The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 9

The Citizen, Ottawa, Wednesday, July 14, 1982, Page 9 QTTAWA-CARLETON INDICATES FULL INTERCHANGE link not Need for freeway Droven QUEENSWAY Pretend for a moment you are a professional BASELINE RD agitator, dispatched by some malevolent source to (sow discord among the citizenry of our fair region. How would you do it: Rip up the bicycle paths? I Force Ottawans to windowshep on Sparks Street KNOXDALE RD I after 6 p.m.? Promote live sex shows on Parlia Don Butler Citizen staff ment Hill? ui A While all of these would be effective, none would generate the outrage that would follow if FALLOWFIELD hi CC ui UJ UJ -I UJ V) would be about the same as the slower but shorter Highway 7-Tweed-401 route. The fact is the task force's decision to opt for a new highway had less to do with traffic volume and travel time than with two other factors: the dollar and the future. The dollar factor is perhaps the more insidious, because it has little to do with need. Here's how it works: if the Cedarview freeway is built, it becomes part of the provincial highway network and the province picks up the tab for its construction.

But if regional arterials are upgraded to carry traffic from Highway 16 into the city, part of the cost would be borne by regional taxpayers. In other words, financing has dictated the choice of the new highway at least as much as need. Which brings us to the future. By proposing a freeway in the Cedarview corridor, the task force is hedging its bets against the day when it may actually be required. That day may not come for 20, 40 or 60 years.

Or it may never come. But unless the corridor is protected, the task force argues, it won't be possible to act if and when a freeway is needed. Now, what can we conclude from all this? That the Cedarview freeway has been proposed to get provincial money to build an under-used highway on the chance that some day it may be needed? Go to the head of the class. What happens if the Cedarview freeway isn't built? One casualty would probably be the long-range plan to twin the existing and planned two-lane sections of Highway 16 to produce a four-lane divided road all the way to Highway 401. But that plan is tentative at best, and if population growth remains slow, there may never be enough traffic to justify a divided highway.

With no freeway, existing arterial roads would have to continue to accept traffic flowing to and from Highway 16. This would imply some upgrading of such regional roads as Cedarview, Green-bank, Woodroffe and Merivale, but is essentially a i BANKFIELO RD REGIONAL RD you were to suggest that what Ottawa-Carleton really needs is a new freeway link with the Queensway. As it happens, that is precisely what a provin-cially-appointed task force has recommended should be done in the Cedarview corridor to connect Highway 16 with the region's principal east-west roadway. And predictably, the howls of fury from those affected have been deafening. New urban highways are to communities along their route what irate voters are to politicians something to be feared and avoided.

The fact that Cedarview corridor residents don't like the idea of a four-lane freeway in their backyards is neither surprising nor particularly significant. What is germane, however, is the question of need. For as long as Tories have ruled the roost at Queen's Park, Ottawans have complained about inadequate road connections between Ottawa and Toronto. Slowly, improvements have been made. A modern two-lane section of Highway 16 between Kcmptville and Highway 401 was built in the early 1970s.

Construction of an extention north to the Century Road in Rideau Township is scheduled to begin next year. The proposed Cedarview freeway would be the final step in a new, high-quality highway link between the Queensway and Highway 401. By all normal standards of consistency, then, lOttawans should be clapping provincial officials on back and offering thanks for finally responding jto the region's long-standing needs. But a funny thing happened on the way to the 401. Times changed.

The Spadina Expressway was killed in Toronto. The Merivale freeway was scrapped in Ottawa. People started taking a hard look at the social costs of urban freeways, and as often as not, decided they were excessive. Highway planners have not been blind to this trend, of course. In the mid-70s, regional officials planned to build the Highway 16 extention in the Merivale corridor, ripping through established residential neighborhoods with little concern for the consequences.

Due to changing circumstances and unremitting opposition from those living in the freeway's path, the project was dropped, only to be reborn today in the Cedarview corridor. And the planners have learned their lesson. The route they have chosen is far and away the best for a new freeway entering the city from the southwest. It affects the least number of people, with the least potential environmental impact, of any available freeway route. But is the highway needed at all? Consider these facts: The provincial task force projects that the new highway will carry about 20,000 vehicles a day by 1991 at its busiest point, and even that figure won't be reached without a substantial diversion of traffic now using Highway 7.

By comparison. Highway 417 already carries about 25,000 vehicles a day at its busiest point and the Queensway handles more than 80,000 daily. An upgraded Highway 16 link between Highway 401 and the Queensway would give motorists an easier and safer route to Toronto. But because it would be longer than other routes, travel time Cedarview and some alternate routes status quo solution With no freeway, the highway 16 route, even in its fully-improved, two-lane, limit-access form, would not attract as much Toronto-bound traffic. Highway 7 would remain an important route for travellers bound for southwestern Ontario.

In short, with no freeway, there would be tradeoffs, some good, others less desirable. Nobody said professional agitation would be easy. GREAT LAKES Reagan budget cuts slash pollution control hopes TORONTO Canadian frustra- the Americans. But the Rea2an stiff dinlomatic notes nrotestine the the Americans. But the Reagan stiff diplomatic notes protesting the "Almost all of the dumps.) pro tion control goals, specified in Ca cutbacks, but they seem to have fal tiin over U.S.

environmental poli- tiin cjes cits budget which has gutted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's pollution control programs also threatens disaster for international efforts to clean up the Niagara River and the Great Lakes. Canada has sent Washington two is turning to genuine alarm now that the Reagan administration's limg-delayed budget has finally won congressional approval, i Much of the publicity has focused on Canada's acid rain battle with I Dave Todd PS house-cleaning all but certain grams that control toxic waste, and about 90 per cent of them in New York, have been hit," says Walter Hang, of the New York Public Interest Research Group. "We are very much concerned about the situation," federal Environment Minister John Roberts said Monday after signing a new Great Lakes anti-pollution treaty with Ontario Environment Minister Keith Norton. Included in the pact is a $65 million federal grant for new waste treatment facilities in the Great Lakes basin.

The full impact of the U.S. cuts hasn't been analyzed yet, Roberts said. But the federal government is expected to add more force to the complaints already lodged. Roberts is also apprehensive about recent findings by the U.S. General Accounting Office, the agency that monitors U.S.

government spending. While criticizing cuts in environmental protection programs, the GAO study questioned whether Great Lakes pollu nada master agreement with the U.S., might be too rigid. The International Joint Commission appears none too pleased with the recent U.S. performance either. An IJC report due to be released next month is said to be unusually critical of the effect Reagan's policies are likely to have on Great Lakes water quality.

While couched in diplomatic language, "there are several barbs directed at the U.S.," says a Canadian source. What makes the report notable, he said, is its sanction by the three American IJC commissioners, who unlike their Canadian counterparts, are patronage political appointees. U.S. Commissioner Keith Bulen, for example, was deputy national chairman of President Reagan's 1980 election committee. "The fact that these people of all people would lend their names to the report really tells you something about the deficiency of the U.S.

commitment to environmental causes," the source said. len on deaf ears. A reply to the first letter took a year; there's been no response to the second, which went out in May. Both the federal and Ontario governments are concerned about another effect of the U.S. budget-slashing: its impact on pollution control and surveillance efforts by the eight financially hard-pressed U.S.

states that border on the Great Lakes. Federal grants to states like New York and Ohio have been curtailed, turning the clock back on commitments to Canada made as long as a decade ago. Overtaxed and faulty sewage systems on the U.S. shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario have long been regarded as among the biggest causes of contamination in the system's two worst-polluted lakes. Moreover, despite the 1980 creation of a so-called $1.6 billion "Superfund," to clean up hazardous dumpsites (one of the last acts of the Carter administration), many dangerous sites Suutkam News like the dumps at Hyde Park and the Love Canal near Niagara Falls, N.Y.

don't even qualify for Superfund assistance. Hyde Park, a 6.4-hectare tract about 700 metres from the Niagara River, below Niagara Falls, contains about one tonne of dioxin, the deadliest chemical known to man. There are fears it may be seeping into ground water and bedrock, and ultimately into Lake Ontario. As of last month, only $55 million of the $1.6 billion had been spent on a handful of the 114 U.S. dumpsites which did make the Superfund list.

(U.S. states that border on the Great Lakes shelter an incredible total of 430 hazardous waste Charles Lynch rmstrongand Iri ichardson Ltd. 'I SHOP RPFfilAI ISTS Jake Epp, the Conservative member ff Provencher, is familiar with the frying of his Mennonite brethren) that "we grow too soon old, and tpo late smart." Ej and his leader, Joe Clark, have, been illustrating the truth of that bid saw by some of the things they I have been saying about what they I would do if, as the polls indicate they get back into power. Tley blew it the last time, but Clark has survived as party leader andjseems to be getting more confident all the time. Epp was one of the Imore effective of Clark's mini-stcii in the portfolio of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, ancf has become perhaps the most respected member of Parliament, after Stanley Knowlcs.

What would they do differently if thty take power? On the question of tactics, Clark said in a weekend interview that "I'd call the House very quickly." Last time, he diddled and dawdled so long before meeting Parliament as prime minister that his government hit the skids and fell on its first budget confidence test. Next time, Clark will be a prime minister in a hurry, just as Margaret Thatcher was when she took office in Britain. Days after an election, says Clark, "we could have the House of Conimons here and would bring in an economic statement, a budget if we could, that would indicate that we were going to do away with the nationalizing aspects of the National Energy Program." He ent on to say there would be tax breaks, a dramatic drop in state intervention, changes to the Foreign Investment Review Act, and re-introduction of some of the bills his government had ready in 1979. Indeed, Clark's only note of caution wfcs when he was asked if his celebrated program of mortgage interest ticduclability would be re-in-troducw and he said he would have to takj a hard look at it. The fact is that vjth interest rates where they are, aid the size of average mort-ages laving doubled, the program would cost $5 billion a year in lost revenues, as against the $2.5 billion it would have cost three years ago, so it has become just a memory.

Epf views are based on his con-victioi that the top levels of the public service are infested by Grits, and tiat they should be swept out the time the Liberal government defeated. Speaking in the committee on parliincntary reform, Epp pointed out tiat top advisers to government have security of tenure when that government is defeated. "Vet," he said, "possibly what a department needs more than anyth top down, not necessarily because the public service is not competent, but because its way of doing things has become the status quo, and you cannot change it, you cannot hold them accountable." Epp agreed with witnesses from the Business Council on National Issues that the advisers who would go out with a government should include deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers. He asked Council President Tom d'Aquino: "Would the business community be willing to give some of its best men and women at those two levels if they knew that there were appointments for the life of a government, rather than a permanent position?" d'Aquino replied: "I think it would be very strongly supported by many members of the Business Council a specific period of time in Ottawa under those circumstances would be immensely more attractive." Ironically, while nobody would dispute the fact that the public service has a distinct Liberal lean to it, the Grits having been in power for 41 of the last 48 years, public servants seem to have done more harm than good to the Liberals during the present Trudcau regime. Their advice has been faulty on the National Energy Program and the last two budgets submitted by Finance Minister Allan MacEachcn, and the Commons has buzzed with reports of aid programs and rescue operations that have been badly administered.

At the same time, there has been a cooling off period, if not a time of falling out, between the public service and the Liberals, to the point where wage freezes in the latest budget are likely to break the Liberal hold on ridings where the pub-tic service vote predominates. Not only that, there are senior public servants who will tell you they are fed to the teeth with the Grits and their cabinet of incompetents, and that though they scarcely had time to say so, they preferred their brief dealings with Conservative ministers, and particularly with Joe Clark, who was a quick study and always said "thank you," unlike the usually truculent Trudcau. Next time, the top officials might not recognize Clark as the same guy. They might not have time to, if he takes the hose to them. SELECTED LINES OF CURRENT SUMMER FOOTWEAR FOR WOMEN, MEN CHILDREN Quality footwear and handbags in summer fashions and colours for men, women and children.

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