Ontario’s Minister of Transportation says an important step has been taken on the long-awaited Highway 7 expansion project. Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria was in Kitchener, Ont. on Thursday to announce weekend GO Train service is coming to the city, along with several other upgrades along GO Transit’s Kitchener Line. During the announcement, he was asked about the future of the Highway 7 expansion project. For years, commuters have been promised a new four-lane Highway 7 was in the works. For many people living in the area, it may be tough to believe the project will ever come to fruition after three decades of promises from several governments. The plan has been to build the new highway just north of the current Highway 7 route. The idea regained momentum in 2007 when then Liberal Minister of Transportation Donna Cansfield said, “Times have changed, now it’s time to change Highway 7.” Since then, there has been incremental progress, most notably the completion of the Victoria Street Bridge in 2018. In 2020, the PCs officially committed funding to the project, but specific details were sparse. During the 2022 provincial election, then Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford said his government would build the expansion if his party was re-elected. Despite remaining in power, that promise has not yet been fulfilled. In 2023, a statement from the Ministry of Transportation said they were working on preliminary design and obtaining the required approvals for Phases 2 and 3. On Thursday, Sarkaria said that project is still a priority for the government. “We actually just obtained our Department of Fisheries and Oceans permit to proceed on some of the major parts of the project from the federal government on Oct. 1. That is a huge milestone in this project of advancing Highway 7 forward,” Sarkaria said. He said the next step is to obtain a tree clearing permit that would enable construction, mainline and other bridge work.
