Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government secretly conducted a feasibility study on building a tunnel under Highway 401 in 2021 but quietly abandoned the work years before announcing the controversial infrastructure project publicly, internal documents reveal.
The unreleased study examined costs, technical designs, and tunnel options for Canada’s busiest highway, according to documents obtained by CBC News through freedom of information requests. Civil servants wrote that “the project was paused in late 2021 based on government direction.”
Ford announced his tunnel plan in 2024, proposing to build the passage from Mississauga in the west to Scarborough in the east. In April, the government began seeking a firm to complete a new feasibility study, expected to be completed by 2027.
Transportation experts estimate the tunnel could cost approximately $100 billion, potentially making it one of Ontario’s most expensive infrastructure promises.
Opposition Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie called for “full transparency” about the shelved research, saying Ontarians need to evaluate what could be the province’s costliest infrastructure project.
“I’d like to know what the economic benefits are,” Crombie said. “I’d like to know what the environmental impacts would be. Will it meet the goal of reducing traffic and gridlock?”
The NDP’s transportation critic, Jennifer French, said the government should release all existing studies and cost analyses.
“This just speaks to the fact that everything the government does, whether it’s infrastructure projects, transportation projects, we are always the last ones to know,” French said.
The Ministry of Transportation worked with an outside engineering consultant on the 2021 analysis, examining three tunnel concepts and two elevated roadway options. The study was prompted by unsolicited proposals from companies between 2019 and 2021.
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