Premier Doug Ford is hoping Prime Minister Mark Carney digs his idea of building a tunnelled expressway under Highway 401.
Ford wrote a letter to the prime minister on Monday asking for the federal government to prioritize building a “new Highway 401 driver and transit tunnel expressway” as part of a short list of “nation-building projects” that will be “transformational for Canada’s economy.”
The other projects are the Ring of Fire, including the infrastructure needed to support mining in the area, nuclear energy generation, a new James Bay deep-sea port, and GO 2.0, a rail bypass project that would enable a major expansion of passenger rail in the Toronto area.
Ford first announced his tunnel plan last fall, promising that a tunnel under the congested expressway would be built from Brampton and Milton in the west to Scarborough and Markham in the east.
Experts have said it could cost more than $100 billion to build, depending on its size and complexity, and warned it will be ineffective at tackling congestion.
Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria told reporters Monday the tunnel is a “nation-building project” that all levels of government should support to help reduce what’s been estimated as nearly $50 billion per year in GTHA congestion costs.
“We've got to think big and we've got to think across the province on how we can alleviate that,” he said, adding the 401 “is one of the most important corridors” for Ontario and the rest of Canada.
NDP leader Marit Stiles told reporters that including the 401 tunnel as a project in the letter was “outrageous and ridiculous” while autoworkers in Windsor and Oshawa have their jobs being cut.
“I think there's a lot of big infrastructure projects that are necessary, the 401 tunnel, as I think just about every expert has already said, is not going to solve our congestion problems.”
“It's going to cost billions of dollars for the premier's vanity project when there's real things he could do right now to address congestion and real infrastructure projects,” she said.
Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie said she doubts a tunnel under the 401 would interest Carney.
“The reality is the cost of that tunnel could bankrupt this province,” she told reporters. “It's a 40-year project, frankly, that will not address traffic gridlock or congestion today.”
Last week, the province issued a request for proposals (RFP) seeking specialized consultants to undertake a “Highway 401 Tunnel Feasibility and Congestion Relief Study” to determine the feasibility of a tunnel — and other options — to expand the capacity of the 401 and mitigate congestion.
The RFP itself acknowledges that the tunnel Ford has described and other ways of adding new lanes, such as a new elevated highway, may not be feasible, and asks the consultants to recommend other ways to alleviate congestion in the corridor if no major infrastructure projects to add lanes to the highway are feasible.
—With files from Jessica Smith Cross and Sneh Duggal
