How subsidizing trucks to use the 407 could cost Ontario less than building Highway 413

Calls are growing for Premier Doug Ford's government to reduce traffic congestion by encouraging more drivers to use the 407 ETR toll highway, rather than spending billions of dollars to build the proposed Highway 413. 

The 413 would run for 60 kilometres across the northwestern part of the Greater Toronto Area and through the Greenbelt. The proposal has become a lightning rod for environmental groups who say the highway will contribute to sprawl, and all three opposition parties say they would cancel the plan if Ford's PCs are defeated in the June election. 

Opponents of Highway 413 see the 407 as an underused alternative, with great potential to lure traffic from the busiest highway in Canada, the 401.  

The advocacy group Transport Action Ontario is floating the idea that the provincial government should in effect make it free for transport trucks to use the 407 by paying the cost of their tolls.

The group argues this would be a cheaper solution for the government than building and operating Highway 413 and would do more to solve the GTA's congestion problems right now.   

"Right now, most truckers use the 401 because they find the tolls [on the 407] prohibitive," said Peter Miasek, president of Transport Action Ontario.

"It strikes us [that] the 407 is the perfect alternative because it's uncongested at this time." 

Using data from provincial traffic studies and the company that owns 407 ETR, the group estimates such a move would get between 12,000 and 21,000 trucks using the toll highway each weekday. 

It calculates that a full toll subsidy for that many trucks over a 30-year period would add up to the equivalent of $4 billion in today's dollars.

The Ford government is not saying how much Highway 413 will cost, but an estimate by the previous government several years ago put it at $6 billion. Independent analysts have pegged the current cost in the range of $8-to-$10 billion. 

Negotiating such a deal with the company that owns 407 ER would "require a little creativity and some pressure" from the provincial government, says Toby Heaps, the chief executive of Corporate Knights, a business research and media firm based in Toronto. 

"There's definitely room for a deal to be done, given that the 407 is relatively empty and there's a lot of big trucks who would love to get on there," said Heaps, one of the entrepreneurs who signed a new open letter to the Ford government calling for a halt to Highway 413. 

Others in the corporate world insist that Highway 413 is needed to tackle the growth in traffic in the GTA and they see a toll subsidy on the 407 as an inadequate solution. 

"It is not a realistic option," said Nadia Todorova, executive director of the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario.