Let's Get Windsor Moving (out to the county)

On Monday, January 7th, there will be a couple of items going before city council that will continue Windsor’s drain of residents out to surrounding bedroom communities and further solidify the automobiles dominance in our transportation hierarchy.

Smart Growth, here we come…

Item #5 is the Essex-Windsor Regional Transportation Master Plan. In classic Orwellian double-speak, it pays homage to progressive notions such as following “a more regional approach to transportation planning matters including road infrastructure, transit, cycling and other sustainable transportation forms.”, yet the document continues on with a “list of critical projects that need to be completed.”, such as;

• Extend Wyandotte Street East to continue this streets push east.


• Widen E.C. Row Expressway to at least 6 lanes from Banwell Road to Ojibway Parkway,


• Widen Provincial Road/Division Road to a 4 lane arterial road from Howard to the south city limits,


• Widen and extend Lauzon Parkway to connect with highway 401 and then south to highway 3 in Maidstone “for the overall economc development and growth of the city”

Apparently, it is imperative that the city begin work on these projects, as “(f)urther delay will result in oppressive traffic delays crippling local industry and discouraging new investment and job growth” Wow, they seem pretty sure of themselves. My question to the city would be exactly how these projects will encourage new investment and job growth, as those are some of the reasons thrown about that nobody can question, because if you do you are anti-Windsor and anti-growth.

Item #4 is more of the same, as the results of the Manning Road and County Road 22 Class Environmental Assessment and the preliminary design are coming before council. I got a chuckle when I read that these “improvements” were being carried out under the slogan “Let’s Get Windsor Essex Moving Strategy”, as I figured it meant let’s get Windsor residents moving out to Essex county. I don’t think that’s what they meant, however.

This engine will just continue chugging along until there is a critical mass of residents crying out together for it to slow down. City council, it seems, is trying to be everything to everyone, yet it succeeds at nothing. It says it wants to strengthen out downtown and established communities, yet it paves and widens escape routes to the suburbs allowing more city residents to flee the same traffic those widened roads encourage. It wants to plant “a million trees” to help clean our toxic air, yet it encourages motorist-only methods of transportation to built-up areas where walking and cycling are not a mobility options.

"More of the same" is the kind of thinking that set us down the road that lead us to where we find ourselves today. Is this something you're happy with?

Neither am I.