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

jje1000 said:
The wealthy executives and their cars coming down from Rosedale and the wealthy portions of North Toronto and York? Sort of reminds me of the time when drivers made a fit about removing the reversible lane on Jarvis because of the inconvenience it would cause.

Personally I would imagine driving into the Financial District in as a status of convenience, as parking rates are a bit too expensive to be sustainable for the average middle class.
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Downtown is a wider area than the financial core. It runs from Bathurst to the DVP and the lake up to north of Bloor.

Parking rates in much of that area run in the $150-400 range, which is expensive but manageable for an upper middle class family. Or, well, at least 20% of incomes, because 20% of commuters do it.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Since the Lake Shore off ramp is moving from Booth Avenue to Cherry, the stretch of the Gardiner from about Parliament to the DVP will be 4 lanes, compared to the current 8 lanes. West of that it will be 6 lanes like the current configuration beyond a small 4 lane section westbound from the Lake Shore on-ramp to the Yonge Street off-ramp.

It's easy to forget that the Hybrid solution getting built is actually going to effectively demolish another 600m or so of the highway (the Lake Shore ramps), create a much smaller structure for another 800m or so, as well as shifting the highway north from the Keating Channel.

The highway is going to be a lot less oppressive than it is today, it'll feel a lot smaller east of Parliament.

West of Parliament the highway will be more or less the same as today though.
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The change in the road is really only east of Cherry, not Parliament. The ramps will split off there and as a result there will be less elevated roadway in the section leading towards the river. But I was referring to the eight-lane monster that runs between Jarvis and Cherry. That is essentially staying the way it is, with no physical reduction in the width, though we can hope it will look a little less ugly after a rehab.

My point was that the east part Gardiner structure is built in such a way that consideration could have been given to knocking half of it down and leaving 4 lanes between Yonge and Cherry, since that would likely carry nearly all the current traffic, with improvements to Lakeshore. An expressway diet. The snip below shows what I mean. Removing 1 pillar and part of the beam of each bent, and the section of the roadway above, would carve 50 feet off of the width and make improving the area easier.

209585
 
innsertnamehere said:
Downtown is a wider area than the financial core. It runs from Bathurst to the DVP and the lake up to north of Bloor.

Parking rates in much of that area run in the $150-400 range, which is expensive but manageable for an upper middle class family. Or, well, at least 20% of incomes, because 20% of commuters do it.
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Meanwhile others companies pay for it. My father started taking the subway downtown. Then moved to go train. Then for about 5 years he paid for parking. And then for the last 15 years his company paid for it.
 
If we tear down the Gardiner, what would be done with the DVP and in the west end? (the stubs that would remain after the elevated portion is torn down - where would they connect).
 
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Harmful air pollution 'definitely too high for the public' near city roads, study suggests

Growth in SUVs, pickup truck sales blamed for rising ‘non-tailpipe’ emissions

From link.


Air pollution levels are "definitely too high for the public" near major roadways in Canadian cities — especially at rush hour and in winter — and poorly maintained diesel trucks are largely to blame, says the lead author of a new study that monitored pollutants in Vancouver and Toronto over two years.

The study — led by Greg Evans, director of the Southern Ontario Centre for Atmospheric Aerosol Research at the University of Toronto — was motivated by an earlier discovery that nearly 30 per cent of Canadians, including about half of Toronto's residents, live within 250 metres of a major roadway.

Meanwhile, growth in online shopping and delivery is boosting the number of heavy, diesel-powered vehicles cruising through our cities. Freight is the fastest growing sector within transportation, according to the Pembina Institute, a think-tank focused on clean energy.
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"Diesel exhaust is a human carcinogen," said Evans. "And the concentrations of diesel exhaust exposure that we saw surprised me."

The levels were higher than the allowed exposure for workers in the Netherlands, he said. "That's definitely too high for the public."

The study, done in collaboration with Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks and Metro Vancouver, was released Wednesday.

Pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, ozone, sulphur dioxide and particulates are responsible for 7,700 premature deaths in Canada each year, and deaths and illness due to air pollution cost Canada $36 billion in 2015, according to a 2017 study from the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

Nitrogen dioxide levels measured in the new study mean it will be difficult to achieve the air-quality standards being proposed by the federal government for 2020 next to major roads, Evans said. In fact, it found levels exceeding those standards even 150 metres away from major roads.
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The study recorded roadside levels of black carbon in a range associated with an elevated lifetime risk of lung cancer.

Other major findings of the study were that:

  • Most of the pollution recorded beside major roads, including 80 per cent of nitrogen monoxide and 60 per cent of black carbon, came from local traffic.
  • Emissions, especially of nitrogen oxides, were far worse in winter. Evans said that's because vehicle systems designed to reduce those emissions, such as catalytic converters are "really not designed for the Canadian climate" and work poorly in cold temperatures.
  • "Non-tailpipe" emissions — that is, metal-rich dust from tire and brake wear — increased over two years. That is blamed on the growing popularity of SUVs and pickup trucks, which cause more tire and brake wear because they're heavier. (They also generate more greenhouse gas emissions.)
  • Pollution levels weren't directly related to the number of vehicles: One roadway in Vancouver had similar pollution levels to a Toronto portion of Highway 401, which has more than a dozen lanes and carries 10 times more traffic.

"That really changes how we have to think about exposure in cities," Evans said...
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India's capital restricts cars amid extreme smog

See link.

'It is so difficult to breathe — the air is choking,' New Delhi resident says

New Delhi restricted many private vehicles from the roads Monday to try to lessen pollution as people gasped and their eyes burned in toxic smog that exacerbated a public health crisis.

The "odd-even" scheme will restrict private vehicles with odd-number licence plates to driving on odd dates while even-numbered plates are allowed on even-numbered dates. It was begun days after authorities in the Indian capital began emergency control measures and ordered the closure of schools as pollution levels reached a three-year high.

The state-run Central Pollution Control Board's air quality index for New Delhi was "severe" at 436, about nine times the recommended maximum.

Traffic police officers, wearing protective masks, signalled cars to stop for not following the temporary rule. New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal appealed for residents to follow the rule and for private taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers to support it.

Authorities said almost 1.2 million registered vehicles in Delhi will be off-road every day during the two-week restrictions....
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Meanwhile, in Seattle...

From this link...

Tunnel traffic down 20% on first workday with tolls

On the first workday of tolls in the new State Route 99 tunnel, state transportation officials measured a 20% drop in morning tunnel traffic compared to an average Tuesday.

That's less of a drop than they were expecting, but one day is not enough to sense a trend.

In the coming weeks, city officials plan to collect traffic data on downtown streets and SR 99 off-ramps to figure out how many drivers are changing routes to avoid the tolls.

Tolls on the new tunnel started Saturday, but with Veterans Day on Monday, the first regular commute came Tuesday.

Tolls range from $1 to $2.25, depending on the time of day.

During the afternoon drive, tunnel traffic moved swiftly.
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