The project will see the important stretch of roadway around Hamilton International Airport expanded from two to four lanes. Photo credit: Government of Ontario/Google Maps
Last Thursday, the Ontario government announced that the next step toward its plan to widen Hamilton’s Highway 6 is underway. The province has procured the engineering firm AECOM to undertake the next phase of the project: the Preliminary Design and Class Environmental Assessment (EA) Update Study.
The update study is expected to commence in spring 2022, with a targeted completion of spring 2024, and will reportedly include outreach to Indigenous communities, municipalities, and stakeholders, including Hamilton International Airport and nearby business owners.
The widening project, which was included in Ontario’s 2021 budget, will increase lane capacity from two lanes to four over a nine-kilometre segment between Highway 403 and Upper James Street.
The original idea for a four-lane highway along the route was actually designed and received environmental assessment approval back in the 1980s. But in 2003, the existing two-lane highway was built instead.
“Our smart, targeted highway investments, like widening Highway 6 South in Hamilton, will better connect communities, create good-paying jobs and support the needs of a growing population,” said Caroline Mulroney, Minister of Transportation. “Four-laning this corridor will improve the movement of people and goods, while serving the national, regional and local economies.”
Highway 6 from Highway 403 to Upper James Street is the primary connection from John Munro Hamilton International Airport to the Greater Golden Horseshoe via Highway 403.
Flamborough-Glanbrook Progressive Conservative MPP Donna Skelly said expanding the highway is “vital” for the expansion of the local airport.
“This is an important step forward in our work to ensure the safe, efficient movement of people and goods here in Hamilton and across the region,” she said.
Hamilton International Airport sees considerable cargo traffic from shipping companies Amazon, Canada Post, Cargojet, DHL, Purolator, and UPS.
Despite its importance and potential to improve trade and transportation in the area, Craig Cassar of “Save Our Streams Hamilton,” a coalition of citizens advocating for the preservation of waterways and wetlands, is concerned with the project.
“In general, adding new highways and expanding those that already exist is a terrible idea. We’re in a climate crisis and encouraging more greenhouse gas emissions is the last thing we should be doing,” said Cassar, who wants to see definitive facts “on why the existing highway is insufficient.”
The environmental activist said that the expanded highway is part of a larger plan to “enable sprawling industrial and institutional development in the area called the Airport Employment Growth District (AEGD)” which, according to Cassar, includes “prime agricultural land, headwaters of local streams, and wildlife habitat.”
The area was rezoned in 2015 from agricultural to industrial and institutional. The rezoning permits industrial warehousing and manufacturing to be built in the area.
In all, the province has allocated more than $21 billion in funding over the next 10 years, including approximately $2.6 billion in 2021–22, to expand and repair Ontario’s aging highways and bridges.
Based in Hamilton, he reaches hundreds of thousands of people monthly on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. He has been published in The Hamilton Spectator, Stoney Creek News, and Bay Observer. He has also been a segment host with Cable 14 Hamilton. In 2017, he received the Chancellor Full Tuition Scholarship from the University of Ottawa (BA, 2022). He has also received the Governor General’s Academic Medal. He formerly worked in a non-partisan role on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
