Its a shame that people will freak about the expropriation of a dozen houses in Toronto to build a new subway. Yet they will say its no problem to take land from a family who has owned and cared for it for 100+ years. The 401 and the Bloor subway used expropriation to save money. This is not the '50's anymore. Is Toronto willing to save money by expropriating property to build the DRL? If it is too good for Toronto why is it OK for rural areas?
Expropriation is a fact of life. Toronto politicians have really lost their courage over this one. Any expropriation hurts those involved, but articles in the Sun and Star showing a single sad-faced house owner are not grounds to spend an extra billion dollars, IMHO. Google "407 Expropriation" and you will see just how much farmland - or about-to-be-developed-farmland, anyways - was consumed in that exercise. Expropriation for a HxR ROW is a fraction of what a highway expansion would cause. Lack of political courage in Toronto should not prevent doing the right thing elsewhere.
You can't just "swap" land anymore or buy out the back 1/2 of a property. There are nutrient management plans in place and economies of scale within each field that make it either profitable or at a loss. If you take away the back part of a property then the farmer will be forced to reduce their livestock (nutrient management land requirements).
HSR will be 100% grade separated. How do you propose to get a farmers vehicle over a private access? They are huge vehicles often needing 2 whole lanes of traffic (or more) and taller than a transport truck. The only way to put them on a public road is to often take them apart. They need massive bridges and will only get larger over time.
Who will pay for the building and maintenance of both these private accesses? The local farmers or the county who does not benefit from this proposal (no stops there)? Will the province initially say they will and then scope the amount of access down? How about medical access even if 1/3 of the roads are closed? It already takes 15 min+ for the emergency vehicles to get to a location. Adding another 5 is literally a life and death issue for some.
All totally valid concerns. I challenge the emergency thing, though. Can you point to actual cases or statistics showing this is a problem in Oxford County? The 401 averages a crossing every 3 km's, some of those were built expressly to give emergency vehicles access. Again, this is why one should do proper consultation with stakeholders (such as local first responders). This is an issue that doesn't have to be one if proper planning is done. Re farm machinery, yes it's huge and creates a problem on roads today even where there are no railways. I'm not sure that one more railway changes that.
And they are proposing adding tracks to the existing rail service. Why have they not continued to explore this? Is saving 2-5 minutes on the route really more important than these issues? We will never know because of a stupid red line on a map that a neophyte drew in the midst of an election.
Well, it's more than that. The "Oxford Bypass" is very direct, and a very efficient way to couple London and beyond to a route through Kitchener. While it may sever farms, it totally skirts all smaller towns and doesn't create the impacts that the existing line through Baden, New Hamburg, or St Mary's would. It has a remarkable lack of river crossings or new intrusion into environmentally sensitive areas. Personally I wouldn't be disappointed if Ontario stuck with the Stratford route, but it is longer and would cost more to build..... that "spend money wisely" thing the farmers raised favours the new route.
All three parties bow to farmers....there is a reason that QP shuts down for a day every year so the MPPs can all go ride tractors.....I have never cared enough to try and figure it out but the the farm lobby in this province is quite powerful and gets the attention of them all.
Well, Ontario needs agriculture far more than we give it credit for. That doesn't mean that we should cow-tow to farmers when their concerns aren't fact based, however. A HxR line will consume far less farmland than a single new subdivision, and we are far too happy to keep building those. That reality is the biggest blunder, IMHO. Places to Grow only slows that loss of farmland, it doesn't halt it. If we were properly controlling the erosion of agriculture, a railway line would still be justifiable.
- Paul
