TORONTO – I am not a card-carrying member of any political party, although that was not always the case. Having said that, I admit to being intrigued by a “seemingly out of the blue” proposal, initiative, plan…the reader can fill in the blank… by Ontario’s Premier, Doug Ford. To my mind, he set the agenda for political debate (cause and consequence; need versus desirability, etc.) by proposing a feasibility study for the construction of an east-west highway under the existing Highway 401that connects Brampton to the Metro Zoo – an approximately 60-kilometre stretch through the geographic middle of the GTA. 

The key word is feasibility, is it “doable”. What are the problems the Province is proposing to solve? There would be an estimated cost (astronomical). Is that worth the benefits?

On a historical basis, Mega infrastructure projects are what drove both the creation and development of Canada. Had it not been for the driving ambition of the Founding Fathers of Confederation there would have been no transcontinental railway(s) to generate economic interest in developing a smattering of politically loosely connected Aboriginal territories governed by a distant monarchy and its economic functionaries. Like them or not, for any reasons today’s woke, counter-culture activists may glory in denigrating, those Founders included the “ambitions” of Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. MacDonald.

Later, the post- World War II push to build highways and ports to complement that ambition was a huge contributor, if not the main factor, in the transformation of Southern Ontario into one of the premiere urban economic hubs in North America. The St. Lawrence Seaway construction in the 1950s was a key component in unleashing that potential. Who knew?

Back to Premier Ford’s “plan”. It has certainly shifted the discussion from abstract, sometimes vacuous, ideological arguments to one of “nuts and bolts”. There is no shortage of material available to support or dissuade the public from accepting or rejecting the concept (see for one example: https://tunnelsmanual.piarc.org/en/strategy-and-general-design-strategic-issues/costs-financial-aspects). The cognoscenti may be able to argue this forever.

On the cost side, there are cost comparables in tunnel technologies and constructions with recent projects in Europe, Asia and the USA. In the latter, the costs, on average are charted at more than USD$500 million per kilometre. In virtually all cases, a “rule of thumb” is that it will cost about ten times the price of regular road construction under normal circumstances. The calculation for the return on investment will have to wait, except for the disruption and the hundreds of thousands of potential jobs generated in the construction cycle alone.

If memory serves correctly, the Federal government and two provincial counter parts commissioned at least eighteen feasibility studies on establishing a high-speed rail connection between Windsor Ontario and Quebec City (c. 1,200 kms) starting in 1988. The last of them commissioned by the Mc Guinty government for the purpose of bringing the exchange rate up to date. I read them all. They are gathering dust somewhere in my basement.

The point is not to heap scorn but to encourage debate that promotes solutions and long-term creativity. During those years when Canada (Ontario) was navel-gazing, China built and put into operation 13,000 kms of high-speed rail, Italy tunnelled through the Alps to improve transportation connectivity with Southern France. If the reader has had occasion to travel to the city I call home, there is plenty of room to park your bike.