"Let Hazel decide fate of Gardiner"
For Torontians.... in today's Torstar
Let Hazel decide fate of Gardiner
Nov. 6, 2006. 05:29 AM
LINWOOD BARCLAY
Maybe this whole debate about the Gardiner Expressway and whether to tear it down or leave it alone could be settled once and for all if the decision were left to those who are most directly affected by it.
You know. The people of Mississauga.
Okay, maybe that's not fair. Not just Mississauga. The citizens of Oakville and Burlington and Hamilton and Milton and Brampton and Bramalea and a whole bunch of other places west of Toronto.
Why should Torontonians have any say in what happens to the Gardiner? How many of them actually use it?
Well, maybe some folks coming in from Etobicoke use it. They are, technically speaking, part of Toronto, although no one in the downtown core may be aware of this. But I bet Etobicokans (Etobians? Etobicokians? Etobivores?) don't feel much differently about the Gardiner than all those other folks from outside Toronto.
It's my sense that they're okay with it.
Sure, they hate the Gardiner. They loathe the drive in, they hate how the Gardiner bunches up on the crest of that hill just west of the Humber, where they can't tell how backed up things are, and they must choose whether to stick with it or take Lake Shore. This is when thousands of drivers, on a daily basis, do impressions of Sandra Bullock from Speed: "Stay on or get off? Stay on or get off?"
If they choose to stay on, they inch their way over the Humber, creep their way past Jameson, crawl farther along as the Gardiner rises on stilts as it approaches Spadina and the Yonge-Bay exits.
They sit in their cars and think, This is what Hell must be like. Sitting on the Gardiner for all eternity. No, Hell could not be like this. Hell is the Ritz-Carlton compared to this.
And yet, as horrendous as this daily commute may be, these same drivers know, in their hearts, that it'd be even worse if the Gardiner were gone.
They have seen the artists' renderings of a Gardiner-less downtown. The wide avenue. Lots of trees. People walking about. A vision of loveliness that includes traffic lights and crosswalks.
Yeah, that'll move things along.
And even if commuters could be convinced scrapping the Gardiner would ultimately lead to a more attractive — even efficient — roadway, they'd think: "And it'll only take 15 years to build it. Maybe I'll use up some vacation and go back to work when it's done."
Now, I can guess what you're going to say if you live downtown. You're going to say, "Huh?"
But the thing is, if you live downtown, you probably never use the Gardiner, at least not that big part of it west of Yonge. The only reason you might would be to go to the suburbs, and really, why would you want to do that? What's out there except for thousands of empty houses through the day, and thousands more people sleeping at night before they come back downtown in the morning? You could go out on the weekend, but all you'll find is a bunch of guys comparing the size of their weed whackers (and that's only in the summer).
But, you say, what gives people in Mississauga and beyond the right to tell us what to do with something — the Gardiner — in our own backyard?
Which brings us to London, Ont.
If Toronto can ship its garbage hundreds of kilometres to be someone else's problem, is it so much to ask the city to put up with a bit of an eyesore by the lake if it makes some suburbanites' lives a little less stressful?
The next time there's a task force to figure out what to do with the Gardiner (and there should be another one along in about half an hour), I suggest they put Hazel McCallion in charge. She'll know what to do.
Signed,
The Mississauga Muse
