When will the new highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph be built?

This article from the Record on July 21st outlines the issues surrounding the delay of the new approved Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph.

WATERLOO REGION — Frustrated business leaders plan to raise a fuss about Highway 7 delays during the upcoming Kitchener-Waterloo byelection.

Their message to politicians: Replace the highway as promised between Kitchener and Guelph — and do it now.

“Saying yes with no follow through is not a yes,” said Ian McLean, president of the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce. “The local candidates have to know that they’re going to be on the hot seat.”

Ontario’s Liberal government approved a divided, four-lane freeway in 2007, but delayed construction until some time after 2015, with no date to begin.

“It’s getting to a crisis point,” McLean said. “The amount of traffic and the amount of economic activity that travels that road screams out for it to be a priority for the province of Ontario.”
Elizabeth Wharton is glad to see the new highway stalled.

“It’s still a bad idea,” said Wharton, of the Westmount Environment Group. She dislikes the cost, the loss of farmland and the wetland disruption associated with a new Highway 7.

Her group asked Premier Dalton McGuinty to widen the current highway by adding intermittent passing lanes in places where new lanes would not disrupt businesses.

“Why can’t they do the compromise?” she said. “This is something that can be implemented right away.”

Ontario says it intends to replace the highway, but Transportation Minister Bob Chiarelli would not commit to a construction date.

“As we review our budgets and our highways, this is very close to the top of the list,” he told The Record. “With the current budget constraints, it may take a little bit longer than not, but the highway will be built.”

In 2007, Ontario cited economics and safety in approving the 18-kilometre replacement highway, north of the current two-lane road. It was estimated to cost $300 million.

The current highway, derided as a parking lot in its busiest hours, handles an estimated 22,000 commuters a day. Other drivers flee to overwhelmed country roads to escape it.

Traffic planners rejected calls to widen the highway, saying businesses would be disrupted and that a wider highway would be a short-term fix quickly overwhelmed by traffic.

Congestion has a safety impact. The Record analyzed 10 years of Highway 7 collisions to find that someone is hurt every three weeks on average. Half of all crashes are due to rear-end collisions, common where there are traffic jams and traffic signals.

Between 2000 and 2009, seven people died and 288 people were injured on Highway 7. Fatal collisions were most often head-on crashes or turning movements. These kinds of collisions are less frequent on divided freeways.

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce is calling on the province to “immediately commence construction, as promised in 2007, on a new Highway 7 between Kitchener and Guelph with completion by 2016.”

Provincial business leaders endorsed the resolution in May at the urging of three chambers of commerce in Waterloo Region and Guelph. They stated: “Ongoing delays on the start of a new four-lane Highway 7 between Waterloo Region and Guelph/Wellington County are limiting economic development opportunities in both municipalities.”

The Tri-Cities Transport Action Group wants the province to abandon a new highway and pursue alternatives such as transit between the cities and upgrades to the current highway.

“We don’t believe (a new highway) is the right solution,” said Tim Mollison, of the grassroots lobby group. “There are better ways to spend that money.”

Mollison points out motorists will get a new route between the cities later this year when regional government opens a Grand River bridge linking Fairway Road in east Kitchener to Kossuth Road in north Cambridge.

Ontario continues to refine the design of a new highway, shifting ramps, realigning side roads and reconfiguring accesses. It budgeted $40 million for land and purchased 13 properties to make way for a new freeway. The government has not committed construction funding or listed the freeway among works it plans to launch by 2015.

“It’s definitely a highway that we’re committed to building,” Chiarelli said, denying his government stalled it to fund transit instead. The cash-strapped Liberal government is putting $300 million into rail transit that launches in 2017 in Waterloo Region.

No date has been set for the byelection to replace Elizabeth Witmer, who quit her Kitchener-Waterloo seat.

Seven killed, 288 injured over decade
Upon request the Ministry of Transportation released 10 years of collision statistics (2000 to 2009) for Highway 7 between Fountain Street in Breslau and the Hanlon Parkway in Guelph. The Record analyzed the traffic data to answer these questions.

How often do people crash? Highway 7 saw 614 collisions over a decade. That’s an average of 61 collisions a year, one every six days.

Collisions have been relatively stable, peaking in 2003 at 82, edging down to 54 in 2009. In two-thirds of collisions no one was hurt.

Seven people were killed and 288 were injured. On average the highway sees 29 people hurt each year with a fatal collision every 20 months. Every three weeks a collision hurts someone, on average.

How are people crashing? Half of crashes (50 per cent) are rear-end collisions. This points to traffic lights and also suggests congestion. Other common crashes are single-vehicle collisions (25 per cent) and turning movements (10 per cent).

How did seven people die? Three were killed in turning movements, two were killed in head-on crashes, one was killed in a side-swipe and one was killed in a single-vehicle crash. There was another Highway 7 fatality in 2011.

What are drivers doing wrong? Half of drivers involved in collisions (53 per cent) are driving properly. The most common mistakes are driving too closely (19 per cent) and driving too fast (eight per cent). Lesser mistakes include failing to yield, losing control and making an improper turn.

Would a freeway be safer? On average in Ontario, a divided highway that limits access to interchanges sees 14 per cent fewer collisions than other provincial highways, per kilometre travelled.