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

innsertnamehere said:
it's far from bankrupting the city, don't be dramatic.

As large as the Gardiner capital program is, it's pennies compared to the capital spending the city is spending on transit. The Bloor-Yonge Capacity expansion alone is basically equal to the entire Gardiner capital program. The TTC 10-year capital plan is roughly 15 times the size of the Gardiner program.

The only reason the Gardiner is "50%" of the transportation budget is because of accounting purposes where most major transportation expenses are separated out, which is really mostly transit.
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As others have pointed out, the way in which you presented those numbers from a purely financial standpoint is misleading. However, the greater misrepresentation is that you fail to mention that the Gardiner carries a fraction of the people the TTC/GO does, in a manner which is polluting some some of the densest areas in Canada will stifling full development from taking off along the waterfront.
 
DSC said:
Yes, the TTC are masters at putting forward a project without noting that IF it is approved there will be lots of other projects that will become essential! That is the kind of thing Councillors and Board members OUGHT to be looking for, but seldom seem to do so.
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Considering who gets selected to the board, I'd say that oversight is by design. Honestly, I am not even sure why we bother having a board and carries on this charade.

AoD
 
Ah yes, it's as if counsillors haven't learned anything from the Scarborough RT screw up but here we are...again with a similar exercise. I especially love how some of them are saying that this will "destroy" our waterfront if this proceeds, as if most of our waterfront isn't already a laughable excuse of a joke.

Nevertheless, the staff presentation is really insightful.
 
DSC said:
Staff have made a presentation to the Infrastructure Committee, meeting still discussing it. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/ie/bgrd/backgroundfile-235026.pdf
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Love this comment in the presentation as it partly true, but being effect by the OL now. Has nothing to due in away to Commissioner St Loop

"Delays to Waterfront East LRT due to realignment of Lake Shore at Cherry Street"

Otherwise, still needs to come down.

Still say put the LRT line back on the Lakeshore as first plan.
 
I'd like to see city staff present an option where

1) Jarvis to cherry is retained (solely because it's been completed)

2) demolish the existing elevated Gardiner east of cherry

3) partially build new elevated Gardiner from cherry to DVP along the hybrid 3 alignment just enough to get the new ramps east of Cherry

4) realign Lakeshore Blvd per the design in place today

5) defer the elevated structure beyond the cherry ramps to the future (but really never)

One could argue this is the approved EA scheme, and it's just phased. With the last phase deferred to the future (never). This would retain most of the current design work that staff are up in arms about revisiting, but simply defer construction of most of the elevated structure to a far future phase (never).

This would mean no direct connection between the dvp and elevated Gardiner. We might need to redesign the Don Roadway to Lakeshore intersection, but we'd save on building tons of elevated structure.
 
I mean if you ramp down from Cherry, you would basically just ramp right back up again immediately afterwards. I'm really not sure how much that would save, and it would make the Gardiner feel like a roller coaster ride. Looking at the renderings in the presentation above, it looks like it would be at-grade for literally a single block.

deferring the elevated connection to the DVP would destroy traffic in the area. The "time added" number for commuters would be a whole lot more than 5 mins. The intersection of the DVP and Lakeshore would also just be insane in terms of volume, completely hostile to pedestrians and cyclists with cars desperately trying to clear turning movements on an intersection which is vastly overloaded.

The point of the presentation is that we are deep into this now, there isn't much point of reverting course on it. Ultimately the rebuilt Gardiner is going to be much smaller than it's existing configuration and will represent only a marginal, if any, additional cost over at-grading it.
 
jmi22 said:
As others have pointed out, the way in which you presented those numbers from a purely financial standpoint is misleading. However, the greater misrepresentation is that you fail to mention that the Gardiner carries a fraction of the people the TTC/GO does, in a manner which is polluting some some of the densest areas in Canada will stifling full development from taking off along the waterfront.
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A single road carries less people than a massive transportation network, surprise! Doesn't make it a failure or not worthy of investment or not important. My point was that the Gardiner is far from bankrupting the City and that the Gardiner is absolutely not 50% of the city's capital budget in any way whatsoever. It's likely barely even 2% of the total annual capital spend of the city, and the amount saved by demolishing the Eastern Gardiner is a fraction of even that.

Looking at the waterfront, I don't think the Gardiner has "stifled" much of any thing, and indeed, I'm of the opinion the 10-lane Lakeshore which is required to replace the Gardiner would be far more hostile to pedestrians and development than a 2-lane elevated expressway pushed up against the rail corridor would be.
 
City staff say approximately $500 million earmarked for the project has been spent or committed to in contracts. The city said Friday an additional $770 million is set aside in the city's 10-year capital budget for work still planned to begin in 2026.

The project represents approximately 14 per cent of the city's overall 10-year capital plan, Stephen Conforti, the executive director of the city's Financial Planning Division, said in a statement.

Approximately $60 million is set aside to be spent on the project in 2023, which is 14 per cent of the city transportation department's $435-million capital budget.

But city staff warned this week that the cost of the other work on Lake Shore Boulevard needs updated costing.That includes "public realm" construction, utility relocations, and electrical work. Staff could provide updated projections for that as soon as next month.

"The estimate did not account for the significant inflation that's being experienced on construction projects," City Manager Paul Johnson warned in a report to council this week.

This comes at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has driven up the city's budget gap to $1.5 billion for combined costs in 2022 and 2023.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gardiner-east-project-debate-1.6744630
 
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innsertnamehere said:
A single road carries less people than a massive transportation network, surprise! Doesn't make it a failure or not worthy of investment or not important. My point was that the Gardiner is far from bankrupting the City and that the Gardiner is absolutely not 50% of the city's capital budget in any way whatsoever. It's likely barely even 2% of the total annual capital spend of the city, and the amount saved by demolishing the Eastern Gardiner is a fraction of even that.

Looking at the waterfront, I don't think the Gardiner has "stifled" much of any thing, and indeed, I'm of the opinion the 10-lane Lakeshore which is required to replace the Gardiner would be far more hostile to pedestrians and development than a 2-lane elevated expressway pushed up against the rail corridor would be.
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Again misrepresenting statistics. The Gardiner does not carry less people than a 'massive network', it carry's under half the riders of the crosstown subway line alone, Bloor Danforth. And no a 10 lane lakeshore is not required, nore will it ever happen. The goal is a shift in the form of transportation mode into the downtown, not simply doing it on a level road instead of an elevated one. The best regional rail line in Canada exists directly parallel to the highway, which already carry's over double the amount of commuters the Gardiner does. This, as well as expanded TTC service has the capacity to absorb every single Gardiner driver overnight.

In terms of cost, even if one accepts your false claim that the Gardiner represents 2% of the annual budget, would still make it a massive money pit in order to deliver only 8% of downtown commuters on a daily basis. That's ignoring the potential for land sales, property taxes, population increase and the cost saving resulting from lower general downtown road network maintenance and emergency responses to the frequent crashes on the Gardiner.
 
Again, I never said it was busier than the subway system, or even one line. I'm not sure why you are saying I'm "misrepresenting" it when I never made such a claim. I claimed that the total spend on the Gardiner was small compared to the TTC capital spend, and that it was far from 50% of the total annual capital spend of the city. Which is true.

And apologies, Lakeshore was planned to be a meagre 9 lanes if the Gardiner was removed:

gardiner-before-and-after.jpg


And again, it's very important to frame this discussion properly in what is actually being discussed. The options are not spending $2 billion to rehabilitate the Gardiner or $0 to not. The original option in 2016 was to spend $2 billion to keep the east Gardiner, or $1.7 billion (IIRC) to demolish and construct an urban boulevard in the east end. $300 million difference, and that was in 2016.

It's now 2023, and the City has partially implemented the hybrid plan now. That $300 million savings has evaporated. Demolition may actually cost more up front now, and in my opinion results in the creation of a traffic sewer at grade which will be much worse for the pedestrian experience than a small elevated connection would be.

Perhaps demolishing the East Gardiner now would result in some minor amount of additional land which could be developed. Perhaps it would result in lower long term maintenance costs over the period of decades. But we would get that at a delayed, higher up front cost at this point, and would result in objectively worse transportation results with significantly longer travel times and a much worse pedestrian experience.

Perhaps keeping the Gardiner in 2016 was a political decision - but to change course now and demolish it today would be equally political.
 
It seems like a difficult decision even for myself, while I partially support the removal of the gardiner I also see massive potential issues with removing it.

First of all I think we should have a more robust public transportation network before we even dare remove the gardiner.

There are many possible solutions to this situation, but also alot of possible problems like what @innsertnamehere said in his post about padestrian safety, especially with construction booming downtown.
 
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