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]
However, with the election of the Liberal government under Dalton McGuinty in 2003, a formal study was initiated. After developing the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, the McGuinty government launched a new Niagara to GTA corridor environmental assessment to study transportation needs in the corridor.[5][6]
A draft Transportation Development Study to consider alternative or complementary infrastructure to a freeway was completed in February 2011. The study recommended the routing be split into three groups, with route planning to commence for the eastern portion, further corridor study in the western portion and to halt but otherwise continue monitoring needs for a new transportation link in the central portion.[7][8] As a result of the study, the Regional Municipality of Niagara has initiated an environmental assessment to identify and design a new 400-series highway linking Highway 406 and the QEW between Welland and Fort Erie, forming the eastern portion of the Mid-Peninsula Highway. Corridor planning has the support of the provincial government.[9]
As of February 2019, the project is still in the planning phase and the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities of the House of Commons recommended that the federal government "should consider the creation of a Mid-Peninsula Transportation Corridor".[10]