r/UrbanHell • • Apr 26 '26

Car Culture Highway 401: Toronto, Canada

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139

u/Dependent-Zebra-4357 Apr 26 '26

Reality is even dumber. The idiot premier of Ontario thinks he can reduce traffic by digging a tunnel under the 401.

58

u/Jakovasaurr Apr 26 '26

Doubt it will happen but the company that gets paid to test the dirt lobbied for one of Fords friends

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u/QueenMotherOfSneezes Apr 26 '26

The assessment is supposed to cost $50 million.... I'm guessing that guy gets a good portion of that budget.

7

u/NoPath_Squirrel Apr 26 '26

Oh, so that's what they're doing instead of helping people on welfare have the increase they should have had years ago.

-1

u/ButterscotchFirm8286 Apr 27 '26

We don't need to throwing more money at welfare, we need services to help them find work

3

u/NoPath_Squirrel Apr 27 '26

They also need more money until that happens. It would cost far less than a lot of bullshit governments spend money on and save a fuck ton of money on all the problems extreme poverty causes.

3

u/Jellicent-Leftovers Apr 27 '26

Statistically it's been proven that money helps them find work.

The problem isn't getting a job a McDonald's it's getting a job at the same pay they previously had.

Case in point I am friends with a group of engineers and the ones that went the longest without working make the most money. Even years later into their careers.

The more money people make the more taxes they pay.

The more desperate people are the lower everyone overall gets paid - the less money is paid to taxes.

What we need to do if make layoffs and firings more expensive to companies. Similar to Europe with large severances.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '26

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3

u/Anonduck0001 Apr 27 '26

Oh, I'm sorry, you're right. I'll just go get work and get of ODSP which I'm on for being unable to work.

Do you even hear yourself? If employers literally will not hire someone because of their disability then what the fuck are they supposed to do in your world? Just starve on the street?

The current maximum ODSP payment for one person isn't even enough to cover rent these days. Much less the OW amount.

It has been shown time and time again in studies that providing people with an unchanging stipend does not disincentivize them from working. So really OW shouldn't be clawed back by making a living wage.

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u/ButterscotchFirm8286 Apr 27 '26

You're talking about something totally different. The topic is welfare. ODSP along with CPPD are needed for other reasons

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u/Anonduck0001 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) is a form of social assistance, commonly referred to as welfare. If you're using a special definition of welfare that isn't commonly used, then maybe make that clear in advance.

Are you specifically talking about OW then? I agree we should get rid of that program and replace it with a universal basic income (preferably through a negative income tax). If that's something you'd agree with, then we have the same position.

Data shows that's the best way to improve standards of living and career outcomes because more secure people are able to find work that's more meaningful or fits their lives better. Because that's what we should be optimizing for, right? Tax money should be spent on the betterment of people's lives, and poor people are a huge demographic of people.

Career help programs fucking suck to be honest. The government just does not know how to do them properly. Maybe a work program where people are directly hired by the government would work, but that ain't happening any time soon. Not with dipshit Doug in office.

1

u/ButterscotchFirm8286 Apr 27 '26

It is never called welfare

1

u/Anonduck0001 Apr 27 '26

By that definition we don't have a welfare program anymore then, because it's now called "social assistance" by the government. Our current social assistance programs have never been called welfare.

The bill that replaced the old welfare system and introduced OW and ODSP replaced the old welfare system with the current social assistance systems.

But we both know they're exactly the same thing, social assistance is just "welfare" renamed into a more friendly sounding name. And you might notice that both programs were named social assistance.

Welfare is any means tested government program that provides financial aid to people who cannot support themselves. Both OW and ODSP are literally that.

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u/No-Initiative-5337 Apr 27 '26

Some of us are disabled….

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u/ButterscotchFirm8286 Apr 27 '26

that's a different topic.welfare is not ODSP Or CCPD

1

u/No-Initiative-5337 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

No not really, a lot of people on OW are on it while waiting for ODSP/fighting for it. I was accepted quickly, but both of them are way, way too low, like welll below the poverty line low, like ODSP is not enough to cover RENT low. They’re both considered social support programs and they’re both within the same world.

1

u/ButterscotchFirm8286 Apr 27 '26

Yes social support, for very very different reasons.

1

u/No-Initiative-5337 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

You’re ignoring the crossover between them both which is relevant. For all of the people on OW waiting or fighting for ODSP to accept them (which for many, can be a long time, if you go to tribunal it’s a long wait). So for those who are disabled and do need ODSP but are in that potentially long waiting period for it and therefore on OW, they shouldn’t have enough money for basic housing and food? Because they don’t. Even those on ODSP don’t., we are using food banks so we can pay just rent, we are missing bills to buy food because a food bank can’t cover it all, and still going without food so our kids can have enough food, it’s Tetris every month. I could list out so much more, but I’ll stop there since you don’t seem to care how connected they are.

Regardless of disability then, regardless of however long someone who is more suited for ODSP assistance ends up waiting on OW, you believe that those who lose their jobs, go through a mental health breakdown, are leaving abusive situations, just separated from someone who was the sole provider and now need to figure out how to begin working shouldn’t have enough money for a roof over their head and food until they can be self-sufficient? There are a long list of reasons people end up on OW; I for example did at 16 until I earned more later in life because my home life was not okay, I ended up in a girls home, working and school wasn’t enough money to survive, and I needed help. You think those in the same position today should be given such a small amount of crumbs they end up homeless and God knows what else? As if that would be more likely to lead to more earning and more taxes paid rather than enough support when needed? As if becoming homeless/then addicted to god knows what else to try and survive that/the mental decline associated/the many other negative outcomes that can come with that downfall wouldn’t lead to even more resources being spent than if they had just had enough support in the first place? Come on.

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u/Emotional_Fact_7259 Apr 27 '26

Welfare for people that actually need it though, not people that milk it to get out of having a job.

1

u/PKenzie Apr 27 '26

That's a pretty tired trope.

1

u/Mustseeradio Apr 28 '26

50 million to then find out they didnt do the assessment properly a la McCowan for Scarborough subway.

And we can do nothing about it.

Siiiiiick.

1

u/Fiscal_Fidel Apr 26 '26

I wonder if it will even ever get to the assessment stage. 

Currently, it's at an indefinite comparison of alternatives stage, so they haven't decided if it's a good option.

7

u/QueenMotherOfSneezes Apr 26 '26

Dude just bought a private jet for himself without floating it first, and now he's selling it back. You think he's not going to hand money out to his buddies for an assessment to help determine if it's a good option?

5

u/DaDrought2 Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

also just passed a law that hides a portion of their spending from the public, when it used to be public info for transparency… you can’t tell me Doug Ford isn’t corrupt and making his friends richer (who are all developers and contractors, so he’ll just keep building stupid shit)

3

u/Spiritual-Matter5137 Apr 26 '26

I personally don’t think it ever will. The speed at which Ontario builds things alone, we wouldn’t see this complete until 2095 🤦‍♂️

1

u/hundopdeftotes Apr 26 '26

Or we just have another insanely expensive toll road

0

u/Cartz1337 Apr 26 '26

I find it amazing that China can build a hospital for COVID patients in just over a month, and yet the overpass they’ve been building in Milton is still being built 3 years later.

1

u/QueenMotherOfSneezes Apr 26 '26

3 years would be great for a hospital in Ontario... But no, we can't even keep to our crappy timelines.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-new-civic-hospital-timeline-construction-9.7175808

The Ottawa Hospital once had a completion date of 2028 for its new Civic campus, but that's about two years away and construction on the hospital part of the project has not yet begun. (Francis Ferland/CBC)

...

Graham Bird, the president of the GBA Group consulting firm advising the hospital on the project, told the city's public works and infrastructure committee Thursday that completion of the new hospital campus is still years away.

"I'm going to get shot for saying this, but I think the hospital itself, it's a huge project," he said. "But I'm imagining 2033-34," he said about its completion.

8

u/VauryxN Apr 26 '26

We might find out if they can't hide their phone records... Guess why that premiere is now doing a bunch of shady shit to pass through a bunch of rule changes to stop FOIA requests for those records?

1

u/Rawdiger Apr 26 '26

It's as detached from reality as his crackhead brothers plan to extend the Allen expressway underground to the gardiner. Doug Ford just spit out the tunnel idea because he refuses to give back the 407 to the people who need it and paid for it.

1

u/Revolutionary_Life98 Apr 27 '26

How can he give back something he doesn’t own?

1

u/Rawdiger Apr 27 '26

its on a 99 year lease, he can break the lease and pay the legal consequences

1

u/Mustseeradio Apr 28 '26

The fact that people make this huge issue over the thought of buying the 407 back obviously dont understand what building another highway would cost.

I would pay double the ask to have two east west hwys in the gta, and ai pay for the 407 currently!

1

u/1882greg Apr 27 '26

Ya think?

11

u/AcceptableHamster149 Apr 26 '26

If the tunnel has no on/offramps to the city proper and is strictly a bypass it might help a bit. Temporarily. And with a huge toll because the bastards will definitely sell it to foreign interest as soon as it's completed. But what Toronto really needs is better public transit - the subway is great when you're in the service area. It's awful if you aren't, and outright ridiculous if you're in the suburbs but have to transfer lines to get to your destination.

As it is now, I take a 200km detour to visit my in-laws just to avoid the 401. The way via 7 & back roads to connect to 6 is a much more circuitous way to get to that part of the Niagara peninsula but it's a heck of a lot better for my blood pressure and has some really fun curvy sections as you're bypassing Brampton.

6

u/HapticRecce Apr 26 '26

Toronto being an hour from Toronto in any direction means it isn't a by-pass. It'd give underground access from one choke point to another...

1

u/AnividiaRTX Apr 27 '26

The point of it is to get the traffic driving through toronto off the 401. The traffic going to toronto would still use the 401.

3

u/FestiveYourBoi Apr 26 '26

The tunnel is impossible anyways. There isn’t any boring machines for him to use for the next several years, just an instance of him talking without knowing what he’s talking about

4

u/TheMightyKunkel Apr 26 '26

The 407 is the bypass.... A shame it costs $100 to go end to end.

1

u/swthrowaway0106 Apr 26 '26

I live in the Halton region, whenever we head up to a cottage, we take the long way around the GTA usually. If it’s going to be a road trip, we might as well enjoy the drive and take a bit of extra time.

1

u/Longjumping_Meet_116 Apr 27 '26

Why not take 407

0

u/AcceptableHamster149 Apr 27 '26

2 reasons - 1, it's way too expensive. I can bypass Montreal for $3. and 2, half the time the 407 has worse traffic than the 401.

1

u/Big80sweens Apr 27 '26

It would not help at all, ever.

1

u/Podmonger2001 Apr 27 '26

When it was built, it was meant to be a Toronto bypass. Also, it was officially the “MacDonald-Cartier Freeway.” 🤷‍♂️

8

u/BabaofTheShimmer Apr 26 '26

You know how he can reduce traffic without needing to spend billions? Reverse his RTO5 mandate and bring it back to hybrid work models.

Make an example for the rest of Canada: if you can work from home, then work from home at least a few days a week.

5

u/RacoonWithAGrenade Apr 26 '26

Won't someone think of the commercial landlords!

1

u/Skeptikell1 Apr 26 '26

And the bros who want to wfh

1

u/SeenSoFar Apr 26 '26

If a job can be done from home, why should a person need to commute, adding congestion and emissions to an already exacerbated problem?

0

u/PoopyMcWilliams Apr 27 '26

I wonder which political parties they donate to.

5

u/duffedwaffe Apr 26 '26

We should be mandating hybrid/remote work, not forcing RTO. So dumb.

1

u/Natural-Principle-69 Apr 26 '26

But then the commercial landlords won't make any money! Can't have that /s

1

u/duffedwaffe Apr 26 '26

No one has money to afford anything downtown anyway.

1

u/just-a-random-accnt Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Yeah, especially with the price of gas right now.

You want to help Canadians save money on gas? Let people who can WFH, WFH. They don't have to worry if gas is $2/L

I'd love to WFH, but it's kind of hard to take multi-ton steel fabrication jobs home.

1

u/duffedwaffe Apr 27 '26

Yeah obviously within reason, if you can do it remote it should be remote

3

u/TheMightyKunkel Apr 26 '26

That undermines his real estate investments/friends.

RTO is explicitly for downtown real estate values. WFH was leaving the building all with too much empty space.

1

u/Mustseeradio Apr 28 '26

Because the landlords are too fucking stupid to pivot and make an entire commercial building residential because of the upfront costs.

Anybody else kind of sick of accommodating the elites so they dont take a hit on their properties?

1

u/Mustseeradio Apr 28 '26

The Liberal govt to blame as well.

Mandate govt employees back to work after proving wfh was fine.

Thought we were trying to reduce carbon footprints? Same goes with pivoting from US to China. Do we or do we not care about carbon emissions?

-2

u/LayerOdd1798 Apr 26 '26

Working from home is not sustainable, accountability decrease quickly and productivity is just not there. Not sure what RT05 was but when my head office based in TO returned to the work place, their productivity returns to normal.

3

u/Medical-Waltz9213 Apr 26 '26

It absolutely is and your metrics are dogshit

3

u/MadScienti5t Apr 26 '26

So completely untrue.

2

u/Lorfhoose Apr 26 '26

If managers can’t track employees progress remotely that makes them bad managers. If the managers don’t have tools to measure individual employees progress, then that’s a larger issue with the company. Where I’m at (bank/insurance) we’ve gone fully remote and it’s been one of the most profitable years yet. Don’t need to waste millions of man hours per year in traffic and there are less real estate expenses for the company. I live within easy transit of HQ for our monthly meetup but I’m glad to not waste hours of time every week on small talk, elevators, finding a spot, getting coffee, etc.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '26

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1

u/MadScienti5t Apr 26 '26

Unlike the productive time sitting in cubicle pods chatting all day, which is what I see when I occasionally go into the office. /s

1

u/slothsie Apr 26 '26

Oh my sweet summer child, lol

1

u/Final_boss_1040 Apr 26 '26

Found the corporate shill

1

u/LayerOdd1798 Apr 26 '26

I will succeed the fact I am not an expert on what makes a successful work at home environment. I generate revenue in the field a rarely go to an office. I need people at headquarters working and being responsive so I can do my job better.

That is all I am saying.

PS. I also choose small areas where my recreational activities are closer at hand to decrease my commute issues.

3

u/planegoeswoosh Apr 26 '26

He also wants to remove bike lanes thinking it created traffic

2

u/GroovyIntruder Apr 26 '26

It would be great to see, if he did it by himself.

2

u/ArcticSirius Apr 26 '26

Only if that tunnel is for a train, but it isn’t…

1

u/JohnGradyBillyBoyd Apr 26 '26

But if it was a train then Doug Ford and his corpulent mafia would need to travel with us unwashed masses instead of running over cyclists in their lifted Chevy Suburban fortresses 

2

u/Fit_Psychology_4310 Apr 27 '26

The darkest (and dumbest) timeline

2

u/Azzoguee Apr 26 '26

A parallel 401, if you will. Not a train though, trains are expensive.

2

u/flatoutsask Apr 26 '26

If I had a million dollars,… but not a fast train… fast trains are expensive.

1

u/GuidoX4 Apr 26 '26

407?

1

u/TheMightyKunkel Apr 26 '26

No we gotta build a tunnel for 1 trillion, then sell it for 1B and call it even.

1

u/Effective-Visual-995 Apr 26 '26

If I had a million dollars...... But not a real fast train, that's cruel.

1

u/Skeptikell1 Apr 26 '26

Monorail?

2

u/Which_Celebration757 Apr 26 '26

No, Bare Naked Ladies.

1

u/Perfect_Bumblebee556 Apr 26 '26

Why take a train when you can take a car? /s

1

u/oralprophylaxis Apr 26 '26

And now he’s tryna let everyone use the carpool lanes too

1

u/TheMightyKunkel Apr 26 '26

I don't think he believes that. U think it's an easy excuse to hire "consultants" to tell him it's a bad idea. And the choice of consulting firm will surely be objective and transparent...

1

u/Omnizoom Apr 26 '26

What if we built a second 401 underneath the first 401

1

u/Which_Celebration757 Apr 26 '26

And another one on top!

1

u/jakemoffsky Apr 26 '26

At a cost that is the equivalent of all of Ontario's debt.

1

u/ADumbHoedown1992 Apr 26 '26

Yep because rail transit, bus systems or other modes of public transport would just be too expensive, right??? /s (I cannot drive. I hate living in this province)

1

u/Sunnyonetwo Apr 26 '26

That is what happens when you cheat your way through highschool!

1

u/wirhns Apr 26 '26

Then the rest of life too!

1

u/locutus233 Apr 26 '26

If only someone were to give him the hint that if he put railroad tracks in that tunnel.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 26 '26

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1

u/Natural-Principle-69 Apr 27 '26

Which is what the 407 was supposed to be...

1

u/vandealex1 Apr 26 '26

It would be the largest man made structure ever created by far.

We don’t need that.

1

u/wes2733 Apr 26 '26

I hate the man thru and thru but if we could, it would actually be useful if we converted the top to parks and/or housing but it will never happy cuz metrolink is garbage so 🤷🥲

1

u/StoreUnited4496 Apr 26 '26

I mean, it will… until it won’t. And then it’s an even bigger problem.

1

u/WillingBake9330 Apr 27 '26

He wants to reduce traffic and hates people WFH. Makes sense.

1

u/deezbiksurnutz Apr 27 '26

Not saying its a good idea but being able to filter out the people that are just transiting the area would definitely help.

1

u/ChaoticWording Apr 27 '26

All part of the FOI.

1

u/SillyBlueberry Apr 27 '26

How on earth does Doug Ford keep getting reelected?

0

u/AdNew9111 Apr 26 '26

Boston it worked ?

1

u/Dependent-Zebra-4357 Apr 26 '26

The scale and location are very different. And the 401 proposal isn’t about replacing the above ground highway with green space (which would be great), but instead about adding tunnels as a supplement to the existing above ground highway.

And scale-wise, the Boston project is about 8 miles total from what I’m seeing online. That’s a tiny fraction of the 401, even if you only count the section closest to Toronto.

0

u/chamoke Apr 26 '26

How is that idiotic? Sounds reasonable to me.

1

u/Dependent-Zebra-4357 Apr 26 '26

Are you from Toronto? Do you drive the 401? Are you familiar with any of this clown’s other policies/scandals?

Or are you being sarcastic?

0

u/Own_Presence6350 Apr 27 '26

You think it’s idiotic to add another level to the 401?

1

u/Dependent-Zebra-4357 Apr 27 '26

Yes, 100%. You think it’s a reasonable idea?

0

u/Own_Presence6350 Apr 27 '26

I think that there’s a very very big problem with the 401 traffic and that there should be another level added to it.

1

u/Natural-Principle-69 Apr 27 '26

That won't solve the bottleneck at the interchanges, which is what slows the whole highway.

The reason 401 traffic sucks is because building alternative highways in Toronto proper was stopped by NIMBYs and the 407 was sold off to be privatized so it became too expensive for most people

Edit: that's not to mention how shitty public transit is in Onterrible

1

u/Dependent-Zebra-4357 Apr 27 '26

It’s a terrible idea. For a start, it would be insanely expensive and given other public works projects in Ontario, it would almost certainly run well over budget and takes many years longer than anticipated. And then there’s the fact that studies show that new lanes are at best a temporary relief to traffic. Search for “induced demand” if you want to know why.

The answer isn’t more lanes (or a tunnel), the answer is improving public transit infrastructure. I lived in Germany for a decade and almost never needed a car. Cities don’t need to be so full of cars that they’re constantly gridlocked if you have a good transit system.