THE 410 HIGHWAY EXTENSION that will parallel Heart Lake Road from Bovaird

Drive to Mayfield Road might be especially good news for the City of Brampton, but it does little to relieve the frustrations of Dufferin commuters who face a daily bottleneck at Caledon Village before they encounter the present-day Heart Lake Road gridlock..

Awarding of the multi-million-dollar contract was announced earlier this month, after almost a quarter-century of talking about it. The move will overcome a bottleneck of about 2 1/2 miles past Heart Lake Conservation Area, and might get northbound commuters on to the 4-lane Highway 10 a few minutes sooner.

But they'll still lose that time when they get to the top of the Caledon mountain, where they'll have to merge into two narrow, rough lanes as they pass through the village.

This will hardly discourage the dangerous alternatives of using Heart Lake Road, or Horseshoe Hill Road. Not that there's anything wrong with those well-paved Caledon roads, but their Highway 9 intersections are both uncontrolled, and during rush hours it's almost worth one's life to turn left into Highway 9.

Back to the village, we recall staffing an information session on the proposed widening more than five years ago. Since then, the Old Town Hall, home of the Caledon Townhall Players, has been moved, the gasoline outlet at the intersection closed, and the surveys for the turns at Highway 10 and Charleston Sideroad (the former Highway 24) completed.

The underground tanks have been removed at the station. As nearly as we have been able to determine, all contaminated soils have been excavated, but there is no indication that construction will get under way in the foreseeable future.

In fact, the Ministry of the Environment has approved the remedial measures taken at the station, has given the property a clean bill of health, but the Ministry of Transportation says it hasn't purchased the strip of property for the wider right-of-way because it's not satisfied that it doesn't still pose a risk.

In fact, there had been talk of contaminated wells elsewhere in the village. It would be difficult to blame that on the former service station, given that a mere excavation appears to have cleared away all the local contamination. Nor should it be forgotten that there's a certain amount of spillage at all service stations, and there's always a major cleanup when stations are closed.

In Caledon's case, the other factor with respect to contamination of area wells is that there have been numerous businesses handling a wide variety of substances over the past century. Who is to say which one or more of them spilled chemicals that eventually leached into the groundwater?

In the circumstances, we can't help wondering whether the province wants to solve traffic problems, or prefers instead simply to put its roads where the votes are.

Brampton, after all, is one of the fastest-growing cities in Ontario, with a huge number of uncommitted voters. Work such as the Highway 410 and 427 extensions will likely be under way before the next provincial election, and the government could see the construction as winning more than a seat for the Liberals.

Perhaps there's a similar explanation for mysterious circumstances to the north, where Shelburne council seems to be getting nowhere in its bid to have the province build a bypass for Highway 10 and a truck bypass for Highway 89.

It seems the province was committed to a Shelburne bypass study prior to the last provincial election. It said so in a letter to town council, and the Town committed about $60,000 for its share of the costs, believing the study would be done within a stated time.

Shelburne's money remains in a reserve. But time has passed, and the ministry has yet to get the study under way.

Does the real reason for all the inaction lie in the fact Dufferin-Caledon is seen by the McGuinty government as forever unwinnable, the safest Conservative seat in Ontario?