The agreement was basically just PR. It wasn’t a real coalition. There is nothing at all stopping the NDP from continuing to ensure the government stands, making deals on legislation on a case by case basis, which is in fact precisely what they will do.
Singh HAD to distance himself from the Liberals at some point. He can’t prop the government up and act like a Liberal backbencher right up to the election. That would look awful, and the weird position of ripping Trudeau over and over while cheerfully voting with him was already looking tiresome. Now was the correct time to “break” the agreement. He’ll still keep the government up if needed.
If the Liberals actually were, as Coyne says, “blindsided” by this, that suggests they’re amazingly unaware of what’s going on in this country. This was an obvious, logical move for Singh to make.
I’m glad yours was no worse than the flu. My first round had me flat on my back for two weeks; my second was better than that, but still worse than any cold, flu, or pneumonia I’ve ever had. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone!
When I had covid, I had a headache that lasted at least a day and a half. It felt like someone was stabbing an icepick in my brain every two seconds; I was downing acetaminophen and ibuprofen like crazy. After that subsided, I basically felt like I had the flu.
When I had Covid last month, I phoned the pharmacy and asked about Paxlovid. They said that since I was relatively young (39 at the time) and didn’t have potentially threatening health conditions, they weren’t going to give me any Paxlovid. But they delivered me some cough syrup and nasal spray, as well as some Covid tests.
So Doug Ford is sort of proposing that, to help Toronto with its horrific traffic and transit problems, they build a truly gigantic tunnel underneath the 401. As proposed it would go all the way from past Mississauga to past the east end of Scarborough, perhaps fifty to sixty kilometres, and be the widest, highest capacity car tunnel ever conceived and built by man.
This is - and granted, mine is an amateur’s opinion - the stupidest idea I have ever heard spoken aloud by a head of government, and has appoximately zero chance of ever happening. I would point out that
Such a thing would probably cost one hundred billion dollars. Estimates currently run about $50 billion. So it’ll be way more.
This will take well over a decade to build.
It’s fucking insane.
The obvious problem here, aside from the astronomical cost and the fact it won’t be done until Ford’s replacement as Premier has been replaced by a second person and possibly a third, is that it’s the least cost effective way I can think of of solving the problem, and it only SPECIFICALLY solves the problem of 401 congestion.
If you wanted to relieve the 401 a little, why not buy the 407 back and just make it free to use? The 407 is hilariously underused - believe me, I know from firsthand experience - and it’s already there and crosses the city.
Or, I dunno, what about a better regional train system? Why doesn’t GO have an east-west train route around the 401’s corridor?
Hadn’t even heard of the Ford tunnel idea, so naturally hadn’t mentioned it.
I think you are perhaps underselling how stupid an idea this is, because not only are your points 1-3 correct, it won’t actually help all that much due to induced demand and the fundamentally giant, inefficient footprint of private vehicle traffic.
The way to solve congestion is almost never increasing roadways, but rather in moving people into more efficient modes of transportation. Take whatever it would cost to build this monstrosity and invest it into trains and buses, and you’ll be far, far better off.
I’m in total agreement with you - 407 buyback would be a far wiser investment. Even the Green party idea of paying the 407 tolls for truckers so that it relieves congestion on the 401 would be a better idea.
By the time Metrolinx finishes the 401 tunnel, cars will be completely obsolete and my grandchildren will have died of old age. Seriously - any reports on the finishing date of the Eglinton subway? Any reports on the cost of the 413?
And my priorities would be more along the lines of health care, education, and public transit.
I remember telling my 16 year old that the Eglinton LRT would open when she starts high school. If we are lucky, it will be open before she starts university.
I would love to see a cost estimate and then compare that to the cost of adding GoTrain cars and increasing ride frequency. If GoTrains ran reliably every 10 or 15 minutes and passengers could reliably expect to get a seat, I would like to think that that would decrease congestion.
This. There’s a principle called the traffic paradox. Basically, add more capacity and more people will fill it because there’s more capacity there. Within a few years there will probably be congestion in the tunnel.
And how many of the motorists express concern about climate change?
I’ll third this idea. Whatever it costs to do so would almost certainly be less expensive and take less time than digging a tunnel across Toronto, under the 401.
Besides, there are certain questions that must be addressed in such a plan. Interchanges, at-grade or below-grade? What about accidents occurring in the tunnel? How would emergency services get to where they were needed? What about breakdowns?
Boston had a Big Dig costing maybe $24 billion that took eighteen years in just a twelve kilometre corridor. Sydney also had huge costs and delays with its tunnel.
Ford came out with this idea and before studies are done said the tunnel is inevitable. He said it would be 80km long?! It is clear to me something needs to be done to improve the 400 highways. They are said to be the busiest in the world. Making the 407 private was always silly. I get the many concerns with the 413, but think these need to be balanced against necessity.
But this tunnel deal is out of nowhere. No one voted in support of this. If 401 congestion costs $11B per year, won’t construction much increase this congestion for twenty plus years? Won’t the arteries and exits still be overcrowded? There’s gotta be a better way.
I’m not an expert. Some say expanding the GO train system is a better idea, and I suspect they are correct since the problem is everywhere around the GTA and not just the (up to eighteen lanes of the) 401. But buying the 407 is probably better than a tunnel, no matter how much you may enjoy using suppositories. It will cost a bundle, end up costing four times that, and make things miserable for two decades; more if it is as long as first proposed.
I am not against “big ideas”. Boston is now said to be a happier place. Ford does need to make some improvements. But they should be properly thought out. My initial reaction to this is that one could do much better.
(The op-ed in The Globe said 50km. Ford says “Drivers would not have to pay”. I’d be okay with much expanding the GO train network and adding regional LRTs, even making this free of charge. Maybe think London or Chicago, not Boston. How much will this cost?).
I’m not sure what two motions of non-confidence in the same week is supposed to accomplish, other than establishing that the leader of the opposition deserves the nickname ‘Power-hungry Pierre’.
Buying the 407 would only be a minor solution, but it’s something you could do quickly and far cheaper than the ridiculous tunnel idea. 407 makes as much as $180 million a year so it’s not gonna be cheap but it’s still just a SHADOW of the cost of the tunnel and is more or less instant.
The relief would be immediate but it’s just another road taking on a bit of the 401’s volume, and taking away tolls would mean it’d fill up too. Traffic paradox, though people sometimes make a bit too much of that; there is lots of evidence new roads DO relieve some congestion.
Long term however, Toronto needs more transit. A lot more. The issue isn’t whether you should pour money into it because that’s absolutely a thing that pays off. Transit can be a terrific investment. It’s a matter of what makes sense and delivers maximum bang for buck. A science fiction tunnel idea is NOT what delivers the most bang for buck.
That’s the jist of it. I would assume the underground passage would mostly be a bypass, like the short tunnels running north/south up major avenues in NYC, while the 401 would offer every exit.
What GO needs is more LINES. Presently, the GO train system is a spoke system centred on Union Station. That system works fairly well. Capacity is not an issue 99 percent of the time.
The problem you have is that a spoke system, obviously, only gets you to and from the center. If I want to go downtown to see a Raptors game, or a show, or I happen to have a destination along the Lakeshore West line, GO is perfect. If I want to get to Absolute Comedy way up Yonge street it’s no better than driving and maybe worse, because it’s not designed to convey me there. I can get there with a combination of GO and TTC but it’s a very long and inconvenient trip. What you need is to get away from the spoke system and have a line that runs east-west somewhere around the 401 to connect THOSE places. Back when they started building all this stuff the spoke-to-Union system made perfect sense, when the 401 was a bypass highway, but now that’s built up. The urban area on that side of the 401 - Brampton, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, and Markham - have the population of all of Calgary and Toronto is built up right to their borders, and that’s just taking you across the width of Toronto, not even into Durham on the east and Halton in the west; you could very easily justify commuter rail from Kitchener to Ajax. There’s high rise apartments by the zillion north of the 401. People move in between those places too and there is no train service.
Sure. But transit isn’t merely along a crowded east-west corridor but, in better cities, a rich 3D network of routes. It is no longer practical to copy London’s metro with distinct lines and supporting light rail, but overlapping routes should still be the goal. Since many who use the 401 are going some distance north or south before and afterwards, and a quicker 401 aorta does not unblock the arteries, having better routes would reduce congestion.
The 407 makes 0.2B per year and buying that is a no-brainer if this will cost 100B. However, it is possible Ford is being provocative and wants an election. I think Ford should be making strong efforts to improve things. But at first glance this does not seem the better way.
If taxpayers are funding this, much expanding GO is both smart and fair for those not in Toronto proper. Making GO free or cheap is even reasonable if drivers are not charged tolls.
Yes… right, man, that’s what I’m saying. Right now Toronto only has transit in one direction; towards Union. That’s all there is, rail-wise. An additional east-west route along the 401 isn’t limiting transit directions in Toronto, it’s substantially EXPANDING it, precisely where the population has grown since the original design of the GO system. There’s also a need for expansion to Niagara and possibly all the way to the Kitchener/Waterloo/Guelph triangle.
Incidentally, I have an insider source who says it is EXTREMELY likely Ford will call an early election.
First things first, but they should plan on expanding further to Hamilton, Niagara, Barrie, KW and London. But the first step might be to add at least two largely east-west rail loops north of Toronto proper.
