Highway 401 Transit and Auto Tunnel

[guavadelic]

The finch LRT as currently built would take 3 hours to get from it's current terminus to Downtown Oshawa.

That's not a practical application.

The only real possibility would be some sort of GO RER service, and even then it has heavy limitations of potential.

Freeing up the midtown corridor by building a bypass for CP over the top of the city seems like the only semi-realistic option of addressing 401 congestion. And even that would be difficult to pull off.

 

[ARG1]

Freeing up the midtown corridor by building a bypass for CP over the top of the city seems like the only semi-realistic option of addressing 401 congestion. And even that would be difficult to pull off.

Don't even need to do that. Midtown Corridor is wide enough for 4 tracks, I'm sure CP wouldn't fuss too much over doing the same thing we're planning to do with Milton (build 2 dedicated GO tracks).

 

[Bojaxs]

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?

The third track being added to the Kitchener line, through DT Brampton is not dedicated to GO. It's just a third track to help increase capacity.

No official announcement has been made about dedicated GO tracks on the Milton line. At the most, they'll add a third track to help increase capacity. CPKC hasn't agreed to allowing the construction of dedicated GO tracks on the Milton line.

 

[Bureaucromancer]

It’s really all a bit moot; if 401 relief is worth the kind of money this tunnel would cost we can do it all at once in terms of building a full bypass and still building out the infrastructure to run full frequent GO service without interfering with CPKC in their existing ROW. Frankly we could build out damn near everything Metrolinx has even vaguely dreamed of for this kind of money.

 

[6ixGod]

 

[PL1]

It’s really all a bit moot; if 401 relief is worth the kind of money this tunnel would cost we can do it all at once in terms of building a full bypass and still building out the infrastructure to run full frequent GO service without interfering with CPKC in their existing ROW. Frankly we could build out damn near everything Metrolinx has even vaguely dreamed of for this kind of money.

We could do all that *and* develop working, viable transporter beam technology for the cost of this folly!

(Yes, sarcasm about the Star Trek tech)

 

[christiesplits]

In this morning's Downsview Park Rogers Stadium announcement, Ford reiterated "we're getting the tunnel built."

I think it's likely that the tunnel ends up just being a Sheppard subway extension.

 

[Bureaucromancer]

In this morning's Downsview Park Rogers Stadium announcement, Ford reiterated "we're getting the tunnel built."

I think it's likely that the tunnel ends up just being a Sheppard subway extension.

assuming some vague sanity in government (ha) highlighting Shepard being as closely parallel to the 401 as it is is the path to walking this back and getting Shepard built with reduced fuss.

 

[Northern Light]

We could do all that *and* develop working, viable transporter beam technology for the cost of this folly!

(Yes, sarcasm about the Star Trek tech)

Hmmm, I wonder what the price tag would be for developing the ability to transport roughly 1 trillion times the total data on the internet today, at roughly 99% of the speed of light, over any considerable distance, given that the current estimated energy requirement for such is roughly 2000 megatons, or about 4x the energy released by all the nuclear bombs ever detonated on earth.

- Source - https://arvinash.com/964-2/

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

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

You are free to assert that if you want. And in fact that maybe entirely plausible here, lol...

...but one should remember though when declaring something visionary, doesn't mean it will ever happen to begin with, regardless of intention. /shrug

 

[Bojaxs]

In this morning's Downsview Park Rogers Stadium announcement, Ford reiterated "we're getting the tunnel built."

I think it's likely that the tunnel ends up just being a Sheppard subway extension.

I fully support extending the Sheppard line, but the thing is, it doesn't serve drivers who simply want to use the 401 to bypass Toronto. Plus if the idea is to entice more drivers on the 401 to use the Sheppard subway instead, then we're going to have to look at adding more parking spots at stations.

 

[Towered]

Hmmm, I wonder what the price tag would be for developing the ability to transport roughly 1 trillion times the total data on the internet today, at roughly 99% of the speed of light, over any considerable distance, given that the current estimated energy requirement for such is roughly 2000 megatons, or about 4x the energy released by all the nuclear bombs ever detonated on earth.

- Source - https://arvinash.com/964-2/

 

[Bureaucromancer]

I fully support extending the Sheppard line, but the thing is, it doesn't serve drivers who simply want to use the 401 to bypass Toronto. Plus if the idea is to entice more drivers on the 401 to use the Sheppard subway instead, then we're going to have to look at adding more parking spots at stations.

You know, if the proposal were to extend the 407 all the way to Ottawa as a full Toronto bypass, do it without tolls on the public sections and pretend its some kind of companion piece to HFR I'd only grumble a LITTLE that transit would be a better investment. It's not even that the objective is wholly bad our transportation mix and lack of multiple corridors being what it is, it's that the tunnel specifically is SO astoundingly impractical on every level.

 

[Bojaxs]

VIA rail has the potential to act as the transit option for 401 drivers wanting to bypass Toronto. We just need to;

- construct the 407 freight bypass to get CN trains off the Kitchener line
- better connect Kitchener line with the LSE line
-reduce layover at Union Station (quicker boarding & deboarding).
-triple track the LSE all the way to Oshawa

We would have a train that goes from Windsor to Oshawa. Travels parallel with the 401 for most of the trip.

Now add to this if we could successfully negotiate with CPKC to get slots for GO & VIA trains on the Midtown line. We would have two east-west rail connections across the GTA. That would certainly help to reduce cars on the 401.

 

[nfitz]

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

That's wider than I thought. So 8 to 12 total for each tunnel - or are their more than one tunnel at each location?

Still - they'd need 14 just for the existing capacity. I'd think 20 to 24 to just meet the latent demand. And if they really want to eliminate congestion (which will be even worse by the time this opens in the 2040s) then well over 30 lanes. Which I'd think would only require two decks.

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.

Unmodified for the proposed 26 to 40 km? Perhaps right at Yonge Street, but they were doing significant widening even in the centre section in the 1970s. Let alone the work in the 1980s, 1990s, 2010s, and the just opened widenings in Mississauga. With more planned to Milton.

If the Globe is "so misleading", then yours is ... I can't even find the words!