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Mono council supports Highway 407 study

February 6, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

Mono council agreed to support an effort by the City of Vaughan to lobby the province to look into buying back Highway 407 as a means to alleviate the traffic congestion on other high-travelled thoroughfares.

Highway congestion is known well to Dufferin County commuters any time of the year. Pretty much any time of the day, the traffic on Highway 10 in either direction is vexing to motorists.

According to Dufferin County statistics, as many as 51.4 per cent of residents commute outside the county for their jobs, said Councillor Elaine Capes when she brought the motion to council Jan. 28.

“This puts us in the second place in the highest in the province in this category,” she said. “So there are a lot of people who would be potentially beneficially impacted.”

Of Mono residents, 2,135 residents commute down to workplaces on Highway 10. Of those, 355 go to work in Brampton, 220 go to Mississauga, 175 go to Toronto.

“That’s a lot of travel on those roads,” Capes said.

Mono’s municipal government has long been on record as being opposed to the construction of a proposed Highway 413. Many municipalities along the proposed route and environmental groups are also against the construction.

In 1998, then-premier Mike Harris passed Bill 70 which permitted the $3 billion sale of Highway 407, which was built with public money, to a private consortium on a 99-year lease. It enabled the consortium to set the price charged to motorists for accessing the highway.

And that privatization has led to significant toll increases over the years, Capes said in her notice of motion.

Those steep tolls deter motorists from availing of Highway 407. And that increases the traffic on other public roads.

Capes said in her motion that those high tolls disproportionately affect low-income and mid-income residents who rely on the highway to get to work.

Trucking companies avoid Highway 407 because of the tolls, which push them in high volumes to other roads. In fact, a Transport Action Ontario study suggests a toll subsidy for trucks could increase truck usage of Highway 407 and reduce volume on other roads.

Toll revenues from Highway 407 benefit private entities while residents continue to face high costs and high traffic volumes. The removal of tolls through public ownership would increase Highway 407 usage, alleviate traffic on other highways, and generate revenue through increased usage.

Less truck volume on other roads would create safer and less congested travel for citizens commuting to work outside of Dufferin County.

Capes said a 6.7 per cent stake of the highway is for sale. It’s a piece of the highway that’s owned by AtkinsRealis, formerly known as SNC-Lavalin.

Highway 407 itself is worth $32.5 billion. The portion AtkinsRealis put on the market is worth about $2 billion.

“A feasibility study will examine the financial viability and profitability … from ownership and from licencing of that purchase by the province,” Capes said.

Mono resident Sharon Somerville urged in a previous meeting that council get behind the lobbying effort for a feasibility study.

“It is a study,” Somerville said. “It will have a certain cost to it, but the opportunity that the possibility of purchasing a percentage of the 407 is really quite significant in terms of lowering toll fees to trucks, encouraging greater use of the 407, and reducing congestion specifically on the 401.”

Basically, it’s an opportunity that should not be missed, particularly when the provincial government is considering tunnelling beneath Highway 401. The Doug Ford government launched in September 2024 a technical study into constructing a tunnel expressway beneath Highway 401.

The Tory government said such a tunnel would reduce traffic on some of the most gridlocked highways.

Somerville said buying back a stake in Highway 407 would accomplish that goal at a lower cost to taxpayers and without the disruption that would be caused by a tunnelling project.

Mono will support the City of Vaughan’s proposal by way of official letters to Premier Doug Ford and Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria, advocating a feasibility study to investigate the possibility of buying back the lease for Highway 407.

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