RESTORE COOTES

Spencer Creek at the location of the former electric radial-line bridge, with Cootes Drive through the trees - photo by Randy Kay

REBEL - FEBRUARY 2004 Undoing Environmental Damage BY Penn Whithers, REBEL Zine Reduce, Reuse and Recyle. Walk or use public transport when you can. Plant trees. Tear down a highway. Tear down a highway??!!What a radical idea! It's not really when you think about it for a minute. Man has always made colossal, and often, unfair demands on the environment. Planet Earth is struggling every second of every day to support its ever growing population, and is barely coping under the strain of pollutants constantly being thrown into its atmosphere and oceans. The possibility of several wildlife forms going extinct poses a serious threat to the rather delicate food chain - the web of life. It is impossible for nature to regenerate itself faster than the rate at which pollutants are being released. Mother Nature is in desperate need of our help to sustain life on this planet. We need to reverse some of the damage we have inflicted upon the planet. Tearing down unnecessary highw...

Research demonstrates "viability, necessity" of closing Cootes Mac student says using road jeopardizes ongoing survival of turtle populations BY CRAIG CAMPBELL Wednesday, July 9, 2003 Dundas Star News ______________ Drivers would accept the closure of Cootes Drive, a main access into Dundas, because the road poses a serious threat to an endangered turtle species, says a third-year McMaster student. And Julia Croome, an arts and science student who investigated the effect of the road on surrounding turtle populations and the possibility of closing the road for environmental reasons, believes much more research must be done on the road before the construction of a 565-space parking lot that would only increase traffic on the road. She said a detailed traffic study of Cootes Drive would be very useful. "It doesn't appear that in-depth environmental studies were made before the road was built in '42, and I'd be interested in whether any are being made ab...

Back when Cootes Drive was constructed, it was cutting edge. 60 years later we need to re-examine the need for the road and look toward what might be rescued from beneath the asphalt. COOTES: Drive Through Paradise? By Randy Kay (Transportation for Liveable Communities) published in PIRGSPECTIVES Spring 2003 (OPIRG McMaster zine) McMaster students, staff and faculty looking for an escape to nature are fortunate to be able to access Cootes Paradise, an 840 ha wildlife sanctuary containing a 250 ha coastal marsh, just a few steps from campus buildings on the North side of campus. Narrow footpaths follow the contour of a class A wetland. Patient bird-watchers are rewarded with a stunning array of species including (at the large end of the spectrum) swans, blue herons, osprey and wood ducks and on down to the small chatty red- winged blackbirds and marsh wrens. So why is there a road running through it? Cootes Drive was constructed in 1936. It i...

August 2001 - two of four lanes on Cootes Drive closed for a public works project.

By Craig Campbell Staff Writer Dundas Star News (Wednesday, August 8, 2001) Page 7 Imagine Cootes Drive - the four lane access between West Hamilton and Dundas - completely torn up and replaced by the natural marsh land that was there over fifty years ago. It may seem unrealistic, but a Dundas resident is starting a group to push for the change. And an ecologist with the Hamilton Region Conservation Authority actually likes the idea. "It's quite interesting," said Bruce Duncan, of the HRCA. "Can it be done? That's the million dollar question." Last week, Randy Kay sent out a press release to 500 people on an e-mail discussion list. It called for a permanent closure of the road that separates the nature preserve of Cootes Paradise and the Spencer Creek Watershed. Cootes Drive is temporarily down to two lanes during construction this month. "We're totally serious about getting the road out of there, at some point," Mr. Kay sai...