Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[andrewpmk]

Lake Shore was a complete mess this morning.

The province would never, ever allow the 401 to be closed for silly special events. It makes a complete mess of traffic. Why does the city allow this sort of thing?

Toronto city council is horribly incompetent.

 

[TOareaFan]

my two cents.....I happen to fall into the camp of "big cities have events that cause inconvenience to some at sometimes" camp.

That said, I think there are things that can be done to make it better.

Someone mentioned the Queensway, it is a route I have used during Gardiner closures and it does a good job on weekends taking some of that overflow....but it gets frustrating when you get to, either, Queen or King and find that the road closure hasn't been combined with parking restrictions.....so you move fairly smoothly when you get to the "split" and find that you have to pick between two one lane roads that happen to have streetcars running in that one lane. When the Garidner is closed, one (or both) of those roads should have no parking in the right lane (IMO).

Someone also mentioned the Jays game today and how the situation is not helped by "folks from 'saugua not taking the GO to the Jays game"....maybe a bit of co-ordination should come into play...maybe this would have been a good weekend for Metrolinx and the Jays to work together to include GO fare in with the Jays ticket (or some level of subsidization)....maybe, even, it would have been a good weekend to show some smarts and not have the Gardiner closed AND GO Lakeshore West service cut in half to hourly? A large Jays crowd on Father's Day is hardly a surprise....the Gardiner being closed was not decided yesterday and neither was the cutting of the GO service on LSW.

This sort of co-ordination is what I think of when I hear Mr. Tory talk about doing these things better.

 

[PinkLucy]

Lake Shore was a complete mess this morning.

The province would never, ever allow the 401 to be closed for silly special events. It makes a complete mess of traffic. Why does the city allow this sort of thing?

Toronto city council is horribly incompetent.

What part of Lake Shore? I live along lake Shore and it was fine. I drove out to Mississauga and it didn't start looking bad until west of Humber bridge

And what is silly to you is important to a lot of other people And adds to the vibrancy of the city

 

[Rainforest]

Lake Shore was a complete mess this morning.

The province would never, ever allow the 401 to be closed for silly special events. It makes a complete mess of traffic. Why does the city allow this sort of thing?

Toronto city council is horribly incompetent.

401 is of provincial and national importance; can't be disrupted for the sake of local events.

Gardiner is a local highway, potentially can be re-purposed for local events. It is a judgement call.

 

[Rainforest]

my two cents.....I happen to fall into the camp of "big cities have events that cause inconvenience to some at sometimes" camp.

That said, I think there are things that can be done to make it better.

Someone mentioned the Queensway, it is a route I have used during Gardiner closures and it does a good job on weekends taking some of that overflow....but it gets frustrating when you get to, either, Queen or King and find that the road closure hasn't been combined with parking restrictions.....so you move fairly smoothly when you get to the "split" and find that you have to pick between two one lane roads that happen to have streetcars running in that one lane. When the Garidner is closed, one (or both) of those roads should have no parking in the right lane (IMO).

Someone also mentioned the Jays game today and how the situation is not helped by "folks from 'saugua not taking the GO to the Jays game"....maybe a bit of co-ordination should come into play...maybe this would have been a good weekend for Metrolinx and the Jays to work together to include GO fare in with the Jays ticket (or some level of subsidization)....maybe, even, it would have been a good weekend to show some smarts and not have the Gardiner closed AND GO Lakeshore West service cut in half to hourly? A large Jays crowd on Father's Day is hardly a surprise....the Gardiner being closed was not decided yesterday and neither was the cutting of the GO service on LSW.

This sort of co-ordination is what I think of when I hear Mr. Tory talk about doing these things better.

All your points are entirely valid.

Unfortunately, Mr. Tory is not a technical person. He can't come up with those kind of optimizations by himself; someone has to tell him.

If his staff is not telling him, he has no chance to go to this forum or other media and get clues from there.

If somebody tells him, he will probably implement some of the optimizations.

 

[TOareaFan]

All your points are entirely valid.

Unfortunately, Mr. Tory is not a technical person. He can't come up with those kind of optimizations by himself; someone has to tell him.

If his staff is not telling him, he has no chance to go to this forum or other media and get clues from there.

If somebody tells him, he will probably implement some of the optimizations.

don't misunderstand me....I am not suggesting he has the technical competence cleary he needs help/support...but I do take encouragement that he has identified the issue....and not in a "we need to cancel all of these events" way...but more of a "we need to better co-ordinate these events and road closures, etc."

 

[BurlOak]

I thought about the real "hybrid" solution for the Gardiner. It looks like it would have a 90m radius curve - good for 50 km/hr. I also elimnated the DVP south to Don Roadway ramp because it would not fit under the Gardiner EB to DVP NB ramp. Somehow this would have to be put in, but not sure where.

The other improvement is to go over the CNR railway line. I had to use 5% grades and 340m radius curves - which equates to a design speed of 90 km/h. The extra 400m length of construction will add about $80M to the cost.

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

What would have been the speed limit on the boulevard?

 

[WislaHD]

I like the second option. Would the second option require any slowdown?

 

[BurlOak]

What would have been the speed limit on the boulevard?

I would guess 50 km/h - with traffic lights.

I like the second option. Would the second option require any slowdown?

same speed as exists now. Design Speed 90, for some reason posted at 60 km/h!!!.
In good weather, I think you can easily take it at 1.5 times that recommended limit.

 

[howl]

I would guess 50 km/h - with traffic lights.



same speed as exists now. Design Speed 90, for some reason posted at 60 km/h!!!.
In good weather, I think you can easily take it at 1.5 times that recommended limit.

Design speed and posted speed are two different things. The posted speed is always significantly lower. The design speed assumes some people will be speeding in bad weather on bald tires in a dump truck. A curve with a design speed of 50kmph would likely be posted at 30kmph.

 

[BurlOak]

Design speed and posted speed are two different things. The posted speed is always significantly lower. The design speed assumes some people will be speeding in bad weather on bald tires in a dump truck. A curve with a design speed of 50kmph would likely be posted at 30kmph.

Posted speed is ussually 20 km/h less than design speed for higher speeds and 10 km/h less on lower speeds.

The big question is whether the Gardiner to DVP is a continuous highway - in which case the design speed should stay 90 km/h, or is this a ramp from one freeway to another - where posted speeds of 40 or 50 km/h are not uncommon (400SB to 401WB, DVP NB to 401 EB, DVP NB to 401 WB, 404 SB to 401 WB).

PS. I sketched it with a 130m radius (a 60 km/h) design speed and it looks better - a bit farther from the railway but still plenty far from Keeting Channel. I still haven't figures out how to get a DVP southbound off-ramp. Any ideas??

 

[BurlOak]

I was doing some browsing and found that someone else had proposed the DVP to Gardiner ramp over the Rail bridge. However, they had the underground option, which requires the road to take 400m or so to get underground and then another 600m or so to match the elevation of the existing. I always said the burried Gardiner would only have a chance if a longer poriton was considered.

It looks like whoever put together the "hybrid" option did not do their homework. A true hybrid is supposed to take the best parts of the other plans.

 

[howl]

Posted speed is ussually 20 km/h less than design speed for higher speeds and 10 km/h less on lower speeds.

The big question is whether the Gardiner to DVP is a continuous highway - in which case the design speed should stay 90 km/h, or is this a ramp from one freeway to another - where posted speeds of 40 or 50 km/h are not uncommon (400SB to 401WB, DVP NB to 401 EB, DVP NB to 401 WB, 404 SB to 401 WB).

View attachment 49291

Here's a crazy idea. Run the Gardiner straight into the DVP/Don Roadway and put a big European-style roundabout there. North leg to DVP, west leg to Gardiner, south leg to Don Roadway and east leg to a new road into Lever site.

 

[CapitalSeven]

Here's my own (pardon the comically crude image) idea for a hybrid solution. Put the elevated section half way between the rail yard and the Keating Channel. The north half has Lakeshore as its main street, with on/off ramps just west of the basin in a section where Lakeshore splits around the elevated section. The south half of the district has the Queen's Quay extension for its main street.

The advantage is that the elevated bit is largely hidden behind development parcels. In the west half, you could run an access laneway underneath for services. By going several hundred feet east of Cherry on the existing structure, it avoids the conflict with the stormwater facility.

I've always been for the remove option, but this thread is showing there are a lot of real hybrid possibilities.