Ford government will not ‘take no for an answer’ on Highway 401 tunnel plan

Ontario’s transportation minister says the government will not “take no for an answer” as it forges ahead with the early stages of a plan to tunnel an expressway underneath Highway 401 through Toronto.

The plan was first floated by Premier Doug Ford weeks ago when he announced the start of a feasibility study to consider if a 50-kilometre tunnel from Brampton to Scarborough would help with the region’s traffic woes.

When he announced the plan, Ford said the study would determine details like the exact length of the route but that he wanted to build it whatever the results of the work.

Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria revealed internal work is already underway on the project — with feasibility engagements set to run “over the next months, years” for the tunnel.

“We’re looking to the experts in the field to help us understand and appreciate what it’s going to take to study the feasibility of this,” Sarkaria said in an extended interview on Focus Ontario.

“We know the urgency, given the gridlock people are facing, so we got to work right away to see what we can possibly do to look at this project.”

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Government officials previously indicated the study itself would be done by a third party but will have internal support from the Ministry of Transportation.

The tunnel would be the latest infrastructure project under the Ford government’s aggressive transport expansion plan. As part of that file, Sarkaria’s office is overseeing the construction of two new highways — the 413 and Bradford Bypass — along with the Ontario Line and several light rail routes.

The minister said the current state of Toronto’s grinding gridlock was unacceptable and that nothing was off the table to alleviate it.

“What we know right now is the 401 is one of the most congested highways in all of North America, not just Canada, not just Toronto,” he said. “It continues to be a challenge and we need solutions — and this feasibility study will absolutely look at that.”

Critics have said Ford’s tunnelled dream is an unrealistic project that will take decades and tens of billions of dollars to complete.

When the plan was announced, the Ontario NDP called it a “silly thought from a government that has run out of ideas” and the Liberals labelled it a “half-baked, back-of-the-napkin scheme.”

One engineering expert said safety requirements, including ventilation, would make building a tunnel under the highway complicated and costly.

“You have to build shafts regularly so you can have a ventilation system that clears out the smoke (if there’s a crash),” Shoshanna Saxe, a professor in the University of Toronto’s civil and mineral engineering department, said in an interview on Focus Ontario.

“You also have to build cross-connections between the two tunnels, so if there’s a problem on one side, people can run to the other. And those you build every 250, 350 metres. You need to have huge fans, it’s a massive, massive undertaking; it would take a generation to build.”

Sarkaria pointed out the province has already has experience tunnelling under Highway 401, albeit as part of a less significant project than a 50-kilometre highway tunnel.

“We have tunnelled under the 401, with the Scarborough Subway Extension without any disruption to traffic,” he said. “So we know that we can do this. We have the feasibility study to help us move forward on this and we’re not going to take no for an answer.”

Focus Ontario premiers at 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays on Global TV.

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