On my way home I caught this Red-tailed Hawk (correct me if I am wrong) just south of Bolton along side Highway 50. He was scanning the ditch below for food and I must have made him nervous as he flew away fairly quickly once he spotted me. I didn’t notice it until after I had loaded up the photos on my computer but this particular hawk is tagged, click on the image for a larger view, if you look closely you will see a red tag on his foot. For more info on Red-tailed Hawks, click here. Picture was taken with my zoom lens sitting in the middle lane of Highway 50 (do not do this, its very busy and dangerous).

Here are two more pictures:

You can also see my previous Hawk post with pictures here from earlier in the year.

Originally the Highway 427 expansion was envisioned to go north to Highway 9 with talk of it going even further north toward Collingwood. Any thought of those plans are long dead, in today’s times with public and government more conscious about the environment it is unlikely that the 427 would ever be expanded beyond Bolton if it even gets that far. Currently the plan is to extend the 427 north to Major Mackenzie Drive as it will service the CP rail yard keeping more trucks off of Hwy 50 and 27 as well this terminus location is in line with other planned municipal road improvements and will have the least environmental impact.

If all goes ahead with current preferred route the Highway 427 will be extended approximately 6.6km from Hwy 7 and will have 3 new interchanges at Langstaff Road, Rutherford Road and Major Mackenzie Drive. The expansion will consist of 6 lanes from Steeles Avenue to Rutherford Road and go down to 4 lanes from Rutherford to Major Mackenzie with possible HOV lanes in each direction. Also to be added would be a new carpool lot at the Rutherford Road interchange.

Interestingly in the key features of the latest 427 Transportation Corridor Environmental Assessment Study report it still makes note that it “will not preclude future extension of Highway 427” still leaving the door open for the future to go beyond Bolton if needed however that may be exceedingly difficult with Green Belt and the Oak Ridges Moraine just above, local opposition to the 427 going north of Bolton would likely be much stronger.

For more information about the 427 Extension you can visit the official study website. All the current public information from the last meeting can be found by clicking here.

Just to quickly describe the above image, at the bottom is Hwy 7 and at the top is Major Mackenzie Drive/CP Rail Yard and in between is the current route it would follow with the new interchanges. Click on the image to open up a high resolution PDF (note: the PDF image will be rotated 90 degrees clockwise).