Climate remains in the backseat of priorities with Ontario’s provincial election taking place this week.
Tailpipe emissions are still Canada’s most significant driver of greenhouse gas emissions, which directly cause global warming and climate change. Despite the burden of passenger vehicles on climate change and other environmental problems, Ontario’s leading party continues to push expansion of Ontario’s highway network, while making it harder for cities to build bike lanes.
The ensuing debate has turned transportation into a wedge issue. Canada’s National Observer has looked into the four major parties’ platforms on transportation plans.
Car culture and highways
Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford has promised billions in investments for new highway projects and car-friendly policies, if re-elected.
His plan includes a controversial tunnel under Highway 401, making the gas tax cut permanent, scrapping tolls on the provincially-owned section of Highway 407 East, and banning congestion charges on all roads.
Last month, Ford also announced an additional $15 billion in spending over three years to accelerate key infrastructure projects, including widening the Queen Elizabeth Way between Burlington and St. Catharines.
Ford claims his plan will help ease gridlock for both drivers and public transit users in the Greater Toronto Area and save drivers money.
Ford defended his 401 Express Tunnel project — with some cost estimates reaching $100 billion — by noting that traffic gridlock is costing the provincial economy $56 billion each year. “Without more transportation infrastructure, every 400-series highway, including the 401, will be at capacity within the decade. I think the 401 is already at capacity.”
However, critics argue that Ford’s transportation strategy is a climate setback, as it prioritizes highways over sustainable transit, reinforces car dependency, and could even worsen congestion in the long run.
“Research shows that building more lanes or highways only leads to induced demand — where the new road space just fills up again,” said Peter Miasek, president of Transport Action Ontario.
Opposition parties have also criticized Ford’s transportation vision, arguing that the costs are excessive and better alternatives exist to tackle Ontario’s gridlock.
On Sunday, Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie announced a transit plan aimed at reducing gridlock across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), promising major investments in new transit infrastructure, service expansions, and safety improvements.
“After seven years of Doug Ford, traffic is worse and our transit systems are decades out of date. It’s time to change that,” Crombie said in a statement. “We will get people moving again by investing in the transit you need to get to work or school or fun events in our big cities.”
Crombie's plan includes building GO Transit stations, expanding train service to underserved regions, and extending key light rail transit (LRT) projects. The Liberals also pledged to hire 300 additional special constables for transit security, introduce safety enhancements like platform doors in subway stations, and invest in crisis response teams.
Crombie is also suggesting that to address gridlock on the 401, Highway 407 should be made toll-free for trucks. She also announced plans to upload the Ottawa LRT to the province.
“It’s time to get Ontario moving again. It’s time for a government that does more for you — and it’s time for change,” Crombie said.
Bikes, buses and trains
When Catherine McKenney lost a hard-fought election for mayor of Ottawa in 2022, the wedge issue was the former Centretown city councillor’s ambitious bicycle path network connecting suburban regions to the city’s downtown.
McKenney’s main opponent was Mark Sutcliffe, who went on to win the mayorship. During the campaign, Sutcliffe derided McKenney's robust multi-million-dollar, cross-city bike path network, telling the media that he would take a “balanced approach” to transportation that “wouldn’t prioritize one form of transportation over the other.”
But McKenney (who uses they/them pronouns) says Sutcliffe’s derision exposes a blind spot: Sutcliffe currently is “prioritizing one mode of transportation over all others — and that is cars,” they said.
Now, McKenney’s reentry into the political arena comes as Ford rips up bike lanes, creating more red tape for bike lane construction and building highways over other transit infrastructures, they said.
McKenney finds fault in Ford for the same reason. They call out Ford’s government for being not committed to growing “healthy modern cities” by diversifying transportation options, they said. Ottawa is expected to grow approximately 40 per cent in the next 30 years, which will strain the already congested road network.
Without building out infrastructure for other forms of transportation, there’s a risk cities will become increasingly gridlocked.
Mike Schreiner, the Ontario Green Party leader, takes aim at Ford’s promises and approach on transportation.
Aside from the debatable traffic benefits of Ford’s proposals to remove bike lanes and build a tunnel under the 401 in Toronto, Schreiner is also concerned about climate implications. Ontario’s greenbelt is essential to avoid the massive flooding that has occurred in recent years. Schreiner is also concerned about how a tunnel full of cars would handle the three historic rainstorms that hit Toronto last summer.
Schreiner has a different approach to inner-city travel across Ontario’s southern regions, one of the busiest transportation corridors on the continent. Schreiner hopes to prioritize both all-day trains for Ontario’s GO network in the Greater Toronto Area, while also investing in the province’s inner-city bus network, which he says is the fastest way to ramp up inner-city transit.
“I don't think people fully realize that building more highways or expanding existing highways is not going to solve gridlock, and we have 75 years in history that have shown that,” Schreiner said, noting that taking cars off the road by diversifying transit options is the most logical way to alleviate congestion. It also saves money, he noted.
Canadians pay an average of $1,370 a month to own a car, according to a recently updated report. Costs include paying off principal, interest, insurance, parking and gas. Those costs could become more challenging to manage as the U.S. tariff threat continues to threaten Canada's cost-of-living crisis.
For Schreiner, the lowest-cost transportation options continue to be riding a bike, walking or city transit. That’s why the NDP and the Green Party have both promised to upload 50 per cent of municipal transit costs to Queen’s Park while ensuring that cities, and not private companies, have control of local transit.
Provincial overreach
Doug Ford’s declaration of a war on bike lanes this past year rankled Torontonians, who saw it as overreach into municipal affairs. But it didn’t surprise McKenney — he “has always wanted to be the mayor of Toronto,” they said, so ripping up bike lanes in Toronto's inner core is “his way of inserting himself.”
Schreiner also railed against the Ford’s attack on bike lanes.
“The premier taking that away from people at a time when you know we're facing an affordability crisis, is just making life less affordable for folks, and obviously, it increases costs for our cities, and is part of why we’re failing to address reducing climate emissions,” Schreiner said.
Bill 212, passed last fall, gave Ford power to remove three bike lanes. But within the bill was also the requirement for municipalities to have the minister personally sign off on each new bike lane.
“A minister is going to sit there with a stack of applications on her or his desk and start to determine whether it's warranted or not,” they said. That overly complicated approach to simple infrastructure is, for McKenney, emblematic of the way the Ford government deals with cities.
“It's unserious about the way it governs. It's unserious about building healthy municipalities, and it is unserious about ensuring that we're looking to the future to make sure that we're sustainable,” McKenney added.
For McKenney, the move shows that municipalities in the province do not have a strong partner in Ford, and instead, a provincial government that consistently reaches beyond its scope for political gain.
Matteo Cimellaro and Matin Sarfraz / Canada’s National Observer / Local Journalism Initiative
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