The study called for an alternative route to the QEW, which runs through tender fruitlands and is not capable of expansion beyond its current configuration.

[4] The successive Ontario Conservative governments of Premiers Mike Harris and Ernie Eves planned to forego a full environmental assessment of the freeway after a study indicated an urgent need for its construction.

The Niagara Frontier International Gateway Study was published by the MTO in 1998 and indicated that the freeway was of vital importance.

Prior to this study, various proposals for a freeway above the Niagara Escarpment had surfaced for several decades, though no serious examination of its merits was undertaken.

[5][6] A draft Transportation Development Study to consider alternative or complementary infrastructure to a freeway was completed in February 2011.