Ontario NDP Leader Proposes Making Hwy 407 a Non-Toll Highway
Why?
This seems an odd promise by NDP politician, especially in the east where the party is more left wing. She is basically arguing for more private vehicles!
One of her justifications is that Highway 401 is bumper-to-bumper while Highway 407 is near empty, so taking away the toll would divert traffic from the 401 to the 407. But why not just make make the congested part of the 401 a toll road, as well? That would encourage more people to take GO Transit in and out of city, and more people to take the TTC within it.
Thinking about GO Transit reminded us of an old post where we went into regional transit. So this seems like a good time to go back to it, not only because GO Transit is an excellent regional transit system for southern Ontario, but also because it should be used as a model for other jurisdictions.
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The GO Transit System and Regional Transit
Both of your Ride On writers grew up either in Toronto itself, or in the Greater Toronto Area. It is for that reason that we are both familiar with the GO Transit system, which is owned the Government of Ontario (thus, the acronym “GO”) and operated by Metrolinx. As seen in the system map below, this is a regional transit system centred at Toronto’s Union Station with train and bus lines running to cities and towns such as Barrie, Richmond Hill, Stouffville, Oshawa, Kitchener/Waterloo, Milton, Hamilton, and Niagara Falls.