January 14, 2008

Dr. Dennis Murr

123 Downey Rd.

Guelph ON N1C 1A3

Presentation to Guelph City Council and the MTO on the Hanlon Improvements EA

Reconciling Our Priorities or Irreconcilable Differences: Is there a Better Way?

The proposed Hanlon improvements represent 35 year old outdated planning attempting to morph into a 2008 reality.

Changes in traffic patterns have the potential to pit neighbourhood against neighbourhood as already unacceptable patterns of traffic are exacerbated. For example: Kortright Hills via Downey Rd., Niska and Ptarmigan are already being used as the preferred by pass of the Hanlon by commuters to and from Cambridge and KW to and from Guelph. Why use the Hanlon when you can speed thru our residential area?

City Council will have to respond to increased complaints related to noise, safety, and new demands for traffic calming. Ratepayers will be the big losers as they will ultimately pay for the expensive retrofitting of streets for traffic calming. Residents will already be burdened with predicted growth related property tax increases of 7% + up annually to 2031. We are already paying 50% of the cost of the Laird Rd. Interchange.

If we want Guelph to remain a great place to live and work in 20 years we must improve our quality of life now, not later.

We need to deal with the existing problems with land use and planning oversights by adapting the Hanlon EA Process to consider short term measures to improve the quality of life, safety, the environment and the health of existing residents. City Council and the MTO should make a commitment to mitigate and improving existing unacceptable noise levels, environmental and traffic issues before approving any changes on the Hanlon that will make the situation worse.

We can attempt to protect our health and decrease future demands on our medical system by requiring the MTO to measure existing air quality along the Hanlon during typical peak daily traffic conditions and on Smog Alert Days. Do it now before any changes are approved. At least then we will have an idea what we can expect when traffic predictably increases two-fold or more on the Hanlon.

Our ECO Gord Miller in his recently released Annual Report “Reconciling our Priorities”stated:

”the general lack of inter-regional planning in Ontario has hurt our capacity to grow in a sensible and environmentally sustainable manner. (1)Planning decisions are often made on a municipality-by-municipality basis with no view to broad, ecosystem-based planning.” (1)

His report identifies Guelph as a community that may have already reached its growth capacity. If this is the case, that we may already be near our maximum limits to growth, should we be planning for what could be unnecessary and expensive Hanlon upgrades when other low cost alternatives exist?

In order to plan on a Regional basis we need to make the MTO “Connect the Roads”. The Hanlon does not end at Maltby Rd. This EA process does!

Put all the MTO plans on the table for this area up to 2031 and consider their impacts on the Hanlon. We know they exist - what we don’t know is how they will impact Guelph. This slide illustrates the planned connections to the north and south Highway 6; the new Highway 7 to KW; the 407 GTA West Corridor to Vaughn and the Niagara Mid-Peninsula Highway. These highway expansions are viewed by the MTO as “complementary improvements” designed to be part of their overall transportation strategy. (2)

These slide shows the movements of goods and people related to the Places to Grow population increases. Note the connections to Guelph and beyond. (2)

Consider the costs of air pollution as seen in this next slide. Air pollution is only one of the “Externality” costs that need to be added to the Hanlon weighted evaluation criteria.

What is an Externality Cost?

These are costs developed in Australia and New Zealand as a means of estimating the monetary value on the GNP of long-standing impacts of changes in the transportation system in relation to such things as climate change, urban livability, public health and the functionality of land. The costs are enormous when multiplied by 50,000 + vehicles per day on the Hanlon. These costs should be added to the weighted Hanlon EA evaluation criteria. (2)

Finally - plan for Climate Change. The GRCA is predicting that future flooding from a storm the size of 1954 Hurricane Hazel will be 50% greater than previous. Because of climate change the chances in any one year of having a storm bigger than the one in 100 year storm are now much greater than one in one hundred.

For example, the intense 2005 storm event in the GTA over 3 hours dropped 120 millimetre (5-inches) of rain. This was not a hurricane event, but still equal to the one in 150 storm event.

These next 4 slides taken over 9 minutes show the power of the flooding from this storm. (2)

The city of Guelph’s older SWM’s were not designed for a 1 in 100 year storm. The relation between the proposed interchanges on the Hanlon and the flood lines should be examined to account for both higher floods due to climate change, new urban areas upstream and the constrictions of the floodplain caused by access ramp embankments.

I am requesting that the public comment period should be formally extended in writing beyond January 16, 2008 by the MTO.

References:

1. Gord Miller, Ontario Environmental Commissioner, 2006-2007 Annual Report: ECO 2006/07 Annual Report - Reconciling Our Priorities. December 2007

2. http://www.niagara-gta.com/ : see: Niagara to GTA Corridor:

Environmental Assessment Terms of Reference

3. http://www.statewideplanning.org/_resources/63_NCHRP8-36-61.pdf (2007)

4. http://jane-finch.com:80/pictures/flood2005.htm August 2005