Less of the same: Northern multimodal planning.

• Author: Robinson, David
• Position: Economically Speaking

Steven Del Duca is our minister of transportation. He wants you to read the draft 2041 Northern Ontario Multimodal Transportation Strategy developed by his ministry and the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM).

Read it and weep.

We are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in history. But Del Duca's "strategy" is tame, conservative, and very short-sighted.

Basically, it says that already-planned improvements in the Trans-Canada Highway system should go ahead.

These include a few more passing lanes and four changeable signs to tell drivers if the road ahead is clear. Discussions with First Nations about roads will continue. Small airports will get Wi-Fi. And winter roads should be improved.

And consider this strategy item from page 82: "Reduce GHG emissions from car and truck transportation in Northern Ontario by decreasing reliance on diesel and gasoline fuels."

As if there were other ways to reduce emissions in the transportation system. This is about as useful as saying: "Get rich by making money."

A real 30-year plan would probably start with something like: "By 2047' all long-distance rail and truck freight will have converted to zero-carbon energy sources."

It would then go on to say what this means for Northerners and for provincial policies.

Unfortunately, the "strategy" lacks this kind of vision.

Glaringly absent is a section on "megatrends" where the technological economic and social changes of the next 30 years are sketched out.

The federal transportation review, in contrast, has a section for each component of the transportation network entitled: "Where we want to be in the next 30 years."

Ontario's "strategy" has nothing like it.

How can you have a plan without a clear idea about where you want to go and what you will find on the way?

The document never answers how the provincially mandated 80 per cent cut in greenhouse gases will affect the Northern transportation system.

We need to know what the zero carbon, high-speed rail system will do to Northern Ontario.

Will CN and CP have to purchase hydrogen fuel trains? Germany has already ordered 60 of them. Federal policy is moving to speed up transcontinental freight trains and to move rail line out of cities and towns. What should the province do to the feds and the municipalities?

How will the rapid deployment of autonomous electric freight trucks change communities on the Trans-Canada...