Ontario Premier Doug Ford says his government considered buying back Highway 407, an idea long-touted by opposition parties, to reduce congestion around Toronto, before deciding on its current plan to build an expressway beneath Highway 401.
During a weekend interview with Ben Mulroney on AM 640 Radio, Ford also offered new confidence that a combined traffic and transit tunnel under the highway could be built because Ontario has the “right team” of tunnelling experts to tackle the massive public infrastructure project.
Ford unveiled his plan last week, promising to build a tunnelled highway of up to 55 kilometres in a bid to tackle congested 400-series highways in the Greater Toronto Area. The premier pledged a feasibility study to consider if the plan was possible from Brampton to Scarborough and to get an idea of just how much it could cost.
“We’ll look at all options, we’ll put every option on the table, be it 30 kilometres, 40 km, 50 km,” Ford told AM 640 on Saturday. (AM 640 and Global News are both owned by Corus Entertainment.)
“My theory is once you start boring, you never take the boring machine out of the ground,” Ford said. “If you can afford 30 km then you do 30, then you eventually continue on with the balance as well.”
Ford said cost and time, in that order, would be the primary factors that would determine whether the government would proceed, but didn’t provide any ballpark estimates for either.
“I’m confident on the timing,” Ford said. “Anything can be engineered as long as you have the right team, we’ll make sure that we have the right team.”
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“We understand tunnelling,” Ford said, pointing to the Ontario Line, which is currently under construction at a cost of roughly $700 million per kilometre, according to an analysis conducted by the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
Infrastructure experts have cautioned the government that a project of this scope could cost tens of billions of dollars owing to the complexity of tunnelling under an existing highway and could come with years of construction woes adding to congestion.
Adding to the price tag is the idea that the tunnel would also include transit infrastructure.
“We’re also looking at a transit system down the centre of the tunnel going down the 401 and that would stop at every single stop,” Ford said.
At Queen’s Park, opposition parties have argued the cost of a mega tunnel would likely be too exorbitant, considering Ontario’s current debt load of $439 billion, and wouldn’t address the congestion issues plaguing drivers today.
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Instead, some parties have suggested a provincial program that would pay the 407 tolls for trucking companies that are moving goods across the GTA, leaving the 401 free for passenger vehicles.
During his conversation with AM640, Ford indicated that his government briefly considered the idea and reiterated his view that the sale of the highway by the Mike Harris Progressive Conservative government in 1999 was a bad decision.
“We’ve thought of that as well,” Ford said. “Previous government sold it off for $2.3 billion, which was the biggest mistake I’ve ever seen.”
Ford suggested that Highway 407 is now “worth approximately $35 billion” but said the government decided not to fork out to buy it back because of studies completed internally suggesting “all the 400 series highways are going to be at full capacity” in the next quarter-century.
“Studies have come out that we’ll be at full capacity in another 20, 25 years on the 407 — that defeats the purpose,” Ford said.
Asked about an interim compromise, Ford pointed to Highway 413 and Bradford Bypass — two highways that are moving towards construction but don’t have a timeline for operation yet.
Highway 413 was re-started by the province in 2019 but isn’t expected to begin construction until next year, with no cost estimate for the route yet public. The Ministry of Transportation has long said that Highway 407 and potentially buying it back were considered before the plan to construct Highway 413 was selected.
While it’s unclear how long the feasibility study would take, Ford once again said his government is already committed to building some version of the highway tunnel.
“We have to think about people that are on that highway, stuck there, for hours and hours a week – or a hundred hours a year,” Ford said.
“We can’t afford not to build it.”