Doug Ford has an interesting relationship with megaprojects. He seems to lack discernment.
In October he pitched Ontarians the idea of a gigantic tunnel underneath Highway 401, across the entire east-west stretch of Toronto, and everyone’s eyes bugged out of their heads. This “Big Doug” (as I wish to nickname it) could be up to 70 kilometres long, the premier said, which would be almost three times as long as the longest existingroad tunnels in the world. (And we pay more than almost anyone else in the world for such projects.)
“We’re going to get the job done, mark my words,” Ford told reporters last fall. And on Friday in Scarborough, he recommitted to building “the largest tunnel in the world,” without attaching even a rough dollar figure to it. It’s the craziest thing in his policy book by at least three times. And it can only weaken the case Ford makes for far more conceivable megaprojects — past, ongoing and present.
Earlier in the week on the campaign trail, Ford dedicated his re-elected government to building what he is calling “GO 2.0” — a massive expansion in both reach and service frequency to the commuter-rail network in the Greater Toronto Area and beyond.
There would be all-day two-way service between downtown Toronto and Kitchener and Toronto and Milton, a huge gain for those communities and those along the way. There would be a new line from Bolton to downtown Toronto via Woodbridge and Etobicoke. Most ambitiously, there would be a new “midtown line” running on what is currently Canadian Pacific’s main transcontinental freight line, which clatters incongruously through some of the most expensive commercial and residential real estate in the country.
The latter would depend on building a freight-rail bypass around the city, parallel to Highway 407, thus freeing up the midtown tracks — which Ford has also proposed. That’s a terrific idea, in theory. Compared to the 401 tunnel, it would be like building a fairly complex Lego set. But it would still cost a fortune. (Luckily, money seems to be no object in this election campaign.)
As soon as average travel times drop, more people will decide driving is a tolerable way to commute, until the same level of gridlock is achieved
Speaking of conceivable megaprojects: Not so long ago, Ford’s opponents would tell you for a fact that his government would never build the Ontario Line, a 16-kilometre rapid-transit link in Toronto between Don Mills and Ontario Place via downtown.
Folks, lemme tell ya, it is being built. It is being built all over us. Ontario Line construction projects have finally pushed city-centre gridlock from “practically unbelievable” over the edge into “literally unbelievable.” Uber routinely asks me if everything’s OK, on account of my driver not having moved for seven minutes.
That’s what happens when you fail to build a subway line that everyone wants for 50 years: It gets crazily expensive and complicated. Ford’s government grasped the nettle politically, when it probably didn’t really need to. It can also boast of steady, serious improvements to GO transit services on the existing lines. Navigating the GTA by transit — on the rails at least — is a much easier and less stressful thing than it was within very recent memory.
That’s great news; if anything I’m surprised the Tories don’t boast about it more. But on the gridlock itself, Ford can’t boast much.
“Tolls are absolutely horrible,” he said in Durham this week, lest there was any confusion whatsoever about his position on tolls.
The premier promised to remove tolls on the publicly owned portion of Highway 407 east of Toronto, having previously removed tolls from Highway 412, which links Highway 401 along the lakeshore to 407. Highway 407 runs roughly parallel to and north of 401, and is one of the only thoroughfares in the entire GTA that’s not terminally gridlocked … precisely because it’s tolled.
Proof of concept, or so you might think: If you want less gridlock, price road usage. But not in Ontario. Not in Canada, really. Canadians grudgingly accept tolls on bridges and tunnels, or temporary tolls put in place until a highway is paid off, or tolls that only apply to people who live outside the levying jurisdiction — but never as permanent fixtures on normal highways applying to everyone. It’s one of the weirdest little-but-big differences between Canadians and Americans.
That said, much as the premier loathes tolls, by leaving them in place on the western part of 407 — for now, anyway — he is actually near the vanguard of road pricing in this province. NDP Leader Marit Stiles wants them gone altogether. Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie hasn’t specified her position. She said she wasn’t opposed to privileging trucks on 407 — with lower tolls, as the NDP has suggested, or dedicated lanes — but she said she was focusing on health care instead. She should probably be able to talk about more than one thing at once. It was her predecessor, Kathleen Wynne, who agreed to let Toronto toll the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway, and then reneged under pressure from her 905 caucus.
The idea of redirecting truck traffic to 407 is basically to make more room for cars on 401. It’s not a bad idea on any level … unless you think it will “free up room for cars on the 401.” It is a both an empirically provable and intuitive fact about road capacity, where theoretical demand vastly outstrips theoretical supply: As soon as average travel times drop, more people will decide driving is a tolerable way to commute, until the same level of gridlock is achieved.
All the more reason Ford should focus on his sane, achievable transit plans — the better to boast of his achievements thus far.
National Post
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