Rush hour traffic crawling along the 401 during evening rush, seen from the Don Mills Road overpass, are photographed on Oct 15 2024.(Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail)Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
A lot of people are upset by Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s plans to dig a three level, 19.5-metre wide, 55-kilometre tunnel under Highway 401 that would stretch from Mississauga to east of Scarborough.
Toronto Star columnist Scott Stinson wonders, “Am I taking crazy pills, or is Doug Ford still talking about putting a tunnel under Highway 401?” In The Walrus, David Moscrop writes that Ford is “wrong and his intentions are horrifically misplaced, out of step with the future, and delusional.”
I used to think that Ford’s dream of digging a tunnel under the 401 was “the worst idea in the history of the world” and called it more “delusional” than the time I smoked a joint laced with PCP in 1982, hallucinated seeing quarters the size of Frisbees and was picked up by law enforcement.
But I have come around.
Doug Ford has the right idea. He just has the wrong direction.
The 55-kilometre tunnel should not run horizontally underneath Highway 401, it should go straight down to the centre of the Earth, because that’s where we’ll all be living if we don’t kick our car addictions and acknowledge that single occupancy automobiles are not the best way to move people around in large cities.
Curing traffic congestion by burrowing a gigantic tunnel underneath an apocalyptic hellscape masquerading as a highway is like curing your alcoholism by buying a liquor store. It’s like fixing your cannabis dependence by taking up cocaine. The only difference being that, while those two things at least have the possibility of being short-term fun, building a tunnel under the 401 sounds like an absolute nightmare, a very, very, very, very, extremely expensive nightmare.
Whereas, digging a tunnel straight down to the centre of the Earth where we can build “New Ontario” is a fantastic idea.
Last week, Ford told the media, “You think of 50 years down the road. We are building that tunnel as sure as I’m talking to you.” Again, he’s close to being right. In 50 years we will be building tunnels – but they will be down to where the temperature is not 43 degrees. Once we’ve built “New Ontario” 55 kilometres beneath the surface, we can dig underground highways and drive cars around in our subterranean paradise.
For an idea that’s been floating around since 2021 and could cost anywhere from $60-billion to all the money ever printed, the Conservative government has little insight into the details. For instance, hoping to get more specifics I emailed Dakota Brasier, director of media relations to the ministrer of transportation. I asked if she could “tell me approximately how long the proposed tunnel under the 401 would be?”
Her entire reply: “The feasibility study is underway which will determine the further details and scope of the project.”
It’s as simple as that.
Ford defended his tunnel vision, saying, “If they can tunnel under the English Channel, if they can tunnel through mountains and every other place, we sure the heck can tunnel along the 401. We’ll do it safely, and we’ll do it properly.”
Again, he’s close to being right. They – the French and the English – built a tunnel underneath the English Channel. They started the “Chunnel” in 1988 and finished the world’s longest undersea tunnel by 1994 (six years). We Canadians can’t even finish an above and below-ground light rail line along Eglinton Avenue. We started in 2011 and still haven’t completed construction (14 years and counting).
It’s like me saying, “Connor McDavid is the 2024 Conn Smythe Trophy winner (most valuable player of the Stanley Cup playoffs), five-time Art Ross Trophy winner (league leader in points), four-time Ted Lindsay Award winner (most outstanding player), three-time Hart Memorial Trophy Award winner (most valuable player), the 2022-23 Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard Trophy winner (leading goal scorer) and the only player to record back-to-back games with four or more points in a Stanley Cup final. Therefore, I will score the winning goal in next year’s Stanley Cup.”
Given Canada’s transit-building track record, if we began construction on a mega-tunnel in 2027, we’d be done by 2085. By that time, however, we would realize that we should have been digging down where we could give birth to a new underground Shangri-la. So, why not cut out the time-wasting and just do that in the first place?
Of course, we could always spend all that tunnel money on public transit, like every other right-thinking nation would do. All great metropolises (Think of the little-known boroughs such as New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai, Seoul, Hong Kong, Berlin and Madrid) have thriving public transit systems because that is the best way to move millions of people.
But what do they know? They lack our Canadian “elbows up” tunnel vision.
That’s why I say, “Drill Doug Drill! Right to the centre of the Earth.”