Michael Lewis
Special to GTA Construction News
The Ford government says it is beginning construction on Highway 413, a project it first proposed in 2018 to tackle gridlock, but which will carve through the protected Ontario Greenbelt and swaths of endangered species habitat.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria announced the first two tenders at an event in Caledon Wednesday.
The first contract has been awarded to Fermar Paving for an embankment at the Highway 401/407 interchange. The second, to Pave-Al, is for the resurfacing of Highway 10 in Caledon.
Once complete, the 52-kilometre Highway 413 will connect York, Peel and Halton regions, shortening travel times by up to 30 minutes, the PC government said in a press release. Ford told reporters the construction will support more than 6,000 jobs per year in the transportation, engineering, construction and supply-chain industries and contribute more than $1 billion to Ontario’s annual GDP.
The Premier again declined to comment when asked when the highway will be open and how much it will cost, although estimates have put the price tag at more than $10 billion.
The Ontario government in its May budget said it had identified 500 properties it will need to acquire to build Highway 413 and that expropriation notices have already gone out to some residents along the route. The government in late 2024 said it had by finished 90 per cent of preliminary design work.
The tendering announcement follows passage of legislation less than a year ago that allows for construction of the highway to begin before consultation with Indigenous groups and an environmental assessment is complete. The project has faced long delays due to federal environmental reviews, political opposition, and concerns over the project’s environmental, social, and economic impacts.
Highway 413 would pave over more than 400 acres of the Greenbelt in the northwestern corner of the GTA along with numerous waterways and wetlands, according to opponents of the project. It is projected to convert 2,000 acres of farmland into residential and commercial sprawl, impacting food security while contributing to increases in greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists and medical professionals have sent letters to federal and provincial governments calling for a federal environmental impact assessment of the highway project. A group of some 140 scientists submitted a joint letter to then-federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault last year saying the highway could negatively impact as many as 29 species of animals such as the endangered redside dace, as well as 122 species of migratory birds and fish habitats in more than 100 waterways.
The federal government designated the project for an impact assessment in 2021 but dropped the review and formed a federal provincial working group instead tasked with guiding the highway’s development in the context of federal environmental legislation including the Species at Risk Act.
