Ontario’s Future is also Canada’s Future

 

Today, we in Canada, are facing another chapter in the ongoing peril of being Canadians as opposed to being pseudo Americans

It is commonly said to be perilous times:

I say this is a glorious opportunity for us to step forward of being what we have been far too long!

What I say here is: We become masters of our future. This is my vision of Ontario’s future as we engage fully with the rest of our GREAT country

As J.Bartlett Brebner wrote in “CANADA”, I paraphrase only slightly, The USA has been engaging in annexation efforts and war, in multiple attempts, to gobble Canada for 200 yrs!

Further on, he relates that the USA by 1929 had exhausted its internal resources and was by that time a huge importer of Canadian goods.

Logic and common sense says, Canada did not force or even coerce the USA to buy our goods and services. President Donald Trump labels us as the villains in trade. We have never forced anyone to trade with us at gunpoint. The same cannot be said by my American friends.

It is 2025 and we who live north of the 49^th parallel are fed up. We have swallowed more than enough of this drivel.

This blog is thus a plan for a monumental shift in east-west commerce within OUR confederation, OUR beloved Canada.

Where should we start? East-West. We have put more than too much in bridges to the southern abyss.

Ontario needs an east-west transportation corridor, whose west terminus is in the vicinity of Highway 402, not far from London. The eastern terminus will be in the vicinity of Napanee or west of that, pending engineering work on Lake Ontario depth in that area. The east terminus puts the Mega Highway on a short path to the 401, en-route to Quebec, with easy future highway widening as needed. This is a hyper critical aspect of my vision.  The industries of Quebec must be co-energized such that the original mix of Lower Canada and Upper Canada, once again blazes forth to create a coast to coast to coast nation of people who get it done. If there is a nation on earth whose time has come, it is Canada.  So said Prof. Stephen Leacock in  “Canada,  The Foundations of its Future”.  We are not in decline, we Canadians have a brilliant and viable future. We see our place in the world as being givers and receivers. Taking, is not in our DNA.  In our DNA? “Get it Done”.  

 Highway 402 needs to be widened to three lanes north and south, and made thus, all the way to Highway 17.

Get the dynamite out again! Highway 17 between Highway 402, and where it enters the province of Manitoba, has to become a minimum of 4 lanes, a divided highway of 2 lanes east and west.

The Mega Highway, effectively a Toronto / Mississauga by-pass, will not need to expropriate any land. That is a significant cost we do not need to bear. We thus will not have citizens driven from their homes after a 50 or 60 yr occupancy. These things matter a great deal.

I envision the Mega Highway to have a minimum of 12 lanes east and 12 lanes west.  6 lanes will be express and 6 will be collectors. In the center there will be additional devoted lanes for emergency vehicles. 1 on each side of the center support walls. The center emergency lanes will be equipped with vehicles that can go in either direction without turn around. EMS is thus designed within the vision. They will connect with elevators , located at 5 to 10 km intervals, which will take critically injured persons to the surface for medi-vac by helicopter.

So where will this Mega Highway be? The ONLY place it can be. We will drive sheet piling, made in Canada, by Canadian owned steel mills, into the bed of Lake Ontario. The soil can be loaded onto barges and deposited further out in deeper water. Caisson boring is a turnkey solution for deep anchoring. The exterior wall will abut the piling and incorporate the caissons to which the hyper thick highway slab is poured. 

Straightforward construction methodology which is vastly more economical than ANY other method.

The Mega Highway will have 1 devoted lane for semi trailers and 1 for semi passing only, east and west respectively.

The Mega Highway will have active and variable speed limits, those who exceed the electronically posted limits will be summoned to face and pay for photographic evidence of being a driving nuisance. The Mega Highway will be ultra safe and cheap to operate as it is free from the MASSIVE costs and effects of weather. The money we save on the absence of snow removal in winter is not a trivial sum. That savings would go far in amortizing the entire cost. 

We will also be reducing the snow-melting salt we currently put into Lake Ontario.  That load is likely 100 million tons annually.  We are killing ourselves. Everything put on the land goes downstream to the Lake and then to the Ocean.  This Mega Highway has so many plusses, its environmental side-effects in itself is reason enough to build this Mega Highway.   Given it will be a monster catalyst for our Confederation, coast to coast to coast, I expect the Government of Canada will participate in the capital cost. 

Driving in a tunnel is far, far more limiting and hazardous than surface driving. A wise rule for surface driving is “be predictable”. That is amplified 100 fold in any form of driving enclosure.

The Mega-Highway can also be a huge engine for clean transportation. Hydrogen is the cleanest form of any fuel. Hydrogen is gaining ground in non-Canadian jurisdictions. Shall we leave ourselves out? More on that further along in this blog.

The Mega Highway, due to its ULTRA cheap method of construction per KM can be started in the Toronto area, and fan east and west. The speed of construction can easily be tailored to budgetary pressures.

The steel sheet piling will keep Canadian owned steel mills humming for 15-20 yrs, as we massively expand on Canada wide industry and consumption. Another good reason for the Mega Highway is it can connect to Black Creek Drive / 400 / 401 and also to the Allen Expressway via tunnels. The connection to Don Valley Parkway will be above surface in an encased roadway such that egress is at street level.

A VERY large part of the transportation woes in the Toronto area is a dearth of high capacity and high speed north-south links to east-west corridors, especially south of Eglinton Avenue.

The Mega Highway will also enable Toronto to stop spending billions on Gardiner expressway repairs. The Gardiner Expressway would rapidly become obsolete and in areas where Lake-Shore Blvd is not negatively impacted, the land can be repurposed for habitation.

The same above grade approach method needs to be integrated for egress to / from Yonge Street. The prior suggested speed control (AI thus interactive) system will be critical in these long above surface roadways to preclude backups. The design length of the roadway from the main highway has to be sufficient distance to accommodate a 200 yr expectancy. Given the need for the Mega Highway to go south of the Toronto Islands, the distance of the exit roadway is not likely to ever be an issue. Engineering studies will confirm the details.

Mississauga will need at least two interchanges, Oakville at least one. One interchange will service the Kitchener / Waterloo area. One interchange must service the greater Hamilton area. Looking east, One Interchange near Oshawa, one interchange near Darlington, one interchange in the vicinity of highway 115 and the most convenient collection point in the vicinity of Port Hope. One interchange for Kingston.

A VERY key aspect of the Mega Highway is it can be used as it progresses!!  Once the initial phase from the western interchange of Mississauga and the Oshawa interchange is built, it is not difficult to put that into service as construction continues, east and west.  

My vision is one with a wide embrace of Ontario’s long term transportation needs. This vision also enables Canada wide commerce. We MUST get this done. I really do see Ottawa being a partner in the Mega Highway: due to it’s strong focus on east-west provincial commerce.  Not only that, we must consider the growing need for all food and clothing to be trucked in. We MUST build the Mega Highway as it is designed to for Trucks ONLY lanes for transit. 

I spent a couple of decades as an Architectural Draftsman, worked at various levels and functions in Construction.

My vision is viable, affordable and durable.

This is offered freely to Ontario and Canada.

 

 

—————————– Can we avoid massive change to ocean levels and ocean currents? ———————————I am indebted to Professor David Sandborn Scott in his “Smelling Land” for outlining the next big industry in Ontario. I sat in on many of his engineering classes. That was a time when there was less head counting at UofT. 

The issue of Hydrogen has taken on an urgent environmental concern, since Professor Scott wrote his first book. The 2008 enhanced version is a WEALTH of information that teaches the reader to view anything in a way other than the conventional pap we are fed.

Ontario is ideally located and equipped to be the Hydrogen capital of the WORLD.

Semi-tankers can be transporting liquid hydrogen to Montreal for shipping to Europe.

Ontario NorthLand can be taking Hydrogen to Hudson’s Bay for seasonal shipping to Europe. Where there is a will, the way will be found.

In his book, Prof. Scott lays out how hydrogen can be stored and shipped via pipelines that are lined and already run at high pressures.

This is a good place to explode the hydrogen myth. Hydrogen is readily flammable, it is not explosive. Prof Scott lays out the precise nature of hydrogen and as such it is not explosive.

Propane is highly explosive. When it ignites, it expands 800 times.

Hydrogen can be given the same tracer of sulfides that are put in propane. Hydrogen is now in active, long haul, locomotive use in the UK and by CPR in Canada.

As Prof. Scott states, Ontario can outfit its nuclear reactors with hydrolysers which produce hydrogen at night when that constant flow of electricity has no market of worthwhile value.

Ontario and Quebec are too old geologically, to have formed coal or oil. We are still relying on our brains and education systems to enhance our lives. The former Premier of Ontario, William G. Davis, the 18th premier of Ontario, uttered his still resounding words to that very effect. 

I can see the day when Ontario will be an energy giant of clean, life-affirming energy.

The day is not far off when Fossil Fuels shall be banned. MUST be banned! If we are to survive as a species, we have to face that future.  In 2008, Oil sands upgrading was dumping 42 million tons of Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere EVERY DAY.  That from the process of adding Hydrogen to the crude.  As Prof Scott outlines, there are vastly superior ways of doing this.  

Who are we to ride the horse of fossil fuels and condemn many hundreds of millions in Bangladesh, and other low lying areas, to the deadly risks of ocean floods? 

Is the HYDROGEN Age practical? It sure is and we have no other option. The survivability of life is at stake.  

Toyota has done a lot of work on Hydrogen. Mercedes and BMW have also done a lot of recent work on Hydrogen. Toyota recently unveiled a fuel cell that can go 600,000 km before needing any serious service.

The biggest problem with hydrogen as a mobile fuel is still: Where can I get it?

The fuel supply arrived before and thus enabled the rise of the ICE automobile. Once Hydrogen is widely available, the move to hydrogen fueled automobile will be very, very rapid.

Build it and they will come.

Ontario is uniquely suited to be the biggest supplier of hydrogen in the world.

It is logical these companies will quickly implement their research in hydrogen vehicles. I should think, they will locate plants to build such autos and large trucks right here in Ontario. Proximity to the hydrogen fuel supply together with large populations and diverse geography will drive ongoing research.

Quebec and Ontario is home to a vast portion of Canada’s population. Les Quebecois in particular are open-minded on participating in this Hydrogen future. I can easily see a monstrous east-west commerce. Yes, the pipelines proposed by the current PM of Canada , Prime Minister Carney, will help east-west oil until the Hydrogen system is ready. Then the pipelines will deliver hydrogen to China, Japan and other countries that do not have oil. The only way we will able to continue inhabiting the blue planet is if we get going on the hydrogen era, starting NOW.

As Prof Scott outlines, the uptick in CO2 has been very large and we may well be past the tipping point. It is never too late, if we can get viable start made on the Hydrogen Era, before ocean levels rise. They are rising as I type. There is sufficient ice which has already calved off from Antarctica and Greenland, the melt will raise ocean levels by 5 meters. That will swamp most of the major cities in the world. We have NO time to loose. We may well be past the point of no return already. Melting of large ice fields, once begun, are unstoppable. The data is in Smelling Land. There is also the matter of melt water chilling the oceans and decreasing salinity which Prof Scott fears may alter the ocean elevators.

I am Judson Tate. The narrator of this blog.  Permission given to me by the owner of this domain.