Dilkens continues to push province to take control of E.C. Row Expressway
By Rob Hindi
Windsor's mayor continues to call on the province to take control of the E.C. Row Expressway.
Speaking on AM800's The Morning Drive, mayor Drew Dilkens says he's been asking the province for a few years now to take responsibility of the roadway.
He says when the expressway was downloaded to the city in the late 90's the province also gave Windsor $8-million.
Dilkens says the city now spends about $10-million a year maintaining the expressway on capital expenses such as road and bridge repairs.
He says the city has initiated lots of different conversations with the province.
"The community's growing, it's economic growth related and really they are the only level of government, the practical level of government to be able to fund the expansion and all of the work that needs to be done and I would love to take $10-million that we're spending today in capital costs on E.C. Row Expressway and put it right into residential roads and get a lot more of them done every year," he says.
Dilkens says the simplest solution from the city's perspective is uploading the E.C. Row Expressway to the province.
"We are pushing as well and don't forget E.C. Row Expressway put yourself in our shoes at city council, E.C. Row Expressway is a regional road that 35 per cent, at least 35 per cent of the users everyday aren't City of Windsor residents, they originate from somewhere else," says Dilkens.
He says he has talked to Premier Doug Ford directly about uploading the expressway to the province.
"It's great that we have this cross connection, east-west connection in our community but who's paying for it," he says. "It's only the City of Windsor residents and so that is inequity as well that we're trying to address."
As AM800 news reported on Monday, the province will upload two Toronto highways, the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway in order to help alleviate Toronto's growing financial pressures.
In return, the city will approve the province's plans to redevelop Ontario Place.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said the deal will help the city address its financial issues and allow it to spend more money on building affordable housing and transit that would otherwise be spent on repairing highways.