The Bradford Bypass is being built. Good for York?

Everyone who lives north of Newmarket knows the problem the Bypass is meant to solve: there is no east-west road between the 400 and the 404 up here that is not a county road through a farm.

Major construction started in May at the west end, at Sideroad 10, on the section from west of Bradford to Highway 400: two new interchanges, a rebuilt bridge at Line 9 and a freeway-to-freeway link to the 400. The whole route, now designated Highway 425, runs about 16.3 kilometres to the 404 in East Gwillimbury, and the province’s claim is 35 minutes saved, 2,200 jobs a year and $286 million in economic activity. The central and eastern sections, which are the part that crosses the Holland Marsh, have no completion date until their detailed design is done.

The opposition is the same as the 413’s, with a wetter geography: the marsh is the province’s vegetable garden, and the Lake Simcoe watershed is already under enough stress that Georgina and the conservation coalition launched a campaign to rescue it this spring.

Sources: Daily Commercial News, major construction begins · NewmarketToday, construction to start in spring · Barrie 360, breaking ground · Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition