A stretch of the 401 highway in Whitby, on April 30. Premier Doug Ford told a news conference that he wants to build a tunnel under the highway.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Hadrian built a wall. Eiffel built a tower. Drapeau built a stadium.
And Doug Ford? Not to be outdone, the Pharaoh of Ontario stood in front of a backdrop of moving automobiles this week to announce that he wanted to (drum roll, please) build a tunnel under Canada’s busiest highway, the 401. Mr. Ford told goggle-eyed reporters that it would be one of the world’s longest tunnels, incorporating not just a new, underground highway but a transit line as well.
How long? He couldn’t say – maybe 30, 40, 50, 60, even 70 kilometres. Depended on what the study said. How much would it cost? He wasn’t sure, but certainly less than hundreds of billions, which was reassuring.
Why build it at all? Because his government is a government of builders. It is already spending billions on hospitals, billions on schools, billions on subways and highways. Why not a time-saving tunnel?
Anyone who questioned the idea was a short-sighted naysayer. “These are the same people who oppose every project … It’s no, no, no.” That went double for Bonnie Crombie, leader of the opposition Liberals, coincidentally the main opponents of his Progressive Conservatives in the next provincial election.
His party, on the other hand, is the party of yes. Even though he has yet to commission a tunnel study, much less see the results, “I’ll tell ya one thing, we are getting this tunnel built.”
Grateful motorists far into the future would thank him for his foresight, even “when I am pushing up tulips.” He didn’t expect any reward. “Just put a tulip for me on there, somewhere.”
Nice thought, but no one will be able to afford a trip to the florist if this madcap notion ever takes flight. Highway tunnels in Boston and Seattle cost a fortune and took forever, and those massive projects were nowhere near as massive as this one would be. Imagine the cost and complexity of boring a huge hole for tens of kilometres under a highway that is 18 lanes wide at points, then integrating that route with the web of connecting highways. A much smaller project, the Eglinton Crosstown light-rail line, is infamously behind schedule and over budget, and only a portion of it goes underground.
Mr. Ford’s attempt to paint himself as an ambitious visionary and his rivals as sticks in the mud is transparently political. All signals are that he will call an early election next spring. Suburban Toronto ridings filled with frustrated car commuters will help determine the outcome. An underground highway, he says, will spare them from countless hours stewing behind the wheel.
So just as Donald Trump vows to drill, drill, drill, he is promising to dig, dig, dig. His tunnel news conference had the unmistakable air of a campaign whistle-stop, with Mr. Ford posing as the bold leader who will stop messing around and get ‘er done.
It is a familiar stand for the Ford family. When his brother Rob was a cranky suburban city councillor, he used to complain about the “war on the car.” He got his revenge when he became mayor, removing a car-registration tax and arranging to cancel a network of light-rail lines that (as he saw it) would have slowed traffic on big suburban streets.
Doug has carried on with the counter-revolution, outlawing tolls on public roads, introducing a cut to the gas tax and promising to build a big new highway, the 413, in Greater Toronto’s booming northwest. This month, several media outlets reported that, in a further sop to angry drivers, his government is considering legislation that could prohibit creating bicycle lanes if they remove lanes of car traffic. Take that, bike-riding pinkos.
Remember that all these things run in exactly the opposite direction truly forward-thinking places are taking. Paris has transformed and humanized its busy centre by installing bike lanes and bike-sharing services while limiting high-speed traffic. London has an enormous network of bike lanes and bike garages, plus a congestion tax on cars coming into the core. Even teeming New York has taken measures to tame downtown traffic and make it easier and safer to walk or ride a bike.
Mr. Ford, by contrast, would build one of the world’s longest and no doubt most expensive tunnels. Under not a mountain or a river but a highway. Canada has heard a few nutty things from its politicians in recent years. This takes the cake.