So said Samuel Johnson about an acquaintance. Johnson’s jibe perfectly characterizes Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Ford’s one idea is to favour drivers, by eliminating licence fees, reducing gasoline taxes, canceling bicycle lanes, and building new highways. Ford’s latest version of this idea is to launch a feasibility study for a 50 kilometre highway and subway tunnel across the Greater Toronto Area, under Highway 401, between Scarborough in the east and Brampton in the west.

A Campaign Promise?

When I first heard this story, I thought it was a satire. (I recently wrote a post proposing to turn Queen’s Park – both the pink palace and the parkland – into housing as a way of dealing with Ontario’s housing crisis.) But, when I noticed that Ford himself made the announcement, he seemed to be in earnest. Or is this an instance of performative politics, Ford dangling a bright, shiny, albeit very big, object in front of his base in an early election?

The problem with Ford’s idea, as both the Globe and Mail’s editorial board and Toronto Star columnist Edward Keenan have pointed out, is that when government reduces the cost of driving, people do more of it, and government must provide more infrastructure to facilitate it. (The subway seems intended to sweeten the deal for the highway, but it flies in the face of transport planning principles to put stations along a highway, rather than on city streets.)

Logistical Nightmare

I’m not an engineer, but the logistics of a 50 kilometre tunnel strike me as daunting. To drive from one end to the other in light traffic, at a speed of 100 km./hr., would take 30 minutes. In heavier traffic, at a speed of 50 km./hr., it would take a full hour. And 90 minutes at 20 km./hr. An eighth of the population is claustrophobic and would likely avoid the tunnel. Even with a powerful ventilation system, the air in the tunnel would reek of auto exhaust. With torrential rains such as those of this summer, water would pool, and it wouldn’t evaporate in the sunlight. The tunnel would have numerous entrances and exits with very steep ramps. Accidents would likely cause more chaos than on an open-air highway.

Given Metrolinx’s abysmal record at bringing tunneling projects to completion, this new tunnel would take a long time and be very expensive, with cost overruns and delays likely. Congestion on the 401 would keep growing before the tunnel is ever completed. Even in his wildest dreams, Ford would not be around as Premier to cut the ribbon.

The Better Way

I’ve written about road tolls as a solution to Toronto’s congestion problem, but the Ford Government is resolutely opposed to them because they conflict with the one idea. I will therefore suggest a faster, simpler, and much less expensive way to reduce traffic congestion in Toronto. The Ford Government could simply buy Highway 407 and turn it into a freeway. Highway 407 was privatized with a contract that gave the franchisee the ironclad right to set tolls for 99 years. The Ford Government would likely have to pay $30 billion to buy out this right for the remaining 75 years on the contract. But for the investors in the franchise, especially the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, money is money, and a big enough sum today is the equivalent of a stream of returns over the next 75 years. And the Ford Government would have instant relief for Highway 401. How long this relief would last is another matter, because, as a freeway, the 407 would start to fill up. But the traffic situation would definitely improve for the election to be held in 2025 or 2026.

Unfortunately, the political optics of a Conservative government spending $30 billion to buy back a highway that a previous Conservative government (Mike Harris’s) had sold for $3 billion aren’t good. The fact that the franchisee has since spent billions on improving the highway might be too complicated a message.

A Wedge in Which Direction?

Doug Ford is using this performative politics proposal for a tunnel to excite his auto-friendly electoral base and steal support from the opposition parties. However, the grandiosity and unworkability of the tunnel proposal might convince some traditional Conservative voters that Ford has lost it. The opposition party leaders have already been scornful of the tunnel. In the campaign, they will have to hammer home how misguided and disastrous a proposal it is, and what it says about the wisdom and character of its proponent.

A Personal Note

The Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah – falls next week. While I have no expectation that the folly and evil that are frequent topics for this blog will abate, I will try to avoid the temptation to write about them during a time of joy and introspection.