Over the past decade, successive provincial governments have announced major expansion projects for Ontario’s largest and most congested highway, promising that new lanes will alleviate worsening traffic.
Between 2016 and 2024, Ontario began and completed 134 km of new lanes along Highway 401, which stretches from the U.S. border in the west through the gridlocked Toronto area and out into Quebec.
The new expansions were built along the length of the highway and, as each was unveiled, the province trumpeted the traffic improvements it would bring.
“It is great to see investments to help relieve congestion completed, and we will continue to make investments to improve transportation,” Mike Harris, a PC MPP, said after one project was finished near Cambridge, Ont.
The government’s own data, however, shows that even as new lanes were added along the highway, a crippling bottleneck at its centre didn’t improve.
Internal modelling shows the trend will continue and compound over the next few decades.
The government said the 134 km of new lanes were not added in Toronto itself and would have improved congestion in the areas where they were built. The province is pledging that two new highways will help the situation.
“Ontario’s population is growing at unprecedented speeds and we need our critical infrastructure to keep up so people can get where they need to go, when they need to get there,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Transportation said in a statement.
“Our government is always looking for ways to address gridlock and congestion, which costs our economy $11 billion every (year).”
One expert, however, said the kilometres of new lanes added as gridlock continued are evidence Ontario cannot pave its way out of a congestion crisis.
As congestion in and around Toronto worsens, the Ontario government has been tracking eastbound morning peak traffic in one of the worst areas to drive.
Internal modelling and GPS traffic data for Highway 401 running through Toronto from Highway 427 to Highway 404 shows the area is a key bottleneck where traffic moves ever more slowly.
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A government slide deck completed in August 2024, and obtained by Global News using freedom of information laws, tracked congestion along the route.
In 2016, it took an average of 25 minutes to travel along the section of highway at an average of 56 km/h. That area, the presentation said, was a “key bottleneck in the system” which “lasts the entire day.”
By 2019, travel times had worsened to between 29 and 32 minutes with an average speed of 47 km/h. The average time to travel the corridor then stayed static at 28 to 32 minutes in 2024, according to the government’s data. Speeds remained at 47 km/h.
During that time — between 2016 and 2024 — the Ontario government completed 134 km of new lanes across Highway 401. They added almost 50 km of lanes between Milton and Mississauga and 33 km of new lanes near Cambridge.
Traffic in the highway’s central bottleneck didn’t improve.
The government said the new lanes were never meant to alleviate congestion along the bottleneck and did help local traffic, although it did not provide studies to show how much the lanes helped.
Matti Siemiatycki, a professor at the University of Toronto who also viewed the internal documents, said new lanes ultimately make congestion worse.
“It’s quite striking when you look at the documents and you see just how much investment is going to be made and how much is being pinned on adding road lanes — and yet how little impact it is going to have,” he said.
“We’re a big, growing region, and if we’re going to try an solve our congestion problem with added highway lanes, this is going to be a recipe for increased frustration and ongoing congestion and gridlock.”
Highway 401 expansion projects since 2016.
Global News / Freedom of Information
More highways and worsening congestion
While the government said it didn’t expect additional lanes outside the Toronto bottleneck to alleviate congestion in the province’s capital city, it hopes two new highways will have that effect.
Since 2019, the province has been suggesting that the construction of two new routes, Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass, will help with gridlock.
Highway 413 will run from Milton, Ont., through the Region of Peel and into Vaughan, while the Bradford Bypass will connect two highways near Barrie, Ont.
Ontario’s traffic modelling shows the two projects won’t stop travel times on Highway 401 from getting worse — but they’ll slightly reduce the intensity of the problem.
Modelling for the same Toronto bottleneck mentioned earlier showed it would take 61 minutes to travel from Highway 427 to Highway 404 by 2051 if the two highways were not built. That number drops to 55 minutes if you include the two highways, which do not directly connect to any part of the bottleneck.
Traffic modelling for the Ontario government.
Global News / Freedom of Information
The two projects are different from the 134 km of lanes built over the last 10 years, according to the government, because they will allow drivers to skip Highway 401’s worst bottleneck.
Highway 413 will allow drivers to bypass parts of Toronto and therefore remove traffic from the most congested portion of Highway 401, the province contends.
“From the roads, bridges, and highways that people use everyday, to much-needed infrastructure projects like Highway 413, the Bradford Bypass and a future potential tunnel under the 401, we are working to address gridlock and congestion,” the Ministry of Transportation spokesperson said.
The government’s entire Greater Golden Horseshoe plan taken together is projected to result in travel times of 53 minutes along the corridor, at an average speed of 26 km/h by 2051 — more than double the 25 minutes it took in 2016.
Siemiatycki said the strategy was expensive and misguided.
“Going towards upwards of 50 minutes on a trip that in 2016 took 25 or 26 minutes, that’s hardly treading water, that’s getting staggeringly worse,” he said.
“And it’s just not solving the problem and especially on that corridor of the 401, which is a main trucking route through the region and onto our connections in southwestern Ontario and into the United States. “
