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She, Chiarelli, Ottawa South MPP John Fraser and Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca (who was present only via a written statement) all talked about how widening the highway will help people get to and from work faster. None specified the sorcery that will make this wider highway different from other wider highways.

“Roads isn’t only commuters driving to and from work on a daily basis,” Chiarelli added. “They’re part of our economy. They’re salespersons, they’re people in commercial industries who have to get from Point A to Point B and it’s not convenient, from a commercial point of view, to take public transit. … We will need roads for the foreseeable future. We’re not banning roads, we’re not freezing them at their present status, in fact we’re improving them.”

Besides, it’s customary to spend 60 per cent of a transportation budget on roads and 40 per cent on transit, he said — he didn’t say why — but in Ottawa the province has already put $300 million into rail and is planning to spend nearly $1 billion more.

In this case, the new publicly funded road room will compete with new publicly funded transit, with the second phase of light rail planned to run right alongside the widened Queensway for a stretch along the 417. This will happen in the east, too, where a wider Highway 174 and light rail running at least to Place d’Orléans will share a corridor for kilometres. Making driving easier is exactly the wrong way to encourage people to use transit.

The new lanes on the 417 might be restricted to high-occupancy vehicles and people prepared to pay for permits, Chiarelli said — no decision’s been made. Toll lanes would help the commercial traffic Chiarelli talked about, by reserving space for people willing to pay a few dollars. They’re politically controversial, though, and there hasn’t been much appetite for them anywhere you can’t see from the CN Tower.

People and goods need to get around but simply widening highways does not help. Wishing it were otherwise doesn’t make it so.

dreevely@postmedia.com

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