Shakespeare, Ont. residents are cheering while farmers south of the village are furious over the latest proposal for a new Highway 7/8 route.
An earlier proposal to widen the highway saw it run right through Shakespeare.
Long-time merchant Jonny Kalisch thought the plan was absurd, he says "To tear houses down just for a highway, to tear 30 houses down, and I was totally against it."
Now planners with the Ministry of Transportation have come up with another proposal, one that's closer to a route considered several years ago.
The four-lane bypass would start east of Shakespeare, follow the rail line to the south, then drop south again and connect with Pork Road/Line 33 south of Stratford.
It's not good news for the 22 farmers located along the new proposed route. The proposal would see at least 500 acres of farm land lost to the new route.
Ruby Doering's home is near the proposed route. She says "Well, I think it is awful, wrecking all the farmland, and I think they should put a bridge overtop of Shakespeare, like they do on [Highway] 401."
Planners face the impossible task of trying to please people on both sides of the debate deciding whether losing homes or losing farmland is worse.
Putting the bypass north of the Shakespeare is out of the question, planners say, because it would have a greater environmental impact on local wetlands.
The study will continue into 2012 and there's no schedule for construction of the highway, which the province started planning over forty years ago.
