Highway 401 Transit and Auto Tunnel

[MisterF]

Ok let's not pretend that nobody has ever built an underground, or even a long underground highway. Mitigations for this kinda stuff have been around for a long time.

Nobody has ever built an underground highway this long.

 

[Johnny Au]

If Dig Dug Ford were to make this super-long freeway tunnel a reality, there would be no doubt Fred Mills of TheB1M would be making a video about this.

What do I mean by Dig Dug? It’s an old arcade game:

Dig Dug - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[generalcanada]

If Dig Dug Ford were to make this super-long freeway tunnel a reality, there would be no doubt Fred Mills of TheB1M would be making a video about this.

What do I mean by Dig Dug? It’s an old arcade game:

Dig Dug - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

B1m would love talking about this "brilliant futuristic infrastructure project". Im sure hes already on a script

 

[Riseth]

Not a chance in hell this ever comes to fruition. It would take decades to build, cost potentially hundreds of billions of dollars and cause insurmountable disruptions to the busiest highway in North America. Not to mention, congestion would only get worse over time making this tunnel completely useless by the time it was completed. Traffic issues would be exacerbated with overloaded entry/exit points along the route and surrounding areas. Of course, we can't forget the potential of flooding and traffic accidents in this 55km tunnel of stupidity that I'm sure will make life so much easier for emergency vehicles and the poor souls stuck commuting in it.

God this is the most moronic thing I've ever heard of.

 

[Towered]

This discussion should probably be moved to the Fantasy thread.

 

[Bojaxs]

This discussion should probably be moved to the Fantasy thread.

But Doug Ford says it's getting built.

 

[ARG1]

This discussion should probably be moved to the Fantasy thread.

Funny, but as long the government claims it's happening, we should treat it as such - regardless of whether or not its likely to be built.

 

[ericmacm]

B1m would love talking about this "brilliant futuristic infrastructure project". Im sure hes already on a script

Don’t forget the shady ad read for Masterworks either, I lost all respect for the B1M when Fred Mills started shilling that alternative investment garbage.

 

[PL1]

Just a comment on what a vacuum-sucking distraction this tunnel is. The announcement (or pronouncement) was made 2½ days ago, and this thread is already at 11+ pages.

Way to divert attention from all the problems this government has created and perpetuated. (And yes, the PCPO/Ford were better on transit than expected. Slow clap)

 

[tayser]

So many pessimists on here. I wonder how it would compare to this 7 year old tunnel proposal https://dailyhive.com/toronto/toronto-tunnel-proposal-2017

Out of curiosity, what type of transit would users here rather spend $50B on? Based on CAHSR prices, that would get about 1/3 the distance of Toronto to Montreal done.

Just throwing it out there.

If it was $50b in capital cost (so opex et al is out of the total amount, obviously to be paid post-construction over X years), you'd probably get about 40-50km of driverless metro if it was built to a similar spec as Melbourne's SRL (which, oddly enough was lampooned early on and does a similar thing to what the 401 does: facilitates non-radial travel).

SRL East interchanges with existing radial lines (hello GO network) and adds two stations where there are none (one flagship university campus + surrounds which happens to also have the largest concentration of jobs in Melbourne outside the CBD (Monash), and another medium sized university campus (Deakin University, Burwood)). Each new station will have its own precinct (1.6km radius from the station) where the responsible authority (for approving new dev) will be the same authority that builds the rail line, overriding LGAs.

SRL East is 26km long, 6 stations, total price is looking at about $30-35billion (about 10-20% of that will be cost to operate over a certain period) - so $25-30bil to build and will created up to 70,000 additional homes across the 6 precincts.

So $50bil would be near double what we're building with SRL East.

(SRL East is Cheltenham to Box Hill - that's underway now, SRL North will likely be two phases: Box Hill to Reservoir and Reservoir to Airport - the full line to Cheltenham to Reservoir will probably end up around $50bil by 2040 and provide interchange to 8 lines [6 trunks] and provide catalyst for over 100k new units in the middle ring of 'burbs).

 

[crs1026]

Food for thought: The GO Kitchener 401-409 tunnel, which was one widrh of the highway in length, cost $90M. Extrapolate that to 28 km of length…..
And consider that the current TBM tunnelling under the 401 is reportedly broken.
There are too many unknown and undocumented “things” under the 401 - old pilings, etc. Not to mention the number of road underpasses etc. that would have to be cleared.
On a technical level, it’s likely just as complicated to engineer as tunnelling Ontario Line under downtown… and that’s much shorter distance with a tunnel of much smaller diameter.
So without even studying it, it’s utterly costly and complicated…. But the bigger question is, Why ?

- Paul

 

[Garuda]

I think you're right on the money here with this logic. The presentation of the incredibly outrageously expensive option as "Doug Ford's preferred solution" will make a bunch of other smaller (but still very expensive) projects or alternatives seem much more palatable to both politicians and the general public, whether intentional or not. The 401 is ultimately a very complicated problem that requires projects in both the rail and road spaces to alleviate. Fortunately, we have a few in the pipeline already that might help. I see the following projects (either proposed or fictional/potential) all in conjunction being able to help ease the 401 to varying degrees. Combined, this could likely cost more than the tunnel, but would be better for the overall transportation network in the long-term due to redundancy:

• Line 4 Sheppard East/West Extensions to Downsview/Scarborough - provides a parallel east-west transit redundancy alongside the 401 from Allen Road to McCowan Road.
• Line 5 Eglinton West/North Extensions to Mississauga City Centre and Pearson - would provide an additional east-west transit redundancy alongside the 401 from Hurontario into the rest of Line 5, as well as allowing greater use of transit for airport traffic.
• Line 6 Finch South Extension to Pearson - would connect Pearson to the existing Line 6 alignment, which itself would tie into the extended Line 4.
• Midtown GO Corridor - is kind of far away from the 401, but it would provide a much faster through option to make east-west travel on GO faster. Would likely be one of the most effective if improved with a similar scope to OnCorr.
• The Missing Link - goes in conjunction with the Midtown GO corridor, would allow some more freight to be shipped by rail due to improved routing, and would subsequently free up the Midtown corridor for east-west trains.
• Highway 413 - would be able to divert some vehicle traffic away from the crucial chokepoints at the 401/427 and 401/400, especially for travel going north from the western GTA.
• Bradford Bypass - similar to the 413 but to a lesser extent, would be able to provide an alternative route toward the 400 for travel going north from the eastern GTA. Still would result in heavy traffic direction toward 401/404 though.
• Buy Out Segments of the 407 - purchasing out some segments of the 407 ETR lease and incorporating it into the provincial 407 tolling scheme (which is cheaper), allowing for some additional diversion from the 401.

The key seems to be redundancy; such as making east-west rail and transit travel through the GTA more palatable, as well as diverting traffic from some of the big chokepoints on the 401.

I would also like to add these things too to the transportation network to do list:

• Highway 35/115 being upgrade to full freeway status.
• Highway 11 from Barrie to Gravenhurst finally being upgraded to full freeway status. Seriously long weekend traffic gets scary with short merging lanes.

Get all private entrances disconnected from these routes and build some proper interchanges.

 

[Jonny5]

I would also like to add these things too to the transportation network to do list:

• Highway 35/115 being upgrade to full freeway status.
• Highway 11 from Barrie to Gravenhurst finally being upgraded to full freeway status. Seriously long weekend traffic gets scary with short merging lanes.

Get all private entrances disconnected from these routes and build some proper interchanges.

Highway 6 segment from Guelph to Hamilton needs the upgrade to full 400-series too.

 

[Garuda]

Highway 6 segment from Guelph to Hamilton needs the upgrade to full 400-series too.

It's in the works and awaiting funding. The Dundas interchange has been designed and the Mooreston bypass is shovel ready.

 

[EnviroTO]

Most people that read this idea at first thought it was a hoax, fiction, or a joke. That is all that really needs to be said about the idea.

What is the use case where "massive tunnel with personal vehicles" comes out on top as the efficient and sustainable solution in a Toronto context where no mountain range exists? There are many ways our existing freeway footprint could be tuned to solve for more critical use cases while other use cases are moved to better solutions. Freeway is not the best solution for all trips. Looking at cities double the size of Toronto, how many use 16 lane freeways (or should I say 32 lane freeways because they are double the size)? I don't know of any. Sadly Houston, a smaller city, has the widest freeway, more freeways, and still gets traffic jams because freeways are not efficient.

The real solution is in those plate of spaghetti subway maps, regional rail, high speed rail, and well placed logistical hubs for most of the traffic that exists. Invariably there will always be someone who mentions business related trips that they make today and ask how they are expected to do that without an efficient freeway, but often the question is best answered by asking how they serve their Ottawa clients.