Doug Ford's 401 tunnel vision could come with a nearly $100B price tag, expert says
CBC
Doug Ford's plan for a tunnel under Highway 401 has gone from a surprise announcement to a full on re-election pledge.
And according to one expert's cost estimate, it could be a near $100-billion idea, which would make it the single-most expensive Ontario election promise in the last 10 years, if not the province's history.
In September, the PC leader, who was then premier, said his government would explore a tunnel for drivers and public transit under the 401, with a feasibility study to follow. On his re-election campaign in February, Ford said, "We're going to get that tunnel built."
Little is known about the plans for the tunnel aside from the fact that the Ministry of Transportation says it could go from Brampton or Mississauga in the west to Scarborough or Markham in the east — a massive, costly, roughly 55-kilometre long project that some say may not solve Toronto's traffic woes.
The cost of the tunnel would likely exceed $50 billion, according to Brian Garrod, a past president of the Canadian Tunnelling Association who worked on the Channel Tunnel (or chunnel) connecting England with France as well as several major subway projects in Toronto.
That estimate is based on the 3.2 kilometre, $3.3-billion US State Route 99 Tunnel that was finished in Seattle, Washington in 2019. But the price of the 401 tunnel is likely much higher, given the Seattle tunnel was budgeted in American dollars and constructed more than half a decade ago, Garrod said.
"Since it was finished in 2019, that number should be inflated just to bring it up to today's date. And that would probably make it $1.7 billion per kilometre," he said. "And these are obviously very rough [figures] because there's zero amount of design done right now."
At 55 kilometres, that's $93.5 billion. But that's just for a car tunnel. If Ford wants to add public transit in the form of a train, Garrod says that's a whole other tunnel that could shoot the cost up to around $130 billion.
That's estimating that the tunnel would, like the one in Seattle, have four lanes of traffic.
Seattle's tunnel, which houses two two-lane roads on top of each other "is pretty much the biggest tunnel diameter that can be done with a machine right now," Garrod said.
If Ford is imagining a tunnel with as many lanes as the widest areas of the 401, that may be beyond the capabilities of the tunnelling industry at this point, Garrod says. Ford has not said he would like both roadways to be equal in capacity.
But he does say the eye-popping potential price tag could be worth it, because the province's economy is already losing $56 billion every year because of bad traffic. He added the 400 series highways will be at maximum capacity in 10 years.
"That's the difference between ourselves and the other parties. We're visionaries. We're thinking 50 years and 100 years out," Ford said Thursday.
While Ford justifies the tunnel by citing the cost of traffic to the city, one expert says it's unlikely to have an impact on congestion.
Premier Susan Holt says she doesn’t have an explanation for why regulators, policy experts and others responsible for gas price regulation didn’t clue in to a simple way to lower prices for consumers until the end of 2025.
The new year will be bringing with it Toronto’s first traffic czar.
For the first time in 111 years, items once belonging to the late Albert Mullins were back in the hands of his family members thanks to the detective work of one Montreal historian.
The year that saw the remains of two First Nations women brought home from a Manitoba landfill and a search get underway for the remains of a third showed how far reconciliation efforts have come — and how far they still need to go, the families say
The RCMP has just released a warning stating there are dangerous, armed individuals on Big Island Cree Nation, near Meadow Lake.
A new land-use plan that Alberta’s government has for the province’s Upper Smoky region is drawing criticism from environmentalists who say they believe it lacks sufficient environmental safeguards, which poses a significant threat to the endangered southern woodland caribou.
Canadian officials made pains to show they were cracking down on illicit drug production in the country in 2025.
A year after the City of Hamilton cancelled its overnight warming bus, it is funding a new all-night warming centre for men at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church on James Street S.
This year has, without a doubt, been a turbulent one for the Canadian auto industry. Uncertainty dominated the sector — both for auto workers hit with job changes and companies trying to manage a mix of tariffs and changing market conditions.
A woman died at a ski resort in the Canadian Rockies over the weekend, after falling into deep snow.
Two pregnant women who would otherwise be living in a cold tent. A man whose leg wound was so bad it required intravenous medication. Two young people who no longer need to couch surf to get by.
The province has added 12 kilometres of designated trails for all-terrain vehicles in western Prince Edward Island that will connect existing routes in O’Leary and Tignish.
Every year, CBC North publishes hundreds of stories online — breaking news, investigative reporting, political coverage, community features, longform storytelling, and much more.