Politicians, and those critical of politicians, often talk about thinking “outside the box”. Well, let it never be said that Premier Doug Ford doesn’t know how to think because Wednesday, from the side of the road in Toronto, he announced a bold new plan to fight congestion on Highway #401: A tunnel *under* the 401. Ford is directing engineers from the Ministry of Transportation to do a feasibility study to see if the GTHA can dig their way out of gridlock.

According to a Government of Ontario media release, the plan is to study an expressway under the 401 from “beyond Brampton and Mississauga in the west to beyond Markham and Scarborough in the east”, which is about 50 kilometres. The Ministry of Transportation with help from Infrastructure Ontario, will lead the feasibility work including the examination of capacity, understanding the economic benefits, reviewing best practices, soil testing, market sounding and some pre-environmental assessment work.

“Ontario’s gridlock problem is leaving the average Toronto-area commuter stuck in traffic for 98 hours every year, taking up precious time that would be better spent with family, friends and loved ones, and is costing our economy $11 billion every year in the GTHA alone,” said Ford in a statement. “Today’s announcement is the latest step in our nearly $100 billion plan to tackle this gridlock by building and expanding highways and transit, including Highway 401, the Bradford Bypass and Highway 413, so we can get people and goods moving across Ontario once more.”

Criticism was swift and immediate.

“Doug Ford will do everything possible to distract from his utter failure to address the housing crisis,” said Green Party of Ontario leader and Guelph MPP Mike Schreiner in a statement. “He’ll blame people who can’t find an affordable place to live and say it’s their fault. He’ll try and ban bike lanes. And now he’s proposing a tunnel under the 401 that will cost taxpayers billions, make your commute more expensive and only make gridlock worse.”

“If he was serious about reducing congestion for the people crawling in traffic behind him during his press conference, he would subsidize trucks to take Highway 407,” said Environmental Defence in a social media post. “That’s because all of these highway projects aren’t about saving time for commuters, they’re about lining the pockets of developer friends who stand to make a fortune from the resulting sprawl that will eat up our farms, forests and wetlands.”

“Taxpayers deserve to see the price before the government starts a project that will cost billions of dollars,” said Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation Ontario Director Jay Goldberg in a media release. “On other major infrastructure projects, we’ve seen massive cost overruns and failure on the part of the government to be upfront with taxpayers in terms of the overall cost. Taxpayers deserve full transparency on a proposed project of this magnitude.”

The thing is that full transparency already exists, at least it does on the general topic of whether highway expansion is an effective way to reduce traffic congestion. As reported last year in The Narwhal, emails between members of the premier’s staff in November 2021 showed that a planned expansion of the present surface level 401 at the time was understood by those staff members as having a minimal impact on traffic flow. Media exposés have also showed that other highway projects approved by the Ontario government will offer only brief reprieves to congestion.

No timeline or potential costs for the tunnel were provided by the premier, the ministry, or Infrastructure Ontario.