duty free
Active Member
what a shame. they could build three more subway lines for what this will most likely cost.
just build subways, don't overthink this.
just build subways, don't overthink this.
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Highway 401 Transit and Auto Tunnel
- Thread starter UrbanAffair
- Start date
Neil
Active Member
It seems April Fools comes earlier every year.
Bojaxs
Active Member
Tunnel the Gardiner. Or tunnel the 401 between the 427 and 409 in order to accommodate widening. This proposal to tunnel the entire length of the 401 through the GTA is just ridiculous. And I say that as someone who drives more than takes transit.
EDIT: Money would be better spent building out a vast bus transitway network that allows buses to travel up to highway speeds. Tunnel some stretches if you have to.
EDIT: Money would be better spent building out a vast bus transitway network that allows buses to travel up to highway speeds. Tunnel some stretches if you have to.
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goodcitywhenfinished
Active Member
This would without a doubt be the most expensive construction project in Canadian history, possibly North America (excluding the nationwide interstate project)
I can’t wait for the eventual press leak on IO’s number for the project. Let’s not forget this is the land where bike paths cost 75 million per km.
J Bacon
New Member
Yes, why is this a tunnel - if you wanted to go down this road just build new lanes and transit on top of the 401 for less money.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
just east of the creek
Active Member
There are 4 problems here that I identify, and possibly some sub categories.
1. Doug Ford. Why can we not attract some talent and innovation to such an important position as Premier of this Province?
2. The North American infatuation with the car and seeing beyond that.
3. Moving people a) into and out of Toronto (and to a lesser extent neighbouring municipalities) and b) through Toronto (GTA) to outlying destinations.
4. Moving goods and services a) into and out of Toronto (and certainly neighbouring municipalities such as Vaughn. Caledon, Brampton etc) and b) through Toronto and the GTA to other destinations.
The answer to 1 is not obvious. But for whatever reason (remuneration, party politics, the parliamentary system), we do not seem to attract leaders that can ignore the political hacks and lobby groups (read the developer infrastructure for instance) to chart new courses in areas as diverse as education, medicine, transportation, housing etc. When presenting such a proposal as Ford has now done has a higher priority then retaining nurses with adequate wages (as opposed to paying ransom amounts for agency nurses to fill holes in your local hospital staffing schedules), or vastly improving emergency room services, or presenting workable solutions that equate to shovels in the ground affordable housing in quantities needed........then i believe your Number 1 is completely inadequate to the task at hand.
2. requires a better number 1. The NAM infatuation with 1 person, 1 car, unlimited speed, more HP, easy access every wherre needs to be broken. Pedestrian first (and I include bicycles with this). Neighbourhood first. Transit first (in its many modes and iterations). Commercial and supply services a strong second. And cars are third. Still an important transit option, but one with a lesser priority and importance in many non-rural areas, and certainly in designated congestion areas (such as anything east of the Humber, west of the Don, south of the 401...) or on routes better services by higher capacity, higher speed, higher frequency forms of transit.
3 requires and needs the potential expenditure of billions in tunnel building to be redirected into maintaining and improving what transit options exists, and then adding more capacities, more routes, more connections. And doing so with a development speed exceeding what we are experiencing today Certainly within Toronto and then the GTA. But also the traditional 'corridor' areas from east to west. And we need to break the habit of building transit after we reach certain population densities. We need to build transit at the same time as densities are building (as in why is the Dundas BRT waiting for 'optimum' densities to be achieved - start building it now and attract density to the served communities that want to take advantage of the service in use, not the one that will show up in 20 years).
And then 4. And I think 4 is one of the harder nuts to crack. How do we more effectively move goods and services throughout Toronto and the GTA? This is almost all surface truck based transit currently. And how do we move goods and services through Toronto and the GTA to other destinations? Although the railways play a part (and you could wish and wonder why they seem incapable of innovating and capturing more of that market share), once again trucks play a huge role. Perhaps "The Coming Disruption of Transport' will give us some clues. but I believe this is also a very important and tough question to deal with, and one that's adding expense to every local shopping trip you make for consumables, entertainment etc, etc etc in the GTA.
Building a 100 km tunnel, 8 lanes wide is not going to fix this. But having better Number 1's would be a start. Doug Fords announcement should not be a surprise and plays to type certainly. Or an election is coming (Is he worried about Crombie, and is she a better choice?). Still, disappointing and shows the hill still to be climbed to change this political thinking.
Over coffee this morning (I am here in Montreal again)the Ford announcement was a topic of discussion, with some merriment, and a warning....wait until you have to repair it! Transit times through the tunnel here, across the river (under long term repair) have easily doubled. A trip we once took from shore to shore by car, which was about 30-40 minutes, was now easily double that. So we went by boat.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
.
1. Doug Ford. Why can we not attract some talent and innovation to such an important position as Premier of this Province?
2. The North American infatuation with the car and seeing beyond that.
3. Moving people a) into and out of Toronto (and to a lesser extent neighbouring municipalities) and b) through Toronto (GTA) to outlying destinations.
4. Moving goods and services a) into and out of Toronto (and certainly neighbouring municipalities such as Vaughn. Caledon, Brampton etc) and b) through Toronto and the GTA to other destinations.
The answer to 1 is not obvious. But for whatever reason (remuneration, party politics, the parliamentary system), we do not seem to attract leaders that can ignore the political hacks and lobby groups (read the developer infrastructure for instance) to chart new courses in areas as diverse as education, medicine, transportation, housing etc. When presenting such a proposal as Ford has now done has a higher priority then retaining nurses with adequate wages (as opposed to paying ransom amounts for agency nurses to fill holes in your local hospital staffing schedules), or vastly improving emergency room services, or presenting workable solutions that equate to shovels in the ground affordable housing in quantities needed........then i believe your Number 1 is completely inadequate to the task at hand.
2. requires a better number 1. The NAM infatuation with 1 person, 1 car, unlimited speed, more HP, easy access every wherre needs to be broken. Pedestrian first (and I include bicycles with this). Neighbourhood first. Transit first (in its many modes and iterations). Commercial and supply services a strong second. And cars are third. Still an important transit option, but one with a lesser priority and importance in many non-rural areas, and certainly in designated congestion areas (such as anything east of the Humber, west of the Don, south of the 401...) or on routes better services by higher capacity, higher speed, higher frequency forms of transit.
3 requires and needs the potential expenditure of billions in tunnel building to be redirected into maintaining and improving what transit options exists, and then adding more capacities, more routes, more connections. And doing so with a development speed exceeding what we are experiencing today Certainly within Toronto and then the GTA. But also the traditional 'corridor' areas from east to west. And we need to break the habit of building transit after we reach certain population densities. We need to build transit at the same time as densities are building (as in why is the Dundas BRT waiting for 'optimum' densities to be achieved - start building it now and attract density to the served communities that want to take advantage of the service in use, not the one that will show up in 20 years).
And then 4. And I think 4 is one of the harder nuts to crack. How do we more effectively move goods and services throughout Toronto and the GTA? This is almost all surface truck based transit currently. And how do we move goods and services through Toronto and the GTA to other destinations? Although the railways play a part (and you could wish and wonder why they seem incapable of innovating and capturing more of that market share), once again trucks play a huge role. Perhaps "The Coming Disruption of Transport' will give us some clues. but I believe this is also a very important and tough question to deal with, and one that's adding expense to every local shopping trip you make for consumables, entertainment etc, etc etc in the GTA.
Building a 100 km tunnel, 8 lanes wide is not going to fix this. But having better Number 1's would be a start. Doug Fords announcement should not be a surprise and plays to type certainly. Or an election is coming (Is he worried about Crombie, and is she a better choice?). Still, disappointing and shows the hill still to be climbed to change this political thinking.
Over coffee this morning (I am here in Montreal again)the Ford announcement was a topic of discussion, with some merriment, and a warning....wait until you have to repair it! Transit times through the tunnel here, across the river (under long term repair) have easily doubled. A trip we once took from shore to shore by car, which was about 30-40 minutes, was now easily double that. So we went by boat.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
.
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JJTheJetPln
Active Member
I'm absolutely effing bewildered by this.
I would rather they spend the money to buy back the 407 and make advancements on the 407, not whatever the heck this is.
And I say that as someone living in Brampton. This makes absolutely no sense. Suppose there's a car accident underground, how are you going to get to it without everyone reversing or trying to get around everyone.
Suppose there's a car that catches fire, and there's smoke billowing everywhere and you can't see anything because there's no proper venting at all.
Suppose a tanker taking the underground road explodes. Then what?
There's just so much wrong with this that I don't even know where to start...
I would rather they spend the money to buy back the 407 and make advancements on the 407, not whatever the heck this is.
And I say that as someone living in Brampton. This makes absolutely no sense. Suppose there's a car accident underground, how are you going to get to it without everyone reversing or trying to get around everyone.
Suppose there's a car that catches fire, and there's smoke billowing everywhere and you can't see anything because there's no proper venting at all.
Suppose a tanker taking the underground road explodes. Then what?
There's just so much wrong with this that I don't even know where to start...
Irishmonk
Senior Member
I suspect Ford got his inspiration watching a YouTube video about The Line.
turini2
Active Member
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 (26km tunnels) of new urban motorways at about AU$20 billion, for example (WestConnex)
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turini2
Active Member
Imagine, just imagine how much electrified regional rail, subway lines, streetcar extensions, BRT lines you could build for however many billions this is gonna cost.
It’s pie in the sky stuff, someone at Transurban has def been speaking to Doug. Also, the MOT needs a clear out if people are seriously pushing car dependent projects like this in Twenty Twenty Four!
It’s pie in the sky stuff, someone at Transurban has def been speaking to Doug. Also, the MOT needs a clear out if people are seriously pushing car dependent projects like this in Twenty Twenty Four!
Northern Light
Superstar
No, no one is complaining about his ambition; they are complaining about his corruption, his lack of achievement and his penchant for idiotic distractions like this one.
Sure that's the sanest part of any idea, but..........
Stations within the ROW make no sense. At Scarborough centre you would want to interchange w/Line 2, the station for which is several hundred metres south of 401. In North York Centre, you'd likewise need to go several hundred metres north to interchange with Sheppard-Yonge Station.
Which is to say, this is much more complex than it first appears, and much more costly, and it appears to be both of those, even at superficial glance.
Assuming you ran this line from roughly Pickering GO to Pearson, you're looking at ~50km. If that were entirely deep tunnelled, meaning below the water table, you're into the range of 50B in capital.
If you shallow tunnel, its only slightly less costly, but hugely disruptive.
Really? Under the DVP, mostly at the bottom of a deep valley? How are people accessing these stations, a 1km escalator from the surface?
The money your talking about is more than the entire capital plan for Ontario for the next decade.
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CapitalSeven
Senior Member
Somehow the freight bypass on the surface was an unaffordable and unworkable megaproject, yet this is practical? I'm sure a lot more people could be moved for the money by maximizing a regional rail system.
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Adjei
Senior Member
I wonder how they build road tunnels in other places with all these issues you have listed.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
Rumours on this have been brewing for a while, with Australian company TransUrban apparently holding discussions on such a project years ago.
The GGH 2051 transportation plan included an unspecified "401 widening" through central Toronto in it's plan in March 2022:
www.ontario.ca
While ambitious, it would not be without global precedent. Sydney is currently wrapping up a 33km tunnelled expressway network. A 6-lane tunnel from the 427 to the 404 would be about 25km long, for comparison.
WestConnex in Sydney cost $18 billion CAD for 33km. Translating that to a 25-km Ontario project, that's about $13.5 billion. So a similar overall project scale as the Ontario Line.
The GGH 2051 transportation plan included an unspecified "401 widening" through central Toronto in it's plan in March 2022:
Connecting the GGH: A Transportation Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe
Read our plan to get people and goods moving across the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH). Download PDF
While ambitious, it would not be without global precedent. Sydney is currently wrapping up a 33km tunnelled expressway network. A 6-lane tunnel from the 427 to the 404 would be about 25km long, for comparison.
WestConnex in Sydney cost $18 billion CAD for 33km. Translating that to a 25-km Ontario project, that's about $13.5 billion. So a similar overall project scale as the Ontario Line.