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

[TheTigerMaster]

Nice try - https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...ses-spark-the-end-of-the-gardiner-keenan.html

Did Council ever approve spending another $1 Billion the cost overruns?

 

[salsa]

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.

Right. Because somehow the image on the right represents the kind of urban design and pedestrian experience that Vision Zero advocates are supposed to deem acceptable.

Furthermore, if you actually read the materials or talked to the consultants at the public meetings, it was concluded that the boulevard would be safer for all road users for a variety of reasons.

If we want to get rid of barriers to the waterfront, we need to get rid of actual barriers like Lakeshore Boulevard...

You say this, pretending as if the configuration of Lakeshore has nothing do with the fact that there are Gardiner ramps and columns that interact with it all over the place. As if the opportunities to improve Lakeshore are unconstrained by any of that.

 

[Reno eagle]

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?

I agree with your points. Even though the expressway is cumbersome in what it's doing to the downtown core area in terms of space, the functionality though...
Adding more cars onto surface roads will paralyze the city and definitely not make city streets safer for bikers/pedestrians.

 

[jaybe]

Unfortunately, the hybrid replacement for the Gardiner makes sense for the long term. Some say that there won't be much of a delay if we build a nice boulevard and tear down the Gardiner from Jarvis. I've heard comparisons made to University Avenue. I've regularly traveled along University from Front to Bloor at noon. I had to budget 30 minutes of drive time. Sometimes it was much faster, maybe 15 minutes. Most of the time it was 20-25 minutes. Note, I appreciate the distance from Jarvis to Lever is 2km and the distance from Front to Bloor is 2.8km.

The long-term plans to redevelop the Lever property with GO, DRL and streetcar access will also need to be accessible to car commuters from the west. Replacing the Gardiner with a boulevard would look great but could have an unintended consequence of making the Lever area very difficult for cars to access. If true, growth in the area would be restrained.

 

[Lyphe]

Rip it down please.

I've traveled to enough great cities around the world to realize that any other city aspiring for tier 1 status would convert it to a Grant Boulevard.
Toronto is a destination, not a place you drive through.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Rip it down please.

I've traveled to enough great cities around the world to realize that any other city aspiring for tier 1 status would convert it to a Grant Boulevard.
Toronto is a destination, not a place you drive through.

Yes because ripping out an express way with no plans for where the traffic that uses it daily will go is such a good idea. Maybe we should get rid of the lakeshore and put bike lanes along it and everyone coming into Toronto will get on bikes. The argument that everyone else tore down their equivalent highway is getting old because most of them replaced it with something else, except for San Francisco but it's different story altogether. If the gardener is torn down the lake shore would have to be at 12 lanes wide to handle the extra traffic on it.

 

[ADRM]

If the gardener is torn down the lake shore would have to be at 12 lanes wide to handle the extra traffic on it.

It's pretty strange how often this is presented as fact when in reality it is an expression of opinion.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

It's pretty strange how often this is presented as fact when in reality it is an expression of opinion.

Neither side relly has any proof about what would happen if the Gardner is taken down. I just don't understand why it;s so important to people that it is taken down. It currently serves a purpose whether you like it or not it allows traffic to get from the east end of the city to the west end of the city unimpeded by traffic lights. Much like the 401 does in the north.

 

[ADRM]

Neither side relly has any proof about what would happen if the Gardner is taken down. I just don't understand why it;s so important to people that it is taken down. It currently serves a purpose whether you like it or not it allows traffic to get from the east end of the city to the west end of the city unimpeded by traffic lights. Much like the 401 does in the north.

Yeah, I don't really understand how you can assert that, though; the product literally of hundreds of hours of recent study by expert engineers and planners was a recommendation to tear down the Gardiner East.

Also, just because something serves a purpose doesn't mean that the extant method of service is the most desirable one, nor does it mean that the opportunity cost is too significant to contemplate the alternative.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Yeah, I don't really understand how you can assert that, though; the product literally of hundreds of hours of recent study by expert engineers and planners was a recommendation to tear down the Gardiner East.

One small section isn't comparable to taking the whole thing down but the thing is you can make assessments say anything you want it to like that the poulation on shpard will incrse to the point taht we will have 6 car trains on line 4 by now.

 

[UD2]

Yeah, I don't really understand how you can assert that, though; the product literally of hundreds of hours of recent study by expert engineers and planners was a recommendation to tear down the Gardiner East.

Also, just because something serves a purpose doesn't mean that the extant method of service is the most desirable one, nor does it mean that the opportunity cost is too significant to contemplate the alternative.

Removing infrastructure at a time where we are struggling to build new ones is undesirable.

If we are keen to redevelop the area around the gardiner, we can wait until the public transit infrastructure is in place before it happens.

The Gardiner discussion should happen after the RER on Richmond Hill Line, DRL Long and Smart Trek projects are completed. So let’s wait 40 years. The developers already have enough profits and we don’t need to destroy existing city infrastructure to feed them more.

In the mean time there are other areas that desperately need development. Such as Consumer Rd area and all of Scarborough.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

From the Feb WT DRP:

http://waterfrontoronto.ca/nbe/wcm/...b499d8698/GardinerEast_DRPFeb.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

AoD

 

[Leo_Chan]

From the Feb WT DRP:

http://waterfrontoronto.ca/nbe/wcm/...b499d8698/GardinerEast_DRPFeb.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

AoD

Is it just me, or is waterfrontoronto.com down?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Is it just me, or is waterfrontoronto.com down?

Sorry just you.

AoD

 

[ponyboy]

Just read the report that AoD posted about the linear park proposed along the new Gardiner. I think it is misguided to think that people will dwell in this linear park along a very noisy and active highway (Lake Shore below, Gardiner above). The renderings (below) depict a lush place where moms will push strollers, kids will hang out on rocks, and everybody will pretend they're hanging out at waters edge. Just because the shoreline was once here doesn't mean we should pay homage with this green and rocky outdoor shoreline along the highway. At heart here in my view is a moral discomfort with any new high capacity autocentric infrastructure, so it must be tamed with grandiose naturalizing of that space even if that doesn't work well for an highly urbanized pedestrian corridor. Maybe that is just how it is presented for public consumption, but I don't think it will work as depicted. It would be better to treat it like the infrastructure it needs to be, and invest perhaps no more money in separating the cars from people on bikes and on foot, using a glass wall. Something like exists under the rail corridor along Bay could be a decent model (pictured). Buildings could be built right along this enclosed corridor, and residents could step out into bike- and pedestrian-friendly corridor. Developers could help build this corridor if they were allowed to build a bit closer to the Gardiner. This would be a more appropriate urbanized vision for multi-modal mobility.