Highway 401 Transit and Auto Tunnel

[Bordercollie]

After a certain point it becomes unrealistic or unreasonable to keep expanding. Aside from the frivolous 401 tunnel proposal, there really isn’t much to realistically do to the 401 across Toronto proper except maybe some lane reconfigurations. The 400 will be fully built out in the coming years. 407 is already fully built in many sections. Eventually you have to seriously consider alternate modes either way. So it’s not a never ending cycle but I don’t think we should just ignore these trips. If you want it to be a never ending cycle that’s where you get into the whole 401 tunnel idea. All I’m saying is that it’s not a bad thing to expand highways within reason.

12 lanes of bumper to bumper traffic is not enough of a sign for you? Then how many lanes will satisfy you? 16? 20?

The whole point is that this building lanes got us to this point in the first place.

 

[2323]

What’s your alternative? Would you rather we go back to the original 401 before its expansion, which was only 2 lanes each way? I do agree that 12 lanes is usually a bit much and we should have built Toronto differently, and with better planning, but it’s what we have today.

 

[Bordercollie]

What’s your alternative? Would you rather the original 401 before it’s expansion, which was only 2 lanes each way?

We should have incrementally built transit to encourage people to use mass transit instead of building additional lanes. But for twenty years we did nothing, and now it costs us more and takes longer to do it.

The 401 was never 2 lanes.

 

[2323]

We should have incrementally built transit to encourage people to use mass transit instead of building additional lanes. But for twenty years we did nothing, and now it costs us more and takes longer to do it.

The 401 was never 2 lanes.

Agreed. And actually yes, the 401 (Toronto Bypass) was actually was 2 lanes in each direction until they expanded it to the 12 lanes we have today.

 

[Bordercollie]

Agreed. And actually yes, the 401 (Toronto Bypass) was actually was 2 lanes in each direction until they expanded it to the 12 lanes we have today.

Fine.

So we now have more lanes than any other highway in North America and we ran out of space. So adding more lanes isn't going to solve anything.

 

[2323]

Fine.

So we now have more lanes than any other highway in North America and we ran out of space. So adding more lanes isn't going to solve anything.

That’s a bit of a blanket statement. It depends what you want to solve. Adding capacity through Toronto is functionally useless as there is nowhere for it to go, there’s no room for expansion on city streets. Expanding the 401 out towards Waterloo Region and Kingston is a better goal, for example. We can and should expand the Kitchener line, but it’s not the only solution.

 

[Westey]

Agreed. And actually yes, the 401 (Toronto Bypass) was actually was 2 lanes in each direction until they expanded it to the 12 lanes we have today. Either way it would have needed to be expanded, but maybe we could have gotten away with a 10 lane cross section similar to the 407.

That's actually where the 4 in 401 comes from (total number of lanes).
1950's they added 4 lanes.
1960's they added 8 more lanes.
1990's & 2000's they added 8 lanes of 407.
2010's they added a couple of more lane to 407.
2030's, they'll add 6 lanes of 413.

It seems with the rate GTA is growing, we need to add a pair of lanes every 7 years or so.

 

[JasonParis]

I don’t expect it will ever change, but the “4” in the 400-series highways is a bit arbitrary. It might make more sense for this class of highways to use a prefix like “ON” for Ontario, or perhaps “A” or “M.”

 

[ARG1]

Do any of you know about Induced demand? No matter how many lanes of highway you build, it will never be enough.

Induced demand is the economic and urban planning principle where increasing the supply of a good or service (like adding highway lanes) leads to a rise in its consumption, often negating initial benefits and returning to previous congestion levels or worse. More roads make driving seem easier, encouraging more trips, longer commutes, and new developments, ultimately filling the new capacity and creating a cycle of demand for even more infrastructure. It's a key concept in transportation, showing that building more roads often doesn't solve traffic jams long-term.

That's why building a tunnel will just create more traffic.

Have you seen the lanes they added between Mississauga and Milton? It's already at capacity.

Freight bypass for trucks using trains. Tax incentives for trucks to use rail to bypass Toronto. Perhaps a way to transport drivers with the trucks so they can continue after the bypass. Hamilton to Oshawa and then Barrie to Hamilton or Oshawa using existing corridors.

Canada already transports more freight by rail than almost any other country.

Bus lanes on the 401 or a mid town corridor like the proposed GO LRT through green corridors. Finch, Sheppard and Eglinton LRTs are nice but they serve local customers. We need a way to transport people across regions.

Perhaps a inter urban express service like VIA that goes from Hamilton to Oshawa. With limited stops.

You do understand that induced demand applies to every piece of infrastructure right? Using this logic you can justify not spending money on anything. "Why are we building the Ontario Line? No matter how many new subway lines you build it will never be enough". Yes, that is a true statement. Some day the Ontario Line won't be enough, and we will have to build a relief line for the relief line, or find some other way to boost capacity. For every city that isn't collapsing and decreasing in population, this statement is true. Induced Demand isn't some form of magic where sims appear to conveniently take up all the new capacity the day a new highway/lane opens, its just the reality that as time progresses and population increases, more people will move into a general area and fill up that capacity. As such, using induced demand as an argument against highway expansion is generally a bad idea. Now, if you want to make the argument that new lanes and highways are a bad idea from a fiscal perspective in terms of how much capacity you're adding per dollar spent, especially when alternatives (such as urban rail) will provide far more bang for your buck, whilst also taking up significantly less land for potential real estate - that's a fantastic argument, and is the prime reason why we shouldn't build urban freeways, and why projects like the 401 Tunnel fall flat on their faces.

However, this argument does not apply to the Bradford Bypass, nor the 413. The Bradford Bypass is meant to get cars out of Bradford's streets, whilst also providing a way for vehicles to hop between the 404 and 400 to potentially siphon traffic from the latter to the former. Maybe you can argue that this is a niche use case and not worth spending money, however as it stands there really isn't another great option to accomplish this use case with an alternative such as urban rail, and in fact bringing up "Induced Demand" as an argument against the Bradford Bypass is mutually exclusive to the white elephant argument since it implies there is a genuine use case, and there is enough potential demand to be induced.

 

[Bordercollie]

You do understand that induced demand applies to every piece of infrastructure right? Using this logic you can justify not spending money on anything. "Why are we building the Ontario Line? No matter how many new subway lines you build it will never be enough". Yes, that is a true statement. Some day the Ontario Line won't be enough, and we will have to build a relief line for the relief line, or find some other way to boost capacity. For every city that isn't collapsing and decreasing in population, this statement is true. Induced Demand isn't some form of magic where sims appear to conveniently take up all the new capacity the day a new highway/lane opens, its just the reality that as time progresses and population increases, more people will move into a general area and fill up that capacity. As such, using induced demand as an argument against highway expansion is generally a bad idea. Now, if you want to make the argument that new lanes and highways are a bad idea from a fiscal perspective in terms of how much capacity you're adding per dollar spent, especially when alternatives (such as urban rail) will provide far more bang for your buck, whilst also taking up significantly less land for potential real estate - that's a fantastic argument, and is the prime reason why we shouldn't build urban freeways, and why projects like the 401 Tunnel fall flat on their faces.

However, this argument does not apply to the Bradford Bypass, nor the 413. The Bradford Bypass is meant to get cars out of Bradford's streets, whilst also providing a way for vehicles to hop between the 404 and 400 to potentially siphon traffic from the latter to the former. Maybe you can argue that this is a niche use case and not worth spending money, however as it stands there really isn't another great option to accomplish this use case with an alternative such as urban rail, and in fact bringing up "Induced Demand" as an argument against the Bradford Bypass is mutually exclusive to the white elephant argument since it implies there is a genuine use case, and there is enough potential demand to be induced.

I was only referring to the 401 specifically.

My point was that building additional lanes to handle single occupant vehicles doesn't make sense. And we haven't explored any options to reduce gridlock like carpool lanes or tolls.

 

[narduch]

Its actually insane to spend billions on a highway on environmently sensitive land so that a town of 24,000 can get to the 400 easier. And then in 10 years the gains will be wiped out as well

 

[nfitz]

The 401 was never 2 lanes.

What?

Looking west from the Leslie interchange in 1956.


2025



Looking West from Keele in 1958. You can see the old Minstry (MTC?) buildings on the right - which still stand.


2024


Check out https://www.thekingshighway.ca/Hwy401index.htm

Its actually insane to spend billions on a highway on environmently sensitive land so that a town of 24,000 can get to the 400 easier. And then in 10 years the gains will be wiped out as well

True, but Willowdale is no longer 24,000.

 

[Westey]

I don’t expect it will ever change, but the “4” in the 400-series highways is a bit arbitrary. It might make more sense for this class of highways to use a prefix like “ON” for Ontario, or perhaps “A” or “M.”

Yes, the 4 seems completely arbitrary.

 

[lenaitch]

I don’t expect it will ever change, but the “4” in the 400-series highways is a bit arbitrary. It might make more sense for this class of highways to use a prefix like “ON” for Ontario, or perhaps “A” or “M.”

Unless there is some historic document that explains the current system, any 'system' can seem arbitrary from the outside looking in. Perhaps back in the day they wanted to block out 2-399 for non-freeway provincial highways (a little optimistic, but it's a matter of whatever the perspective was at the time). Using an alpha prefix was an option; obviously they didn't use it.

 

[innsertnamehere]

IIRC the rationale at the time was that the 4-prefix was meant to represent a 4-lane roadway.