Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s promise to build an enormously expensive car and transit tunnel under Highway 401 has been met with predictable derision. The only thing that’s missing is a better solution to the gridlock that’s crippling the GTA.
Sure, it’s a little hard to wrap your head around the idea of a tunnel that could be up to 50 kilometres long and cost between $60 billion and $120 billion, depending on the length. Consider, though, how important a properly functioning road system is to the GTA and to the rest of southern Ontario. Right now, the 401 is a roadblock that hampers the movement of people and goods across the province. As population continues to grow, it will get worse.
It’s an unacceptable situation, it needs to be fixed, and the fix won’t be cheap. This is a problem that requires serious discussion followed by action. If the Ford tunnel is really what one media commentator called “the worst idea in the history of the world,” then what are the alternatives?
The usual suspects have put forth an array of familiar ideas, ones that have become well-worn from being so often discussed to so little avail.
Let’s start with the defeatists. The first thing you need to know, experts say, is that traffic congestion cannot be fixed by offering more road capacity. Only the naïve and ill-informed believe that wider roads that can carry more cars will reduce traffic congestion.
Simple math would seem to support the capacity increase argument, but it’s an article of faith for car skeptics that bigger roads will worsen traffic congestion due to something called induced demand. The theory is that once people see big new roads, they rush out to buy a car and start using the roads. So limitless is this pent-up demand to drive, that no matter how extensive the road expansion, more cars will just come along to fill up the new roads, creating no net improvement in congestion.
Induced-demand thinkers can even cite studies that basically say, yes wider roads were built and more cars used them. Wouldn’t that be the very purpose of the wider roads? One might more plausibly argue that demand for more roads is caused by rapidly expanding population. Due largely to high levels of immigration, the GTA is expected to add three million residents by 2051. Many of them will have cars.
Tunnel skeptics say the solution is more transit, but that’s not an inexpensive alternative. Take the Toronto Transit Commission as an example. The transit agency has a 10-year funded capital spending program that will cost $12.4 billion. That still leaves unmet capital needs of $17.916 billion over 10 years and $35.458 billion over 15 years.
By comparison, the Ford government will spend $70 billion on transit capital costs over 10 years, compared to $100 billion on roads. The road total does not cover the potential tunnel.
Transit is also expensive to operate, partly because transit systems provide vehicles, drivers and fuel, a cost car owners cover themselves. If cars were treated the same as transit the government would buy you a car and provide you with a chauffeur. You would pay a fraction of the real operating cost, as transit riders do. The only hitch would be that the car would only go where the government tells it to go.
Tunnel critics point to road tolls and congestion fees as tools to reduce traffic congestion. Both are mechanisms designed to make people pay twice for roads their taxes already built. They are also regressive taxes that levy the same car-use charge on a Bay Street financier as they do on the person who cleans the financier’s building. Not incidentally, tolls and congestion fees do nothing to improve the transportation system’s capacity.
Ontario does have one toll road, Highway 407, much of which is privately owned and runs parallel to Highway 401. The highway is underused because of exorbitant tolls. Ford had rejected the idea of buying the 407 from its private owners, but put the option back on the table Wednesday. It won’t be cheap. The highway is believed to be worth nearly $30 billion. Without tolls, it would provide some quick congestion relief, but the cost would need to be compared against the price and capacity of the underground option.
Ontario desperately requires a multi-part plan to lessen GTA traffic congestion. It will never be eliminated. The sustainability of the GTA’s population growth needs to be part of the discussion, as does moving vast numbers of people downtown to work. It’s a 20th century approach that technology is making obsolete.
Ford has started the process with his government’s tunnel feasibility study. Perhaps there are other ideas that could supplement or replace that approach. Wishing away cars or arguing the problem can’t be fixed are not among them.
Randall Denley is an Ottawa journalist. Contact him at [email protected]