A $2.8-billion tunnel under downtown Brampton?

Brampton’s council voted the Hurontario LRT out of its downtown in 2015 rather than run it up Main Street. A decade later the same line is coming downtown anyway, underground.

The Premier announced in January 2024 that the extension from Brampton Gateway Terminal to downtown would be a four-kilometre tunnel, and the province has since accepted the business case and expressed support for a cost put at about $2.8 billion. Council supported the tunnel option unanimously. It will land at a rebuilt downtown transit hub tying together the GO station, Brampton Transit, the Queen Street–Highway 7 bus rapid transit corridor Metrolinx is leading, and the LRT itself.

The argument for the tunnel is Main Street: it is narrow, it is the city’s historic Four Corners, and a surface line would take it over. The argument against is that $2.8 billion for four kilometres is a subway price for a tram, in a city whose buses are the most crowded in the region.

Brampton has been the transit afterthought of the GTA for thirty years. This is the biggest thing it has ever been promised.

Sources: The Pointer, the province accepts the business case · Daily Commercial News, council supports the tunnel unanimously · Councillor Santos, the downtown transit hub · Tunnels and Tunnelling, Ontario extends the line to Brampton