[turbanplanner]

Bonnie Crombie really laid into Ford regarding this tunnel at last night's debate. She threw around the number that it would cost 150 billion, take 40 years to build and bankrupt the province.

The party of "common sense" will ignore these harsh truths and cheer when the proposed start date is announced!

 

[junctionist]

It's amazing how so many opportunities come up to do the right thing and shift our transportation subsidies to transit in Ontario, which moves people more efficiently than private vehicles. We could build high-speed rail for the cost of the tunnel and keep our current highways open for trucks.

But like most American jurisdictions, our government always prioritizes subsidizing the use of private automobiles, for instance with this tunnel. Our cities end up absurdly congested, less livable, less economically viable, and more polluted.

 

[RapidTransit]

Bonnie Crombie really laid into Ford regarding this tunnel at last night's debate. She threw around the number that it would cost 150 billion, take 40 years to build and bankrupt the province.

Let's be real, if your voting for Ford, chances are this won't be the deciding factor. So even if she made a good point on this issue, it won't even matter to someone undecided. And it certainly won't change any votes.

All Bonnie has to do, even if she's lying, and say she's extending Line 2 west to Mississauga. But now that I think about it, a proposal like that will be seen as Bonnie doing favors for Mississauga, and it can be used against her.

 

[nfitz]

By less, I meant less than Pickering to Milton, or Mississauga, or any additional distance really- Ford has floated this iirc. I also did not mean only for transit- you would obviously have more lanes overall. I have a hard time seeing 10 though; I personally imagined 6, in some sort of stacked configuration if you use a big enough TBM.... but @ShonTron got to that.

They've been consistently talking about 427 to 404 for 2-3 years now (though I didn't expect them to go for a tunnel option!)

 

[Admiral Beez]

2) That tunnel will need to be on bridges over the Humber, the West Don and the East Don….

Why not all elevated? Having just returned from Taipei where they have tons of elevated highways, why is Ford proposing a tunnel instead of a 2nd raised highway above the existing 401? Tunnels are only needed when you must avoid what’s at ground level, like Boston’s Big Dig.

 

[sixrings]

Why not all elevated? Having just returned from Taipei where they have tons of elevated highways, why is Ford proposing a tunnel instead of a 2nd raised highway above the existing 401? Tunnels are only needed when you must avoid what’s at ground level, like Boston’s Big Dig.

Snow

 

[Northern Light]

Why not all elevated?

1) The Premier said tunnel, so what's I evaluated.

2) You could build elevated, and it would save some money, though not much, and it certainly comes with lots of drawbacks and complications.

- Same issues as tunnel:

- Insufficient capacity at interchanges and cross roads (where is all the additional traffic going to go when it exits the highway, the DVP is still 3 lanes each way, Bathurst, Markham etc are only so side. Widening all of those for any distance is a huge, disruptive and costly undertaking.

- You still need bridges over all those valleys, but there are existing bridges there now.........if you want them to be double-decker bridges, that would almost certainly entail total reconstruction of very large bridges across the Humber, the Don, the Rouge etc. If you want the new bridges to be off-set.....that's still a giant build, and the environmental footprint crossing the valleys would fail any EA. You already have a ~16 lane wide bridge, with shadowing and run-off etc. Add another six? A 22- lane cross section? That would likely see the end of most wildlife below.

Differing issues:

- With a tunnel, you still have disruption to the existing highway every time you want it to interchange with the 401 above. But if you're going elevated, over the existing 401, you have to close all existing lanes while you build the new support columns and decks, plus one extra each way. ie. a six-lane deck, broadly, requires and 8-lane closure of the 401 below.

- Span work every time you cross a major interchange would be very complex and costly. Your building a bridge, perpendicular to, and over an existing bridge, some of which are 12 lanes wide themselves. Think of the 427 etc.

- Lighting/visual impact and noise. The new highway has be set at a height that will allow for high-stack freight, and high-mast lighting both under it and on it. The deck, in some cases (depending on the elevation of the existing highway relative to grade) would be above the height of the current sound barriers, and probably 3 storeys up, the lighting on the highway would be even taller, and would beam down on all the surrounding properties.

You could, of course, enclose the deck.......but that is a very large cost. You could also raise the height of the sound barriers..........not cheap.....but I can't imagine the adjacent homeowners would be pleased.

I doubt it would produce a large savings over tunneling and the small savings it might offer would be offset by additional impacts that require mitigation and more construction related disruption.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Assuming the 401 tunnel will be a "super express", largely with interchanges only with other freeways, it wouldn't be particularly expensive (well, relatively). Definitely not $100b.

Honestly, I think MTO has enough space (with a bit of expropriation in a few spots) to widen the 401 on the surface from the 427 to the 409 with a collector-express system and 3 new lanes in each direction - the tunnel would only be needed east of the 409 into Scarborough at some undetermined point. If you were to surface it around the 404, it would keep interchanges fairly simple as you would only really need an underground interchange with the 400, and that one could probably be a partial interchange without providing access to Black Creek Dr. This would also keep the tunnel to be around 20km long following the existing 401 alignment, 18.5km if they just dig in a "straight line" from the 409 to the 404.

That said - MTO may look at something similar to what Dallas has done with I-635 as well, with the (tolled) express lanes being trenched below the free collectors above:

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.

www.google.com

This may end up being cheaper than a straight TBM-dug tunnel as it removes any requirements for ventilation, etc. Definitely far more disruptive though as you need to completely rebuild the entire freeway.

 

[afransen]

Assuming the 401 tunnel will be a "super express", largely with interchanges only with other freeways, it wouldn't be particularly expensive (well, relatively). Definitely not $100b.

Honestly, I think MTO has enough space (with a bit of expropriation in a few spots) to widen the 401 on the surface from the 427 to the 409 with a collector-express system and 3 new lanes in each direction - the tunnel would only be needed east of the 409 into Scarborough at some undetermined point. If you were to surface it around the 404, it would keep interchanges fairly simple as you would only really need an underground interchange with the 400, and that one could probably be a partial interchange without providing access to Black Creek Dr. This would also keep the tunnel to be around 20km long following the existing 401 alignment, 18.5km if they just dig in a "straight line" from the 409 to the 404.

That said - MTO may look at something similar to what Dallas has done with I-635 as well, with the (tolled) express lanes being trenched below the free collectors above:

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.

www.google.com

This may end up being cheaper than a straight TBM-dug tunnel as it removes any requirements for ventilation, etc. Definitely far more disruptive though as you need to completely rebuild the entire freeway.

It's still going to be a monumentally difficult and expensive project. A decked highway above the 401 would require each overpass to be redesigned into an underpass (or have the express highway elevate above the overpass). The fact that we are contemplating this while running away from the idea of any demand management strategies like tolling is crazy. I would be a lot friendlier to the idea if we have congestion even with tolls.

 

[innsertnamehere]

For sure. I definitely understand that introducing tolls onto the 401 is politically toxic - but if we are going to be building something like the 401 tunnel, the tunnel itself should have tolls.

These types of mega-highway projects are not as uncommon globally as many want to portray - what is uncommon globally is to have 11-digit costs on these and not finance them at least partially through tolls. Sydney's underground motorway system is tolled, as is I635 in Dallas.

 

[turbanplanner]

It's still going to be a monumentally difficult and expensive project. A decked highway above the 401 would require each overpass to be redesigned into an underpass (or have the express highway elevate above the overpass). The fact that we are contemplating this while running away from the idea of any demand management strategies like tolling is crazy. I would be a lot friendlier to the idea if we have congestion even with tolls.

WFH would be free! Even 10% of people 1 day a week would make a huge difference

 

[sixrings]

WFH would be free! Even 10% of people 1 day a week would make a huge difference

I find these forums are not too supportive of WFH. It’s obviously the way to save money on transit projects and save the planet. Perhaps it’s simply because we’re on an urban forum and the idea of encouraging people to stay at home versus socialize in person is simply frowned upon. All I know is during covid there was no traffic jams.

 

[afransen]

I find these forums are not too supportive of WFH. It’s obviously the way to save money on transit projects and save the planet. Perhaps it’s simply because we’re on an urban forum and the idea of encouraging people to stay at home versus socialize in person is simply frowned upon. All I know is during covid there was no traffic jams.

I don't think we're going to return to that level of wfh. Most workers didn't like it.

If anything, AI is more likely to disrupt the idea of hundreds of thousands of office drones commuting downtown.

 

[Undead]

Most workers didn't like it.

Most actually preferred it.

It's the no brainer solution to traffic and we wouldn't have to waste breath discussing imbecilic ideas like a tunnel under the 401.

 

[turbanplanner]

Most actually preferred it.

It's the no brainer solution to traffic and we wouldn't have to waste breath discussing imbecilic ideas like a tunnel under the 401.

I find these forums are not too supportive of WFH. It’s obviously the way to save money on transit projects and save the planet. Perhaps it’s simply because we’re on an urban forum and the idea of encouraging people to stay at home versus socialize in person is simply frowned upon. All I know is during covid there was no traffic jams.

Yeah, I know a lot of people in the trades and other fields that "have to show up" they're very anti WFH then I point out imagine if you had less traffic to deal with and it still doesn't seem to change their minds.

I'm not asking for 2020 everyone's at home level, just mandate anyone who can do it 1 day a week, or throw in a tax break. I know many big downtown firms allow ~3 days a week at home, but it seems any company that owns their building or is in the suburbs believes in 5 days in person.