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Plans to fill in Allen Road

This forum isn't as open and exploratory as I thought. I'm starting to get a strong sense of an orthodoxy of thought supported by the usual suspect 'Senior Members' and admin, wherein, if you don't like or strongly disagree with an idea, it gets dumped on another thread or removed, or else there's a kind of self-congratulatory pile-on attack by the old brass. I didn't know this was a North Korean outpost. If you want this site to be more than an ad dump for developers, allow and encourage divergent thinking, please.

A lot of us have engineering knowledge and have tried many times to explain to you why your fantasy is unfeasible, if not impossible. But you choose to dismiss reality, then accuse the critics of having no imagination just because they pointed out obvious flaws with your ideas. If you think that Urban Toronto members lack imagination, then clearly you never visited the fantasy transit thread.
 
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Not only could they fill in Allen Road, the Allen Expressway south in a tunnel along side the Spadina Line down to the Gardiner.
 
No, this isn't about proposing multiple highways through city centres. This is about finding a means of ameliorating the negative effects of an existing highway (the Gardiner) and creating a funding tool for subways that also makes a viable, connected highway out of a stub that was essentially stillborn upon construction (the Allen). Neither of these highways has been handled well. I want the Gardiner removed or buried, but you can't do that without a western offloading onto the street grid, which is where a Front St. extension comes in. There's an odd paradoxical proclamation on UT of hating highways yet a sad complaisance about solving the problem of the Gardiner for once and all, just like there's a constant bemoaning of the lack of subways and yet total resistance to any means of paying for them besides taxation and overspending. This is Toronto's impasse. Sometimes you have to consolidate: Decide what are going to be main arteries through the city and mitigate their impact on the street level experience as much as possible, and focus on improving the street level experience on the roads that have been bypassed as main arteries. For example, I would widen boulevards and reduce auto traffic on Queen, King, and College Streets, and have streetcar ROW's on them.

There was talk decades ago about returning Richmond and Adelaide Streets to two-way streets (which I supported), but the city has consolidated these as one-way express streets for autos and bikes. Okay, then shift more of the traffic to these roads, retain express bike lanes on them, and improve the pedestrian experience on the remaining network: Parliament, Sherbourne, Jarvis, Church, Yonge, University, Spadina, Bathurst, Queen, King, etc. The biggest win of course would be a new avenue where the elevated Gardiner now blows a hole through the city. Instead, we will throw a billion at a Gardiner hybrid that would be better spent on transit. Stop tinkering around the edges and accepting the whims of the current city council. Most of the current plans are highly political decisions that can change with up-down votes and the election cycle. Grow a pair. My suggestion of building the DRL and an underground toll Allen extension at the same time allows us to examine the offloading of the Gardiner in the west, so that we can assess whether removal of the Gardiner or some other, better means of remediation is possible. And don't dismiss these ideas as unfeasible. I've also done studies and completed programs. Harder, bigger projects have been successfully completed elsewhere. This comes down to political will, which can change on a dime. Discussing the merits of ideas is more helpful than hurling dismissive slogans. It's an obvious truism that building at or above grade highways through downtowns ruins them.
 
No one believes your project is even remotely plausible which makes it annoying to read over and over and over again... Sometimes you have to accept people are not going to change their minds... Instead you repost over and over again the same points as if they will make any difference to the person whose mind is already made up.
how many times do i see the same stuff rehashed over and over again on all the various forums? Tons. We all see it. No big deal to have opposing views
 
The Allen is an unfortunate road that should have either been finished in the 1970's, or abandoned sooner. I think it likely makes for sense to extend highway 400 down to the Gardiner compared to the Allen (although even that I doubt is worthwhile).

Anyway, I think I found a thread that counts as a fantasy Toronto Highway location. And if we use the Highway Traffic Act, then every road is a "highway".

VwjBX1r.jpg
 
If you can propose an underground toll rout for the 400 that incorporates the DRL, presumably using Black Creek Dr., I'm listening. We need to relieve congestion and find ways of paying for subways. These are valuable discussions.
 
If you can propose an underground toll rout for the 400 that incorporates the DRL, presumably using Black Creek Dr., I'm listening. We need to relieve congestion and find ways of paying for subways. These are valuable discussions.

Except that Toronto will not be building parking lots or garages for commuting cars on any kind of large scale, except at outlying subway or GO stations (should include outlying LRT stations and stops in that short list). This isn't some U.S. city that replaced vast sections of their downtowns with parking lots. Especially cities that are empty on the weekends.

Aerial_view_of_downtown_looking_northwest_showing_large_areas_covered_in_parking_lots_Atlanta_Georgia_December_21_1965-y8b3d5.jpg


Why build any kind of expressways that would require real estate to be wasted to store an automobile that uses more square footage than a typical office cubicle? Not even counting the aisles.
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typicalparking_lg.jpg


We all should have home offices that are same size or bigger than a single-car garage, if your work office is smaller than the parking space for your car.
 
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If you can propose an underground toll rout for the 400 that incorporates the DRL, presumably using Black Creek Dr., I'm listening. We need to relieve congestion and find ways of paying for subways. These are valuable discussions.

I am, reluctantly, going to show you just how open minded I am. I expect, in exchange, you to meet the standard for being taken seriously when you make proposals outside of a 'fantasy' thread.

Your theoretical aim, as I understand it, is to dissipate congestion, both by more efficiently routing, and accommodating great car traffic, while also facilitating increased transit, particularly in the form of a massive DRL west, well beyond the wildest visions of any current transit advocates or planners.

Great.

So, for this to be a 'realistic' proposal, you'll be happy to know you don't have to have the detailed design done, or the architectural drawings.

(see, people can be fair)

But you do need to have at least crude estimates of the traffic volume your new creation will hold, and some vaguely intelligent argument as to why it would flow the way you imagine it.

You also need to show that you have some vague (lets say +/- 25% ) idea of the cost.

To do that, you're going to have to tell us how you envision organizing the corridor. Do you imagine the subway running under the underground highway, over it, or along side it?

This will indicate the corridor size as well as issues w/water table, location of bedrock and required grades.

It would be nice if you put all that info in your idea, but some of us have a pretty good sense of what you're likely to encounter, so a more detailed design idea should suffice)

You have to account for whether your proposal is likely to result in a net gain of traffic.

And

If it does, where you would put said traffic when it arrives at its destination?

If that capacity (in traffic lanes) does not now exist, where do your propose to put it, and at what cost?

And once that traffic arrives at its precise location (as oppose to general) how much net new parking is required? And where will that be located and at what cost?

****

Asking these questions makes no one here, close minded.

It makes us realists.

It does not mean we won't support bold gestures.

It means there's a finite amount of money (more than most politicians routinely admit), but nonetheless, a finite amount; so taking into account the cost and financing of what's already underway matters.

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Worth noting you mentioned that your proposal requires the Front St. Extension in order to function............putting aside the long political fight to remove such an idea from consideration, and that said notion was ultimately approved, portions of that corridor have now been encroached on, and no longer permit the extension as previously envisioned.

You suggest that extra traffic capacity could be achieved on Richmond and Adelaide..........sure, we could all live on the moon, it is, actually, possible. BUT.......

How? and at what cost? There are heritage buildings lining many portions of those roads which would have to be removed to allow additional lane capacity.

You want to go under them? That's a substantial additional costs and involves going below sewers, the PATH, various foundations and 2 subways lines amongst other obstacles.

Oh, and that's w/o factoring in where on/off ramps might go.

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Speaking for myself, (though I believe many UT'ers would agree)....

We are not all sticks-in-the-mud trying to ruin your fun or stifle innovative thought.

Rather, we want to debate the do-able, evaluate what is already seriously proposed, for the most part.

I'm totally ok w/fantasies and wild ideas, just put them in the correct threads, or start one........rather that taking over an existing, serious topic with an idea not sufficiently thought out in either the practical or political sense to be taken seriously, YET.
 
Some of what you are saying is perfectly fair. If you read my much prior posts regarding the locations of ramps, width of roadway, length of merge lane, and alignment of route, I believe some of your questions would be answered, admittedly not all of them. To some extent the ridership and user projections are a mug's game. The towns that tend to have the best traffic flows are the ones with the most connectivity and route choices. These tend to be in our oldest settlements because they have the shortest blocks. The long traffic island and long block are staples of our modern suburbs, ironically of the automobile era, and are in many ways the reason for our congestion problem.

We are all familiar with the three lane suburban arterial with its countless traffic lights and endless backups. There's simply nowhere to go. What's more, these streets are nearly impossible to render more pedestrian friendly or urban. The usual remedy is on street parking and boulevard widening, but that doesn't solve the congestion. My point here is that we need more connectivity and more transportation options to improve the flows of people and goods, to improve air quality, productivity, and ultimately quality of life.

On a side note, I like your use of "yet". Very 'Growth Mindset'...
 
The purpose of this thread is Plans to fill in Allen Road.

And not to debate the existence of induced demand.

This is not personally or blindly raging against an idea of extending the Allen. We just don't see the merit of the idea of extending the Allen, an idea that goes beyond the scope of what we were originally talking about. We would rather talk about the opportunities that filling in Allen Road would bring.

'Tis all.
 

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