Other countries try to figure out how to improve public transit and reduce congestion and pollution. Ontario's Conservatives try to blow the entire budget on absurdly expensive roads that will soon become as congested as the present ones.
Conservatives: We keep trying it and it keeps not working but I can’t handle change so I’m gunna pretend that my way is, like, morally correct or some shit and make it everyone else’s problem. Just one more lane bro. Just one more tax break bro. Please bro just one more private utility bro.
Also Conservatives: We’re the party of fiscal responsibility! Sure none of our ideas make any sense and always cost more in the longterm but they make the selfish and economically illiterate people feel better about themselves so that’s a win for us!
Ford; "Just one more lane. It'll work this time I swear."
Sane people: "No it wont and besides, We don't have room for another lane"
Ford: "But what if..."
Anyway. Let's just build a damn train track. On land. One not owned by a freight service but dedicated to passenger transit.
He said the tunnel would serve as "a new expressway for both cars and transit" from Brampton to Mississauga in the West to Markham and Scarborough in the east […]
Drop the cars, dedicating the tunnel strictly to transit, and your ground level gridlock will solve itself.
Doesn't even have to be solely trains, but a few lanes of busses would help with shorter/End of Line trips as well.
Though this is worth noting that ventilation concerns with tunnels are always a nightmare (one of the reasons there aren't tons of tunnels). Its now turning into an issue where roads cross our 400 series highways, and one of the reasons they're often bridges. As the highway reaches ~4lanes each way, they need to install ventilation of some kind, which has caused problems and forced design adjustments. Look at Barrie where they have a few roads running under the 400. Now that they're trying to widen to 8 lanes, all those crossings are extending into "tunnel" category and have additional requirements. They've been forced to split the highway with an open air section in the middle over those roads in order to ensure proper airflow. This means more land acquisition and higher pricing to build.
First of all, if you're going to bury a highway, bury the Gardiner, and built a high capacity subway alongside it running the entire length of the lake. It would connect Union, the Ontario Line's ex station, and provide robust public transit along a major East West route that doesn't have it, both out to the beaches and to south Etobicoke.
You could then sell literally all the land that the Gardiner is on for development to pay for it.
Why would you stack another highway, under our existing highway? And why would you potentially build an East West train literally next to the Eglinton LRT?
The tunnel will have to be waterproof no matter where we build it, and there are lots of tunnels in the world directly under rivers / lakes, it's one of the main reasons to build a tunnel.
Citing increasing gridlock and little room for highway expansion
MOFO, you'll do anything but what works for every other place on earth that has this figured out, eh?
And the irony that this Conservative government is trying to reduce bike lanes while also complaining about car traffic is just the type of stupidity you can't make up!
A rapid transit line would take so many more cars off the road. The 401/DVP/427/Lakeshore needs a separated lane circular BRT which would be orders of magnitude lower cost and better for traffic relief. Even a giant bridge above all the highways running skytrain would cost less than a 60km tunnel.