Christopher Hume: Ford’s tunnel-vision is Ontario’s latest counter-intuitive and costly infrastructure idea

Like the road to hell, Highway 401 is paved with good intentions. And if Ontario Premier Doug Ford gets his way, the country’s busiest and most congested highway will also be tunnelled—with the best of intentions, of course.

Not surprisingly, Ford’s scheme to build a second highway beneath the existing one was greeted with deep skepticism if not outright scorn. Most observers dismissed it as yet another Fordian fantasy—this one comparable to the Toronto waterfront Ferris wheel he envisioned as a councillor in that city. But even before the laughter died down, the premier was swearing up and down that he was deadly serious. “We’re going to get the job done,” he insisted, “mark my words.”

Just as unsurprising, Ford was vague on details, both technical and financial. Given the history of provincial projects of this scope, the tunnel, which could be up to 70 kilometres long, would easily reach a price tag of  tens of billions of dollars or more.

Worst of all, experts point out there’s no way a subterranean 401 would actually alleviate congestion. Experience in cities around the world confirms that adding lanes to existing highways at, above, or below grade only increases gridlock. However counterintuitive it may seem, the positive effects, if any, last for months at best. After that, the extra space attracts more drivers, which leads to even worse congestion.

Indeed, if widening Highway 401 were enough to eliminate gridlock, it would already be flowing freely. That was Premier Kathleen Wynne’s promise in 2016 when she announced she would double the 401 in Mississauga from six lanes to 12 for the price of $81 million. They would, she boasted, reduce commute times, increase productivity, and improve the flow of goods. They didn’t.

If this sounds familiar it should; it’s exactly what Ford is saying. Truth is, the underground road to freedom would quickly become a subterranean highway to nowhere.

Regardless, faith in tunnelling goes back a long way in the province of Ontario. Among the most ambitious examples was a 1963 city report, prosaically named “Plan for Downtown Toronto,” that proposed a network of traffic tunnels to replace main streets that would then be transformed into pedestrian walkways lined with trees and adorned with fountains and street furniture for the enjoyment of cyclists and local flaneurs. Clearly influenced by Le Corbusier’s 1920s Radiant City scheme that envisioned a vertical city with pedestrians on top and traffic below, the plan was quickly dismissed.

Indeed, what followed was the exact opposite. Toronto’s ever-expanding underground PATH system, now more than 30 kilometres long, put pedestrians underground and forfeited the roads to cars and trucks. Recently, however, the popularity of e-bikes, e-scooters, and cycling as well as a growing urban culture have started to change attitudes about who owns the streets.

But old ideas die hard: how long before someone—an Ontario premier past his best-before date or a naively idealistic student planner—broaches the idea of underground bike lanes? Though expensive, they would allow cyclists to get around while maintaining the vehicular hegemony on the streets above.

During the 2010 Toronto mayoral election, candidate Rocco Rossi learned the hard way that there isn’t light at the end of every tunnel. During the campaign (won by the late Rob Ford) Rossi promised to extend the Allen Expressway south from Eglinton Avenue all the way to the Gardiner Expressway. Before then-Ontario premier Bill Davis killed it in 1971, the original Spadina Expressway would have cut through multiple established neighbourhoods in downtown Toronto and divided the city in two.

Rossi’s plan was to put the proposed eight-kilometre-long highway deep underground. Even diehard car-huggers like Rob Ford opposed the scheme, not because they didn’t like it but because of cost. They were surely right about that; the project would have been a logistical and fiscal nightmare. In any case, Rossi’s outlandish proposal confirmed his status as a mayoral non-starter, and shortly afterward, he dropped out of the race.

One tunnel that did dig its way through the mire of public opinion and bureaucratic approvals was the underground pedestrian walkway at the Toronto Island Airport. Running all of 260 metres (853 feet), it opened in 2015 as an alternative to a ferry that took roughly 90 seconds to cover the 121 metres (397 feet) between the mainland and the airport. Some might question the wisdom of such a project, but given that the Island Airport’s only advantage is the convenience of not having to negotiate the hordes at Pearson Airport, perhaps it was worth the $82.5 million bill. More important, however, the cost was covered by the private sector.

By contrast, Toronto’s recent tunnelling experiences have been disastrous. Most notorious is the 28-kilometre Eglinton Crosstown LRT that will run east-to-west through the city, largely below grade. Although it has been under construction since 2011, we still do not know when it will open.

To be fair, the obstructions are legal as well as technical. Lawsuits between the provincial agency Metrolinx and the consortium doing the work have been unending. What we do know is that when the line does open, it will be at least five years late and more than $4 billion over budget.

Then there’s the Ontario Line, a subway that will run from Exhibition Place east to Union Station and then north to the Eglinton Crosstown at the Ontario Science Centre station. For the record, construction, which began in 2019, is scheduled to continue until 2031, at an estimated cost of over a billion dollars per kilometre.

Other cities manage to tunnel whether for trains, traffic or subways at a fraction of what it costs here. Madrid, for example, built its metro for one-quarter the price. But in Ontario it seems, the more we spend, the less we get.