Roads: Gardiner Expressway catch-all, incl. Hybrid Design (2015-onwards)

[kali]

Right, but how does that even work? The Gardiner randomly rises into the sky west of Jarvis?

 

[Northern Light]

Right, but how does that even work? The Gardiner randomly rises into the sky west of Jarvis?

Like it currently rises randomly into the sky just west of Carlaw? Yes.....

Exactly like that.

 

[kali]

Wouldn't that cut Lakeshore Boulevard in half? I know I'm being thick and missing something. But it will hit me soon, I promise

 

[urbanflight]

^Once we get enough transit in place, sure

Well, we won't get enough transit by wasting $2.205-billion on a decaying highway.

 

[innsertnamehere]

That's the way you have always intended to frame it.

You're even literally quoting the tweet, and ignore that it says "still have some pocket change", it clearly says "SOME pocket change" for crying out loud, it doesn't say or imply that it'd represent an immediate saving greater than the current deficit. Everyone obviously acknowledge that the alternative project has a cost too, still it could save the city $1.50 billion in the next 10 years, and $500 million in the short term.
Since the beginning it has been made clear in this thread and the other ones, that demolishing the Gardiner and turning it into a boulevard could save the city $500 million, in the short term.



Greater Paris is home to around 7 million people, it has the larger regional GDP in continental Europe. London is one of the richest city on the planet. Both cities don't have any elevated or at-grade highways that run through their city core, and still they produce more wealth than Toronto, that do have a decaying highway in its city core.

It could be useful too if you consider that air pollution costs Canada around $36 billion per year, causes 7,700 premature deaths and illness.

????

saying “city has $1.35 billion deficit”

then “cancel Gardiner, that’ll fix it and leave some money left over”

certianly seems to suggest the Gardiner would save that much+more?!
I’m confused how you are interpreting it differently.

and where’s the $1.5 billion in the long term coming from? Also the $500 million you keep insisting on for that matter.. the staff report that was presented to council had a cost differential of $400 million. Demolishing the highway for part of it would still leave the rest of the highway out to the 427 which still needs major repairs, it’s not like that $2.2 billion capital plan disappears as soon as you demolish a small part of it in the east end.

I’m just generally confused by your insistence on this and where you are getting your numbers from..

 

[urbanflight]

Also, the cost of replacement doesn't include the economic benefits of having a road that moves billions of dollars of economic value every year. Like it or not the highway is a key connection to the core for hundreds of thousands of people and freight.

Bloomberg CityLab: A new data tool shows society pays $9.20 for every dollar spent in a car.
2015:

Costs v benefits
Driving a car one kilometre costs society 89 cents – but cycling the same distance benefits society by 26 cents. Data from City of Copenhagen.

Copenhagenize your city: the case for urban cycling in 12 graphs

Danish-Canadian urban designer Mikael Colville-Andersen busts some common myths and shows how the bicycle has the potential to transform cities around the world

www.theguardian.com

2018:

2020:
ResearchGate: The Social Cost of Automobility, Cycling and Walking in the European Union

Cost-benefit-analyses (CBA) are widely used to assess transport projects. Comparing various CBA frameworks, this paper concludes that the range of parameters considered in EU transport CBA is limited. A comprehensive list of criteria is presented, and unit costs identified. These are used to calculate the external and private cost of automobility, cycling and walking in the European Union.

Results suggest that each kilometer driven by car incurs an external cost of €0.11, while cycling and walking represent benefits of €0.18 and €0.37 per kilometer. Extrapolated to the total number of passenger kilometers driven, cycled or walked in the European Union, the cost of automobility is about €500 billion per year. Due to positive health effects, cycling is an external benefit worth €24 billion per year and walking €66 billion per year. CBA frameworks in the EU should be widened to better include the full range of externalities, and, where feasible, be used comparatively to better understand the consequences of different transport investment decisions.

The Globe and Mail: The high cost of Canada’s ‘free’ roads

Canada’s roads and bridges, tunnels and highways, are almost all “free.” That means free for drivers, paid for by taxpayers. You can drive to the Champlain Bridge from virtually anywhere in Canada, from Vancouver to Cape Breton, on roads that are costly to build and maintain, yet toll-free.

Is this logical? No. It’s not economically efficient, it’s environmentally damaging and encourages urban sprawl. It does all that by subsidizing driving.

There are compelling reasons for taxpayers to pick up the tab for things society wants more of, from public education to public parks to public libraries. There’s a lot of upside in kids being able to read more, for free. What’s the social good in adults being able to drive more, for free?

But the freeway, the free bridge and the free road are the status quo. Every spring, a new construction season begins, paid for by taxpayers.

In Ontario, the provincial government’s highway capital budget is $2.8-billion this year; the province plans to spend $22-billion on highways over the next decade. In Quebec, the province is spending $5-billion on road construction and maintenance over the next two years. That includes the continuing reconstruction of the Turcot Interchange, on one approach to the Champlain Bridge, at a cost of $3.7-billion and counting.

 

[Jasmine18]

thing is with tolls on all roads is you are punishing avg folks that use a car due to poor transit.

Like I used to work in 404 and Steeles from Brampton.

It takes 45 mins to 50 mins by car, transit is 2 hours.

Why would i take transit.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

thing is with tolls on all roads is you are punishing avg folks that use a car due to poor transit.

Like I used to work in 404 and Steeles from Brampton.

It takes 45 mins to 50 mins by car, transit is 2 hours.

Why would i take transit.

I think the people who abdicate for all of this stuff don't actually realise where people are traveling from to and from work. They live in there own little while world where they think just because they ride a bike to work or use public transportation everyone can do it.

 

[Jasmine18]

I can understand tolling the Gardiner to enter downtown.

However charging people to use the 400 series highways is just a regressive move against working-class people.

 

[Northern Light]

I can understand tolling the Gardiner to enter downtown.

However charging people to use the 400 series highways is just a regressive move against working-class people.

As opposed to charging transit fares?

Come on now.

This argument gets tiresome.

$3-$12 for a car trip on a highway is totally unfair!

But charging someone $ 3 for their local transit fare, then another $12 + for their GO fare, that's perfectly fine.

How does that work?

 

[Northern Light]

thing is with tolls on all roads is you are punishing avg folks that use a car due to poor transit.

Like I used to work in 404 and Steeles from Brampton.

It takes 45 mins to 50 mins by car, transit is 2 hours.

Why would i take transit.

You don't suppose it might make sense, for most people, to try to work closer to where they live, and not a 2-hour trip by transit away? That if that car trip had cost you $9 each way, that maybe you would have a found a job in Vaughan or Brampton, or Miss. instead?

Second, if you were among 10's of 1,000s who now had to make the trip by transit, wouldn't you scream at your local politician to make it better?

Maybe that would be a BRT on Steeles that would cut the trip time by 1/3.

Maybe that would be a GO Train in the 407 ROW etc.

Finally, you wouldn't be prohibited from driving; and if you still did, your 45M trip would surely drop to 30M, a nice perk.

 

[Jasmine18]

lol blaming working people for not working close to home is hilarious.

Moving inside the GTA is very expensive especially to York Region.

Jobs are not permanent anymore, many people switch jobs every 2-3 years now.

As I said unless Transit gets better, taxing suburban highways is a non-starter.

 

[Northern Light]

I think the people who abdicate for all of this stuff don't actually realise where people are traveling from to and from work. They live in there own little while world where they think just because they ride a bike to work or use public transportation everyone can do it.

I'm sure you mean advocate.............

Moving on..........why do you feel the need to be so terribly insulting? You come on a forum to have a debate, to learn from others, and to share you experience that they may learn from yours.

But instead your sneer down your nose and say 'clearly, stupid people, since they disagree with me'.

I own a car.

I currently WFH, but I've been alive in this town long enough to have been both a transit commuter and a car one.

But when I car commuted from East York to N/E Scarborough, I did it in the reverse direction of rush-hour.

I was aware of what I was agreeing to when I took the job, and commuted via the local road network (as opposed to highways)

It took about 40M each way, most days.

I have every sympathy for different circumstances.

But there is no policy option in which all people don't make trades and face inconveniences of one type or another.

There are environmental considerations to weigh, there are financial considerations to weigh.

In making choices, some people will find their current lifestyle either more expensive, but sustainable to them; or they will change.

That's life, we all do it, all the time.

Your electricity rate has doubled in the last decade.

You've chosen to change when you do laundry, what the thermostat is set at, whether to put in new windows or LED lights (or your landlord has).

You've either paid for those changes and kept your bill closer to what it was a decade ago, or you haven't, and you're paying double every month.

Its a choice.

****

If you want to argue that some choices aren't perfectly fair, or require refinement. That's entirely reasonable.

I might argue that Time-of-use makes some sense for factories, but relatively little for residential customers. Not only because it hassles me as someone who WFH; but because there are seniors/retirees/disabled folks, and house spouses who have to be home during the day and turning the a/c or heat off makes no sense; and neither does doing the laundry at midnight.

But that isn't an argument against higher electricity prices, its against time of use.

A like argument might apply to tolls.

Similarly, one might argue that certain investments need to be made in transit, either in concert with or prior to tolls or tolls at a certain threshold.

That too is reasonable.

But the argument that anyone is entitled to drive, toll-free, on a highway in a major urban centre simply isn't reasonable.

 

[Northern Light]

lol blaming working people for not working close to home is hilarious.

Moving inside the GTA is very expensive especially to York Region.

Jobs are not permanent anymore, many people switch jobs every 2-3 years now.

As I said unless Transit gets better, taxing suburban highways is a non-starter.

Where does 'blaming' come into it?

You have this thing; you love to read-in motive to posts where it doesn't exist.

I'm not 'blaming' anyone for where they live or where they work.

I am saying both are a choice.

If you want to live in Brampton, it would make sense to either work in Brampton, somewhere close, or somewhere with good, fast transit connections (like downtown Toronto now, providing you have a 9-5 job)

If you want to work at Don Mills and Steeles, it makes more sense to live somewhere close to there, or with good transit connections to there.

If you want to commute 30km to work, that's up to you.

There's no blame involved, there's no malice.

But I don't want you to complain about the consequences of your own choice.

You made a trade for a cheaper place to live, and a longer commute.

Others pay more for their housing and have a shorter work trip.

Note, that I agree transit should be better where you are; but someone has to pay for that; and either way, its going to be you.

If you don't pay tolls, your going have a property tax hike.

Given where Brampton property taxes are at; I'm thinking a toll is probably a better route.

But hey, you've got a 800k house in Brampton, on which you likely pay $7,000 a year. A 25% increase should pay for the transit you want. That's another $1,750 per year, every year in perpetuity.

You pay that even as a renter, whether your working or commuting, or not. That's only $3.80 per commute. Of course, if in fairness, you're going to wipe out GO fares, since you don't want to pay a toll and local transit fares too.

We're going to have to up that to something closer to $2750 in property tax, or about $5.98 per trip.

Or you could just pay the toll instead???

 

[Jasmine18]

i am not against the commute, i am saying tolling suburban roads is a dumb idea.