York Region council reconfirmed its support of the GTA West Transportation Corridor by a vote of 15 to 8 today, after hearing from multiple residents and organizations urging councillors to remove their endorsement of the provincial project.
In the past year since regional council first expressed its support for the proposed highway that would run southwest from Vaughan to join Highway 407 near Halton, the project has become increasingly controversial with residents and environmentalists, with some local municipal councils such as Vaughan voting not to support it.
After hearing from residents from King and Vaughan opposed to Highway 413 this morning, King Mayor Steve Pellegrini said he anticipates that his council will be voting against the highway, and moved that York Region withdraw its support, as well.
"The elephant in the room is whether we support this highway," he said. "The route keeps changing, and at some point, we have to stand on our environmental platform."
Newmarket Mayor John Taylor seconded the motion, saying there are too many concerns about the project, and that he and some fellow councillors had made an uninformed decision when they voted to support it.
"I didn't give this project much thought, I really didn't, and I should have. As we get further and further into this, we are having a kind of public consultation right now. We are getting a lot of information, organizations are bringing issues to light, I am learning a lot more about this project," he said.
"Through that scrutiny, we are learning a lot. And we as a council never sat down to look at the pros and cons of this project and supporting it."
Taylor said government effort and money would be better spent on mass transit solutions, including a Yonge Street subway for which the region is pushing.
The majority of councillors disagreed, with Markham Mayor Frank Scarpetti arguing that withdrawing support would be shortsighted. The transportation corridor is needed to accommodate the anticipated growth in York Region and the GTA and to give the government an excuse not to spend money on needed infrastructure would be a decision the region would come to regret decades down the line, he said.
Although councillors voted two-thirds in favour of reopening the discussion regarding endorsement of the provincial project, they ultimately voted against the proposition of withdrawing support.
