford Bypass and vice versa. The original letter mentions Highway 413 at the start, but it was labelled as being about the Bradford Bypass. Does the editor not know the difference?
Highway 413 will run from Halton Region at the 407, through Georgetown, Caledon, Bolton, and ending at the 400 Highway in Vaughan.
The Bradford Bypass will connect the 400 to the 404.
The differences between the two are significant. Highway 413 will be used by very few commuters and will save very little time at an immense cost both financially and with loss of Greenbelt land. It's clear this proposed highway is Doug Ford striking a deal with developers who own a significant portion of land around the proposed route.
The Bradford Bypass has the potential to save commuters approximately 20 to 30 minutes. But that time savings needs to be weighed against the financial cost and the cost to the environment before proceeding.
The person writing the reply letter goes on to say electric vehicles are not affordable (they are) and that there aren't enough charging stations (there are). Since the average EV has a driving range of 386 kilometres, I'm not sure why the issue of charging stations came into this discussion. The fact that the argument dwindles into talking about snowbirds travelling to Florida just made one thing very clear: the lack of informed and focused voters (and media) will be why $6 billion to $10 billion tax dollars will gleefully be spent by Ford on something Ontarians don't need.
Julie Stewart
Barrie
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