Highway 401 Transit and Auto Tunnel

[bearcat]

Not a fan of this proposal, but there are many many many urban road tunnels of extended length - these “problems” have been solved. Sydney has just finished building 33 km of new urban motorways at about AU$20 billion, for example (WestConnex)

This was posted earlier, project mentioned has 26 km of total tunnels, and I'm pretty sure they're not there primarily to cross mountains, waterways, or city cores, from what I see on Google Maps, the tunnels mostly run under neighborhoods of single family homes.

Most road tunnels are built out of geographic necessity. They cross mountains or waterways or city cores. The 401 corridor has none of these things. Not to mention that there are no road tunnels of this length anywhere in the world. Not even close.

Now, I know very little about the above project, and whether it has any merits.

And I certainly don't support Ontario funding this tunnel under the 401.

 

[Haljackey]

Ya this is going to be a vision and nothing more like the previous Liberal Government's 350km/h HSR plan to London that vanished from the face of the Earth after the 2014 Ontario election.

Fixing bottlenecks on the 401 and rebuilding the major freeway interchanges to handle more capacity would cost a fraction of this tunnel proposal and give significant relief to the 401's traffic flow - which in turn will benefit the rest of the 400 series in the area.

If the issue is with logistics/freight trucking and transit, you could look into building HOV and truck only lanes. The HOV could be a 4 lane viaduct overtop of the centre of the highway while the innermost left express lane could be used for long-distance 18 wheelers only.

Basically throw money at what will give you the most benefit for the lowest cost.

If this tunnel thing happens, even just a portion of it would be baffling and take a decade or more to construct. I could see maybe something under Pearson or a double-deck connector between the 427 and 409 but that's really it.

 

[sche]

While this 401 tunnel idea is somewhat crazy (I for one would rather see more GO branches to improve coverage, HSR, adding truck lanes, and/or a 160km/h express orbital metro line along the 407) I would like to write a bit more on Sydney’s tunnel construction for context, as it is much more than the massive WestConnex tunnel which other posters have brought up.

In the last ~30 years, Sydney has constructed:
1992: Harbour Tunnel, 2.8km
1999: Eastern Distributor, 1.7km
2001: M5, 4km
2005: Cross City Tunnel, 2.2km
2007: Lane Cove Tunnel, 3.6km
2020: NorthConnex, 9km
2019-2023: WestConnex, 26km

And there’s more u/c:
2025 M6 Tunnel, 4km
2028 Western Harbour Tunnel, 6.5km

(Dates are opening dates, lengths are for tunneled sections only)

That’s ~60km, with even more in planning! Other than the harbour tunnels, these are all really urban tunnels underneath suburban and urban areas and not any geographic barriers.

There’s no shortage of complex engineering works either - underwater crossings, giant underground interchanges, deep tunnels under other tunnels, etc.

One extremely big thing to note however is the very significant private money put in projects plus private operation of those tunnels with tolls. You do see familiar names frequently in these consortiums - CPPIB, CDPQ. I could honestly see some kind of deal working out for significant financing from some combination of the 407 consortium, CPPIB, CDPQ, and Bay St/Wall St to partially fund a toll 401 tunnel similar to the Sydney projects - such a tunnel would no doubt be a huge money printer once constructed, if tolls are not too restricted. The 9km NorthConnex, for instance, had only 1B AUD of government cash funding, with the remaining 2B privately funded or funded in the form of extended toll concessions for other private toll roads. That said, Ford did ban new tolls on provincial highways, so I have no clue if this is on the table. But if the government can get a decent deal with significant private funding to foot some/most of the bill, I don’t think it would be the worst idea.

 

[nfitz]

How many dozens of lanes are each of those Sydney tunnels?

 

[innsertnamehere]

How many dozens of lanes are each of those Sydney tunnels?

Westconnex is 6 lanes (well, 6+2 emergency lanes), others are 4-6.

 

[ARG1]

* Minor correction........ the highway network is 33km; the tunnelled portion is 26km.

A cursory review by me suggests the Sydney route has fewer challenges (major valley crossings) as well.

The interactive map of the project can be found here:

Interactive Map | WestConnex

www.westconnex.com.au

What makes Sydney special is the fact that the rock bed mostly consists of Limestone: i.e. you couldn't possibly ask for better ground conditions to build any sort of tunnel - especially when compared with Toronto. That's why they can get away with building so many of these freeway projects, as well as their current slew of Metro Projects. Not to mention they have an interesting financing strategy where they build the Freeways, sell them off (similar to what we did with the 407), and then use that money to build new Metro/LRT lines. I don't imagine we're going to do something like this here.

 

[ARG1]

You couldn't be any more right with this post.

Doug Ford and the Conservatives shut down the 407 freight rail bypass not long after getting elected, and then a couple years later come up with this genius proposal. Even if CN didn't want to front any money for the bypass, I'm sure the price tag wouldn't be far off from whatever the cost for this proposal would be.

If we're seriously at the point where we're considering tunneling under the 401, then why isn't talking with CN about the 407 freight bypass not back on the table?

The issue with the freight bypass is simply that it's unnecessary. We're already adding dedicated tracks to the Halton Sub RIGHT NOW, and Ford has already announced a set of dedicated tracks on the Milton Line. With that in mind, what does a freight bypass give us?

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

I'll give Doug points for the ambition here...it's weirdly visionary. But the costs and the logistics of designing, building and maintaining this thing will be horrifying, to put it mildly.

...but it would be nice for once if energy used for this would be focused on infrastructure solutions that didn't involve cars. That is, public dollars spent on beefing our road systems for private vehicles which could be spent on better things instead. Not to mention, it's just unsafer and unhealthier for everyone doing it this way. /sigh

 

[Northern Light]

The Globe and Mail Editorial Board is out with a piece throwing cold water on this idea.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-doug-ford-is-driving-ontario-down-the-wrong-road/'

From the above.......
Referencing this announcement and the Bike Lanes law being mused about:

They then go on to explain why:

Finally, they consider an alternative:

 

[sixrings]

I'll give Doug points for the ambition here...it's weirdly visionary. But the costs and the logistics of designing, building and maintaining this thing will be horrifying, to put it mildly.

...but it would be nice for once if energy used for this would be focused on infrastructure solutions that didn't involve cars. That is, public dollars spent on beefing our road systems for private vehicles which could be spent on better things instead. Not to mention, it's just unsafer and unhealthier for everyone doing it this way. /sigh

It’s not visionary if he has no intention of ever building it.

 

[sixrings]

The Globe and Mail Editorial Board is out with a piece throwing cold water on this idea.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-doug-ford-is-driving-ontario-down-the-wrong-road/'

From the above.......
Referencing this announcement ant the Bike Lanes law being mused about:

View attachment 598991

They then go on to explain why:

View attachment 598992

Finally, they consider an alternative:

View attachment 598993

I miss physical newspapers

 

[Garuda]

What makes Sydney special is the fact that the rock bed mostly consists of Limestone: i.e. you couldn't possibly ask for better ground conditions to build any sort of tunnel - especially when compared with Toronto. That's why they can get away with building so many of these freeway projects, as well as their current slew of Metro Projects. Not to mention they have an interesting financing strategy where they build the Freeways, sell them off (similar to what we did with the 407), and then use that money to build new Metro/LRT lines. I don't imagine we're going to do something like this here.

Plus Sydney had those cool cyberpunk waterfall projected stop signs to stop oversized trucks from entering the tunnels.

 

[MisterF]

Ya this is going to be a vision and nothing more like the previous Liberal Government's 350km/h HSR plan to London that vanished from the face of the Earth after the 2014 Ontario election.

I wouldn't compare the two. The Wynne plan for HSR to London (which was 250 km/h as I recall) was a lot more modest than the Ford tunnel and would have been a fraction of the cost at $11 billion. If the HFR line to Quebec actually goes ahead it's pretty likely that a future phase will be some sort of higher speed rail to London, so the idea isn't completely without merit.

On the other hand, there's no future when anything like the 401 tunnel makes any sense.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The Globe and Mail Editorial Board is out with a piece throwing cold water on this idea.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-doug-ford-is-driving-ontario-down-the-wrong-road/'

From the above.......
Referencing this announcement and the Bike Lanes law being mused about:

View attachment 598991

They then go on to explain why:

View attachment 598992

Finally, they consider an alternative:

View attachment 598993

The globe portraying the 401 as being constantly widened is so misleading. The 401 remains substantially unmodified since 1968 when the GTAs population has nearly tripled. It technically went from 4 to 14 lanes since the 1960’s. but from the 1970’s, it’s entirely unmodified.

I think there needs to be a real conversation about how to increase east-west capacity in the GTA. All transit investment right now is great, but it’s heavily downtown focused.

How can we make it easier to get from Milton to Whitby? Hamilton to Newmarket? Georgetown to Oshawa? These kinds of trips have become either wildly expensive or challenging with our existing infrastructure and there is no real plans to address the problem. It can be transit based if that works, but something needs to change.

Also, “GO transit light rail”. Lol. The Globes suggestion of improved GO service is already happening- the problem is that it’s not enough. The GTAs infrastructure is so far behind we need far more than that.

 

[ShonTron]

Doug Ford did his job. He successfully threw a dead cat on to the table to distract everyone from his government’s failures elsewhere.

It’s so easy to fall for this infamous conservative trick.

Deadcatting: Doug Ford’s big dig

We need a Highway 401 Tunnel like we need a dead cat on the dining room table On Wednesday, September 25, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, along with transportation minister Pradmeet Sarkaria, announced …

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