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

I don't think Gardiner East really relates to the article much. This part of the highway was built mostly on reclaimed and industrial land. There isn't much of an urban fabric to restore here compared to a Robert Moses project that built a highway right through a neighbourhood.

Yes waterfont development is a big deal and it will benefit from having the new Gardiner built further back from the lake front.
 
Haljackey said:
I don't think Gardiner East really relates to the article much. This part of the highway was built mostly on reclaimed and industrial land.
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It's also on the edge of the city and elevated. The freeway in Buffalo is a lot more analogous to the Spadina Expressway - part of it runs through a river valley, another part runs though a residential neighbourhood as a sunken freeway.

It's also very different in that the public transit alternative is already present. The freeway was built in the 1960s to move people from Buffalo's northern residential areas to downtown, but a partly-underground LRT line was built 20 years later to do the exact same thing.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Though to be fair that's argument by semantics - the Lakeshore is where it is because?
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I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The point is, the Gardiner is not a barrier. If we want to get rid of barriers to the waterfront, we need to get rid of actual barriers like Lakeshore Boulevard and the lack of transit, not fake barriers like an elevated road. We need to mitigate those fake barriers, and one way to mitigate it is to stop people from having to wait under it because they need to cross Lakeshore Boulevard.

Removing the Gardiner means making the actual barrier to the waterfront (one of them, at least) a lot faster, wider and busier.
 
amnesiajune said:
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The point is, the Gardiner is not a barrier. If we want to get rid of barriers to the waterfront, we need to get rid of actual barriers like Lakeshore Boulevard and the lack of transit, not fake barriers like an elevated road. We need to mitigate those fake barriers, and one way to mitigate it is to stop people from having to wait under it because they need to cross Lakeshore Boulevard.

Removing the Gardiner means making the actual barrier to the waterfront (one of them, at least) a lot faster, wider and busier.
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You know exactly what I am getting at here. The point is there is no point considering Gardiner in and on itself, and if you don't think the elevated expressway on its' own is a barrier sans Lakeshore, consult the impact of the 2-lane York-Bay ramp teardown. Psychological barriers are real barriers.

Given the Gardiner East is bit of a fait accompli, perhaps I can expect you to support (wait, demand) schemes to narrow and slow down that particular roadway?

AoD
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
Given the Gardiner East is bit of a fait accompli, perhaps I can expect you to support (wait, demand) schemes to narrow and slow down that particular roadway?
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Absolutely. I just don't see how a proposal that dumps 100,000+ cars per day onto surface streets (where they create more pollution and interact with pedestrians & bikes) is a good thing. You'd think that the crowd that loves Vision Zero would be happy to spend an extra few hundred million to separate those cars from vulnerable road users.
 
amnesiajune said:
Absolutely. I just don't see how a proposal that dumps 100,000+ cars per day onto surface streets (where they create more pollution and interact with pedestrians & bikes) is a good thing. You'd think that the crowd that loves Vision Zero would be happy to spend an extra few hundred million to separate those cars from vulnerable road users.
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I am sure they would be happier if that 1B+ is spent on just said vulnerable road users instead of using them as an excuse, no?

AoD
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
I am sure they would be happier if that 1B+ is spent on just said vulnerable road users instead of using them as an excuse, no?
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Half of that price tag is lifetime costs over the next 100 years - in other words, $5 million per year, or less than one third of the city's cycling budget. Out of the other half, around three quarters has to be spent no matter what the city decides to do. The actual amount of money that can be saved by removing the Gardiner isn't a whole lot.

And I'll ask again, since you dodged my question the first time: How is adding 100,000+ cars per day onto surface streets compatible with the goal of reducing the number of cars on those streets and making those streets safer for people who walk and bike?
 
amnesiajune said:
Half of that price tag is lifetime costs over the next 100 years - in other words, $5 million per year, or less than one third of the city's cycling budget. Out of the other half, around three quarters has to be spent no matter what the city decides to do. The actual amount of money that can be saved by removing the Gardiner isn't a whole lot.

And I'll ask again, since you dodged my question the first time: How is adding 100,000+ cars per day onto surface streets compatible with the goal of reducing the number of cars on those streets and making those streets safer for people who walk and bike?
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Nice try - https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...ses-spark-the-end-of-the-gardiner-keenan.html

As to your second point, since safety is obviously paramount, perhaps you should have considered reducing the total number of cars under that scheme? I mean, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating - and if you are not willing to make adjustment on the basis of safety, you never really cared for it in the first place (like, reducing inbound capacity also equate to lessening the number of cars in the core area - surely that's a net benefit from a safety perspective?) To argue freeway is your preferred alternative because you are concerned about pedestrian safety is rather too convenient not to be called out. It's never been about that - it's always been about ease of access for drivers.

AoD
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
Nice try - https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...ses-spark-the-end-of-the-gardiner-keenan.html
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A removal would also rely on that $820 million of federal funding. Losing that funding has no impact on the cost difference between removal and partial removal.

AlvinofDiaspar said:
As to your second point, since safety is obviously paramount, perhaps you should have considered reducing the total number of cars under that scheme?
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Obviously it would be safer to get rid of those cars entirely, but we don't have a magic wand to do that. The closest thing we have is a road that completely separates those cars from bikes and pedestrians for most of their journey (and the part of their journey where there are a lot more pedestrians and bikes).
 
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