Life teaches us all that change is inevitable! Like a fast form of global warming the simple, indisputable fact that vehicular traffic has increased 5 fold inside 15 years on the south end Highway 10 (through Caledon) has now become a stark daily reality to all those that use Highway 10.
The recorded growing carnage of approx. of 600 accidents inside 2 years is a sad testament to either the inadequate engineering of the roadway, its many rudimentary highlighted intersections (poor overhead lighting, 20 year plus traffic lights, and difficult sight lines), the simple exponential increase in the volume of traffic, or all of the above.
Combine these facts with the unwitting and semi-unfettered sponsorship of commercial (truck oriented hubs), the ever-growing dependency on double-tandem trucks to transport our growing aggregate business, plus the multitude of uncontrolled access points near, or at, our 4 major intersections, and you have the makings for a pending Lake Megantic Tragedy.
Go Services and the MTO have been passively negligent in ameliorating the circumstances that has resulted in the 65+ near fatalities and 12 deaths on our stretch of Highway 10 in the last 24 months. Weather and driver error fall far short of explaining these ghastly numbers. Now is the time that we, the taxpayer, start to advocate for positive transportation changes within our community.
The provincial government has allocated $50 billion for the upgrading of transportation infrastructure over the next 20 years. Why some of this largesse is not being funneled towards making south Highway 10 a safer commute, defies common logic.
If you compound these facts with the reality that the Pan-Am games will be here by the summer of 2015, and the elevated Pearson/Union Rail link will be fully operational, the glaring, but burgeoning, issue of the non-interconnectivity of the Go Train services and its Go Bus lines explodes to the surface.
Placing Go Bus shelters (especially with bike racks) would simply and irrefutably encourage enhanced rider-ship plus promote greater frequency of service. The fact that people could ride from their village to the roadway and commute, knowing their bike was locked, stored, and with today’s computer apps know ahead of time when the next bus will depart, would be a major step towards increasing public transit use, lowering traffic numbers, and of course, it’s environmentally friendly. This credible, but highly tangible, enhanced rider-ship would also, inevitably, result in better (more overhead) lighted intersections with properly painted, illuminated crosswalks. The culmination of these modest upgrades would create a clear and irrefutable need to upgrade the 20 plus year traffic light technology that orchestrates our local intersections.
The concept that deaths at our intersections are “within acceptable limits on the Kings Highway” is not only sang-froid, but borderline malicious comfort to the next family that gathers to bury a loved one due to the inaction of the MTO or Go Services.
Let’s start to think of a better way to lighten the load on our highways.
Ask for change, demand change. Please feel free to contact Mayor Morrison or M.P.P. Sylvia Jones, the offices of both have been supportive of these glaring safety oversights. The time is at hand to request that they send another letter to the growing pile of letters accumulating on the Minister of Transport, the honorable Glen Murray’s, desk.
We deserve better, our children, and our grandchildren deserve better! Caledon will grow to 750,000 people by 2035. Jane Jacobs, plus numerous other social anthropologists, have been quoted “that cities develop along the most infantile transport infrastructure networks.” Think of the city that you want in the foreseeable future, L.A Gridlock (loss of billions of $), or in a more perfect world a copy the environs of Paris, Vienna, and Munich, with their pedestrian-friendly zones, and super clean and efficient public transport systems.
Now is the time to forward your opinion. Take that first step; email your local representative with a request that helps safeguard you and your loved ones. Shakespeare wrote that “fortune favors the brave” and God helps those that help themselves.
Carpe Diem
-T
—-Update—-
Change is Coming and it is Coming Soon.!!!
How will our lives change in Caledon & Brampton with the advent of the Pearson/Union rail link.? If one thinks outside the box. Perhaps it could mean a local farmer donating 50 acres on an westerly located arterial roadway to a post secondary educational institute. The primary emphasis being training within the aeronautical field and associated skills. The proximity to the expanding Brampton airport would be a natural fit. Calling Mr. Bombardier ,Boeing, Airbus, etc, etc..