The Ontario government is announcing plans to explore whether tunnelling under a major highway, an idea Premier Doug Ford first mused about when he was a Toronto city councillor, is possible.
The government announced the concept at a news conference near Highway 401 in Etobicoke on Wednesday morning, pledging to conduct a feasibility study of whether a new expressway could be tunnelled beneath the existing route.
“We’re experts at tunnelling,” Ford said. “And once a feasibility study comes back, then we’ll move it forward. I always believe, never take the tunnelling machines out of the ground — just keep tunnelling.”
Ford said he wanted to get a “clear understanding” of “how this tunnel” can fight gridlock, promising the potential project would not include road tolls. The premier called his tunnel project a “serious plan to get people out of gridlock,” accusing his opponents of shooting down his transportation plans.
While the feasibility study is about understanding how the project would work, Ford repeated several times Wednesday morning that they planned to build the route whatever happened.
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The cost of the tunnel itself is unclear, with Ford suggesting the study will determine the cost. He said that he planned to build the project regardless of what the study suggested but that details from it like cost may determine how big the project ultimately ends up being.
The initial plan, according to the premier, is to tunnel under Highway 401 the length of Toronto, from Mississauga to Scarborough.
The government did not share the cost of the feasibility study in time for publication, with Ford saying it would be conducted internally and may already be underway.
“We’re just a government of action, we’re a government that builds and we’re going to continue building,” Ford said.
Under Ford’s Progressive Conservatives, the province has pushed two priority highway projects in particular, Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass. Neither route has finished construction to open to the public and meaningful construction work is not expected to get underway for Highway 413 until next year.
Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma said the tunnel plan was a “strategic investment” as part of the government’s highway plan.
Experts have suggested the idea of either tunnelling under or building over major highways in Ontario is technically possible but logistically impractical, with prohibitive costs as the main barrier. “In a lot of Asia, they’re doing decking projects. India is doing a lot of decking. They call them flyovers,” Matti Siemiatycki, professor of geography and director of the University of Toronto’s Infrastructure Institute, previously told Global News.
“The reality is that the cost of both of those initiatives is astronomical,” he said.
“What will happen is a pattern called induced demand where ultimately, over time, you’ll end up with those additional lanes also becoming congested.”
In bygone years, when he was a city councillor, Ford pitched creative ways to make the roads bigger but not wider.
In 2012, he mused about tunnelling below the Gardiner or adding extra layers above the city’s roads.
“I’m in favour of exploring: what is the cost of tunnelling, what is the cost of putting a double-decker, a triple-decker like they have in New York?” Ford said at the time, according to the National Post.
“Let’s find out the cost.”
The government is in the process of finalizing transportation legislation that will be tabled in the fall, including rules that will restrict bike lanes. The premier has said the ideas it will bring forward are “game-changing,” while his transportation minister hinted it could involve more construction.