TORONTO: Tunnel Under 401 Freeway

[electricron]

I think Toronto could significantly reduce traffic on the 401 by removing the tolls on the 407. Will probably means adding lanes to the 407, but that should be significantly cheaper than tunneling under the 401.

Then possibly implement express toll lanes on both highways, if tolls are needed to help fund these freeway expansions. Better to have both free and toll lanes on both highways than squeezing all the freeloaders onto one highway and all those willing to pay tolls on another, imho.

Good luck.

[Doady]

The 407 is privately owned. It was sold by a previous Conservative government as part of the "Common Sense Revolution".

[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?

[yaletown_fella]

Express articulated BRT buses in their own dedicated lane in a tunnel under the 401 sounds like it could be a less costly and much faster to build alternative to LRT.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by yaletown_fella

Express articulated BRT buses in their own dedicated lane in a tunnel under the 401 sounds like it could be a less costly and much faster to build alternative to LRT.

That's true but there's no reason transit would need to be under the 401 since it would better connect to other transit routes and serve destinations if it was under a regular road like Sheppard. And if you were going through the cost and effort of a long transit tunnel, it would be significantly better to build rail transit. While the tracks and electrification would be costlier, the tunnel could be smaller, require less ventilation, and be better at attracting riders since most people prefer rail vehicles to buses. You could also build LRT, RT or commuter rail on the Finch Hydro corridor for fast across-town connection roughly parallel to the 401 at a fraction of the cost of tunneling.

But any transit tunnel, bus or rail, is going to have a higher capacity to cost ratio than a highway tunnel.

[Doady]

Somehow I doubt that a BRT tunnel would be less costly and faster to build than a normal on-street LRT. Certainly it would not be less costly to operate.

[yaletown_fella]

Originally Posted by Doady

Somehow I doubt that a BRT tunnel would be less costly and faster to build than a normal on-street LRT. Certainly it would not be less costly to operate.

The difference is surface LRT has exponentially higher ongoing track maintenance costs (winter etc) as opposed to a simple BRT route.
Also, the whole system can come to a standstill if someone turning left gets into an accident and blocks the tracks.

As someone who commutes long distances , I can tell you regular bus routes in Toronto usually have way too many stops.

The answer may be some kind of small express shuttle van alternative to UBER (like UBER but with 6 or 8 people splitting the cost instead of 1 or 2), but only stopping at major intersections along set major roads. The TTC has proven itself to be too ineffecient and the monopoly should come to an end.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by yaletown_fella

The difference is surface LRT has exponentially higher ongoing track maintenance costs (winter etc) as opposed to a simple BRT route.
Also, the whole system can come to a standstill if someone turning left gets into an accident and blocks the tracks.

As someone who commutes long distances , I can tell you regular bus routes in Toronto usually have way too many stops.

The answer may be some kind of small express shuttle van alternative to UBER (like UBER but with 6 or 8 people splitting the cost instead of 1 or 2), but only stopping at major intersections along set major roads. The TTC has proven itself to be too ineffecient and the monopoly should come to an end.

Again, the main bus corridor across the GTA is the 407, not the 401. And what is "simple" about a bus tunnel under a 12-lane highway? And why would you build a bus tunnel under such a highway when you can finish the nearby Sheppard Subway instead?

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by yaletown_fella

The difference is surface LRT has exponentially higher ongoing track maintenance costs (winter etc) as opposed to a simple BRT route.
Also, the whole system can come to a standstill if someone turning left gets into an accident and blocks the tracks.

Would definitely need to see a citation for the maintenance cost claim since large vehicles like buses are brutal on roads. So a road frequently used by such vehicles is going to get pulverized without frequent and expensive maintenance.

[Nouvellecosse]

Yeah I didn't notice the cost part. It's always pretty unlikely that doing anything on the surface would be costlier than anything similar underground.

[niwell]

The idea of transit along the 401 corridor comes up on occasion but I can't see that as being a particularly good idea. It's by and large a through-route where destinations are considerably further than walking distance from the highway itself. As noted above a northern "crosstown" transit route would better follow existing arterial streets. Even the hydro corridor North of Finch (connecting to the soon to come LRT) would be more useful.

I don't think an elevated structure would need to follow the entire route of the highway, but rather make key connections such as between the 409/427 which is almost entirely industrial.

[mhays]

A BRT tunnel has a lot of interesting aspects. We had one in Downtown Seattle (five stations, 1.4 miles) for a while until it became dual bus/rail and then rail only.

We added a third lane at each station for passing and breakdowns. This also meant side platforms instead of a center platform (possible with buses using reversed directions). That meant stations needed every bit of the 60-foot street width, vs. rail which can do nicely with maybe 45 feet.

There will be bunching. The ability to pass helps, but some drivers are slow, and a wheelchair can gum things up, and there are generally more moving parts with a million buses. If I recall we didn't allow bike rack use in the tunnel.

If it's a combo tunnel for express routes that don't stop and local routes that do, you might need four lanes at stations. In a tight ROW, you now need 75' or so just for the pit, plus a safety and logistics perimeter around it. (If you've ever worked with a shored hole like that, there are strict load limits around it to prevent cave-in.)

Alternatively you can do a through-tunnel with the stations requiring buses to exit to a different level, side areas, or the surface.

[Nouvellecosse]

I would 100% oppose any BRT tunnel for any reason other than bypassing a major obstacle like a river, lake mountain, etc. I don't even support surface level BRT except in very specific applications. Regular bus lanes are excellent, but BRT implies very high frequency with more robust stations and infrastructure including some type of traffic and signal priority. But in most cases if buses are that frequent then it's best to use electric buses to reduce operating cost, noise and pollution. But if you're going to spend that much to upgrade to battery or trolley buses, then it's usually better to spend a bit more and add rails which has even more benefits.

There are exceptions when it comes to surface BRT, but underground BRT? If there are exceptions when that is good, they're about as plentiful as winning lottery tickets.

[mhays]

The advantage of buses is they can spiderweb all over, and give more people one-seat rides. A bus lane or tunnel can carry dozens of routes, so you can have extremely frequent service in that section.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by mhays

The advantage of buses is they can spiderweb all over, and give more people one-seat rides. A bus lane or tunnel can carry dozens of routes, so you can have extremely frequent service in that section.

Yeah a short stretch like that such as through the city center is a good place for a dedicated bus corridor. I don't think of that as BRT though since that tends to no more than a few KM which is a small portion of most bus routes.

[Doady]

The main crosstown regional bus corridor is actually Highway 407, which is served primarily by GO route 41/47/48. That is GO's busiest bus route, where most of their double deckers are used:
https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/u...25/TABLE41.pdf

There is already a 407 Transitway being planned (proposed?) from Burlington to Pickering with 50+ stations. The 41/47/48 bus does use a small portion of the 401 in Scarborough, but it's mostly about the 407.

If you think about underground bus tunnel, it was needed in Ottawa. They built this grade separated BRT, but downtown, the busiest section of the system, where all routes converge, it was on-street, so it was a major chokepoint. The 401 is not such a major focus for GO, and the 401 is not exactly Albert and Slater.

Look at the GO Bus system map and you can see the 401 is served by multiple routes, but maximum combined frequency along any section is only 15 minutes. The 407 in comparison has 5 minute frequency in some sections.
https://assets.metrolinx.com/image/u...al-bus-map.pdf

[Mister F]

An elevated second deck would be almost as bad of an idea as Doug Ford's fantasy tunnel. And equally ineffective at fixing traffic. The only reason that the 401 is the busiest highway is because of induced demand. We built all that capacity and travel habits adjusted to fill it in no time. If traffic is at a standstill with a 12+ lane mega-highway then it won't be any better with even more lanes. The strategy of building bigger and bigger highways has failed.

The 401 is already a bigger highway than almost any other city has, including much bigger ones than Toronto. The last thing we need is to make it even bigger. Ontario has made real progress in mass transit in the last 15 years or so. That's the answer to better mobility in growing cities.

[mhays]

Or express buses with fewer stops, ideally in bus lanes.

[yaletown_fella]

Originally Posted by mhays

Or express buses with fewer stops, ideally in bus lanes.

Yes, we sorely lack dedicated bus lanes unfortunately.

[Gresto]

Ontario's premier is wasting $9.1 million on a feasibility study for this tunnel. It will be deemed not feasible, or at least not even approaching economically practicable.