Ford government started studying Hwy. 401 tunnel after private-sector bids: docs

Years before Ontario Premier Doug Ford stood in Etobicoke to declare his government’s desire to build an express tunnel underneath Highway 401, the province began looking for ways to relieve North America’s most congested artery.

Instead of turning to the traditional public procurement process for solutions to Toronto’s traffic woes, the government opted for a new route: an open portal where private companies could submit unsolicited proposals on public infrastructure projects.

Over a three-year period, that portal, internal government documents reveal, received three unsolicited proposals to specifically alleviate traffic along the 401 — among them tunnels, tolled roads and managed lanes.

In September 2024, Ford announced a feasibility study for a 50-kilometre tunnel beneath the province’s largest highway and said he wanted a third-party analysis of the idea to determine the final length and scope of the mega project.

What Ford didn’t mention when he stood at the podium was the fact his government had been considering the idea since 2019, had already studied it, and even abandoned the plan after encountering “challenges and risks.”

Hundreds of pages of internal government presentations and emails, obtained by Global News using freedom of information laws, demonstrate how suggestions from three private construction firms helped spark the idea to build one of the largest public infrastructure projects in Ontario’s history.

The Ministry of Transportation said in a statement the tunnel was part of its plan “to build a modern and integrated transportation network, and give Ontarians options.”

In 2019, the Ministry of Infrastructure set up a new provincial portal to receive ideas for big projects from the private sector.

The Ford government was looking for ideas that relate to Ontario’s “core types of infrastructure, including new transit infrastructure, health care facilities, highways, law enforcement facilities and housing.”

While it’s unclear exactly how many proposals have been submitted to the government through the portal, the documents obtained by Global News show that, between 2019 and 2021, three separate private highway plans were sent to the government.

• One was for two 22-kilometre tolled tunnels under Highway 401, submitted by the construction firm Aecon in 2019. As Global News previously reported, the Aecon idea for a privately-operated tunnel solution to gridlock had also been pitched to the City of Toronto and to the previous Ontario Liberal government.
• Another proposal came, also in 2019, from Cintra for a “‘U-Ring’ of managed lanes” on Highway 427, Highway 401, the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.
• The final pitch, in September 2021, was to expand the central section of Highway 401 with tolled expressway lanes. That was submitted by Acciona.

According to internal documents, the government directed civil servants to assess “the feasibility and benefits of a tunnel or similar large-scale capital infrastructure project on the central Hwy 401 corridor.”

The studies considered three tunnel concepts and two elevated roadways.

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said she was concerned the private bids had helped to create the idea.

“Usually in a situation like that you would not have them all arrive unsolicited; you would put out a public call and the government didn’t do that,” she said.

“Whenever I hear about situations like that, it reminds me a little bit about the Greenbelt scenario, where suddenly some developers seem to know that there were going to be possible changes coming. So it’s a question really of who knew what, when and why?”

Government documents suggest the “initial assessment” of a tunnel under Highway 401 began sometime in late 2019, soon after the government’s Unsolicited Proposal portal was populated with ideas.

Hundreds of pages of emails viewed by Global News show officials with the Ministry of Transportation and external consultants studied the tunnel in detail to “complete preliminary evaluation and costing of options including considerations for tunnelling beneath Highway 401.”

While the work was paused in 2021 — as the province began focusing on a GTA-wide transportation strategy — it was restarted in the summer of 2024, when two ministers were told about the plan.

“The original reason this briefing came about was because Minister Sarkaria and Minister Surma caught wind of the Tunnelling USP from a few years ago and requested a briefing,” one email sent between civil servants said. “I believe that was in early July.”

The vast majority of the messages were sent between civil servants and political staff through the summer of 2024 as they prepared to brief Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma and Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria on what work had been done so far.

The emails suggest work already completed on the tunnel included: a price estimate, technical studies and assessments of the market to build it.

“I see from previous materials that project planning was paused in late 2021, pending the release of the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) Transportation Plan. Can you please confirm whether this work has resumed? And if not, why has it not resumed?” an email sent from a political staffer to a civil servant last summer asks.

The email also requested, “information on:

• any geotechnical work has been done already and what work will be required should tunnelling be pursued;
• the timelines for planning and design and estimated timelines for overall project;
• and finally, estimated costs of planning and design, and estimated costs Total Project Costs.”

Another message from a civil servant highlighted the similarities between the plan Ford announced in the summer of 2024 and the work completed years earlier.

“This is pretty much where the USP evaluation ended up,” one frustrated email read after Ford held a news conference to announce his plan.

“Would have saved us all a lot of time if MO simply gave this as a directive, ahead of this announcement. Now, let’s wait for more clear instruction from MO/DMO.”

MO is generally short for the minister’s office, which is the political arm of the ministry. DMO usually means the deputy minister’s office, run by senior civil servants.

Stiles said the government should release the work it had previously done on a project she said its latest studies will show is unviable.

“We will be demanding the government release that information,” Stiles said. “This is a process that raises a lot of questions; it seems to have been done secretly without a public request for proposals.”

Despite the similarity, the Ford government has forged ahead by issuing a request for private companies to study whether a tunnel is feasible.

Global News asked the Ministry of Transportation why it was launching a new feasibility study for the project, given the apparent breadth of its 2021 analysis.

“Initial proposals provided preliminary information however, the landscape has changed and studies show congestion has gotten worse, costing our economy $56 billion every year,” a spokesperson said.

“We are looking at all options to get commuters out of traffic and this feasibility study will provide valuable information directly from industry partners.”

Once the project had been revived, communications seen by Global News make it clear that political staff were keen to get moving.

“MO is following up weekly and getting antsy,” one early September email said.

Another said: “MO are also quite eager and have been asking regularly for this briefing — I don’t think they understand what is taking so long (which is fair).”

But roughly a year after the minister’s office restarted the project, there has been no word on the status of the renewed feasibility study.

Matti Siemiatycki, director of the infrastructure institute at the University of Toronto, said the tunnel was a “dream” and not a practical plan.

Despite opposing the plan and saying it “won’t solve the problem” of congestion on Highway 401, he said the government should keep studying it after winning an election with it in their platform.

“Actually, I support them continuing to study it in part because the premier raised it in advance of the election — he won the election, so this is something that has now been through the political system,” Siemiatycki said.

“It should be studied technically and all the documents should then be released. And the public can see and then we make a decision on what to do.”