An expressway under Ontario’s Highway 401? Ford touts idea with few details

The Ontario authorities is announcing plans to research whether tunnelling nether a large highway, an thought Premier Doug Ford archetypal mused astir erstwhile helium was a Toronto metropolis councillor, is possible.

The authorities announced the conception astatine a quality league adjacent Highway 401 successful Etobicoke connected Wednesday morning, pledging to behaviour a feasibility survey of whether a caller expressway could beryllium tunnelled beneath the existing route.

“Today’s announcement is the latest measurement successful our astir $100 cardinal program to tackle this gridlock by gathering and expanding highways and transit, including Highway 401, the Bradford Bypass and Highway 413, truthful we tin get radical and goods moving crossed Ontario erstwhile more,” Ford said.

Ford said helium wanted to get a “clear understanding” of “how this tunnel” tin combat gridlock, promising the imaginable task would not see roadworthy tolls. The premier called his passageway task a “serious program to get radical retired of gridlock,” accusing his opponents of shooting down his proscription plans.

While the feasibility survey is astir knowing however the task would work, Ford repeated respective times Wednesday greeting that they planned to physique the way immoderate happened.

“This connection is simply a strategical concern to assistance drivers get retired of gridlock and get commercialized goods wherever they’re needed without costly delays,” Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma said.

Experts person suggested the thought of either tunnelling nether oregon gathering implicit large highways successful Ontario is technically imaginable but logistically impractical, with prohibitive costs arsenic the main barrier.

“In a batch of Asia, they’re doing decking projects. India is doing a batch of decking. They telephone them flyovers,” Matti Siemiatycki, prof of geography and manager of the University of Toronto’s Infrastructure Institute, antecedently told Global News.

“The world is that the outgo of some of those initiatives is astronomical,” helium said.

“What volition hap is simply a signifier called induced request wherever ultimately, implicit time, you’ll extremity up with those further lanes besides becoming congested.”

In bygone years, erstwhile helium was a metropolis councillor, Ford pitched originative ways to marque the roads bigger but not wider.

In 2012, helium mused astir tunnelling beneath the Gardiner oregon adding other layers supra the city’s roads.

“I’m successful favour of exploring: what is the outgo of tunnelling, what is the outgo of putting a double-decker, a triple-decker similar they person successful New York?” Ford said astatine the time, according to the National Post.

“Let’s find retired the cost.”

The authorities is successful the process of finalizing proscription authorities that volition beryllium tabled successful the fall, including rules that volition restrict motorcycle lanes. The premier has said the ideas it volition bring guardant are “game-changing,” portion his proscription curate hinted it could impact much construction.