Despite the Progressive Conservative government ramping up its promotion of the Bradford Bypass, the planned freeway’s construction still depends on a delicate set of outcomes.

The Bradford Bypass is a 16.2-kilometre freeway that would link Highways 400 and 404, near Bradford, about 60 kilometres north of Toronto. The idea of the highway has been discussed by provincial governments for decades. The closest it came to fruition was under the last PC government, which took the step of ordering an environmental assessment for it. Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals later cancelled the project shortly after winning the 2003 election.

The current PC government announced in 2019 it was reviving the project, starting by updating its environmental assessment.

It promised it would be “fully funding” the project in last week’s fall economic statement.

In total, $1.6 billion was added to what the government plans to spend on bridge rehabilitations and highway expansions over the next six years in the fall economic statement. This funding will help pay for numerous other projects, including Highway 413, another planned roadway that would encircle the Greater Toronto Area, which is three times as long as the Bradford Bypass and expected to be several times as expensive. The government has budgeted $5.16 billion in total on highways over this year and next.

Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney estimated previously that the Bradford Bypass would cost $800 million, but other evaluations have put its price tag over $1 billion.

The government is still finalizing the freeway’s expected cost and isn’t sharing its estimates to protect the ongoing procurement process, Jordanna Colwill, a spokesperson for Mulroney, wrote in an email to iPolitics.

When necessary preliminary work and the freeway are planned to be completed is unclear. The fall economic statement, Mulroney, her spokesperson, and municipal procurement documents suggest varying timelines.

However, two possibly significant roadblocks that stand in the way of the freeway’s construction are: the June 2 election and the environmental assessment, which is expected to be finished just over a year from now.

If re-elected, the PCs would plow ahead with building the Bradford Bypass once the environmental assessment is complete, according to Mulroney’s spokesperson.

The NDP say they would cancel the freeway, regardless of the environmental assessment.

And if the Liberals are elected, they would consider building the Bradford Bypass, but Leader Steven Del Duca said in an email that “no shovel should go in the ground until all the relevant studies, including the environmental assessment, have been updated in an open and transparent way.”

The Leger polling firm found last month, eight months from the election, that the PCs led all other parties as the preferred choice of 35 per cent of Ontarians, followed by the Liberals, with 30 per cent support, and then the NDP, as the choice of 25 per cent of voters.

The government says the purpose of building the Bradford Bypass is to help relieve traffic. The GTA's signature congestion issues are only expected to get worse in the coming years and decades, a period in which the region’s population is expected to continue rapidly growing.

Local governments along the freeway’s route support the Bradford Bypass, but it is not without controversy. Its critics, including the NDP, don’t think it’ll help relieve congestion because of the concept of induced demand — which is the idea that building more highways encourages people to drive more. They’re also worried about the environmental impacts of the project, including more drivers producing more emissions, and what will happen to the fertile land that the highway is partly paving over.

The project has also become even more politicized, thanks to a Torstar/National Observer investigation that found that Associate Transportation Minister Stan Cho’s father co-owns a golf course that will be spared by a revision of the bypass’s route.

The uncertain road ahead for the Bradford Bypass

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