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Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse
Why would a tunnel be better when an elevated deck would not only be like 1/5 the cost but could also be wider?
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In addition to the disruption during construction, for aesthetic reasons. The 401 is ugly enough; a massive scar across the city. A double-decker 401 would be twice as ugly.
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Originally Posted by Doady
I think selling the 407 turned out to be the best thing the Mike Harris government ever did. Transit ridership in the Toronto area, especially Mississauga and Brampton, skyrocketed after that. Brampton ridership per capita tripled and Missisauga almost doubled. GO started having to buy double decker buses to serve the suburbs. The tolls on the 407 have been awesome, and pro-car premier Doug Ford has no control over them too. It's just been a huge boon to transit.
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You make a good point, but the Harris boondoggle that increased public transit usage north of the city (great!) has been disastrous for Toronto traffic. Because of the high tolls, the 407 isn't used nearly as much as it could be. Imagine if it had remained public and untolled or low-tolled. It would be, now that it is more or less finished (though it could arguably use a diagonal connection on the east end from Kirby to, say, Port Hope), a perfect Toronto by-pass. It almost certainly wouldn't have enough lanes for the on-rush of traffic, but the corridor has plenty of room to expand. All of this is highway expansion is undesired, of course, but necessary.