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

Jasmine18 said:
Lol a 6 to 8 lane boulevard with massive backlogs seems like a nightmare.


It cant be high speed and would have to be pedestrian friendly meaning it be very bad at moving traffic.

Now if we make it with pedestrians bridges then it be good maybe.

Best option would be to tunnel it from cne to DVp with exit only at spadina York and jarvis.

That's the only real long term solution.
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There is no justification for that east of Jarvis.

East of Jarvis the Gardiner doesn't really move all that many people.

West of Jarvis would require replacement capacity. That replacement need not be tunneled highway, though certainly some road capacity is part of the equation.
 
urbanflight said:
You aren't reading what I am saying, you keep distorting my posts.

Demolishing AND transforming the Gardiner into an urban boulevard at-grade could save the city at least $500 million in the short term, after the project is completed. I did not say that reviewing the current archaic project would free up billions of dollars right away.

The current situation is that the city has budgeted $2.205-billion on repairs to the Gardiner. So obviously demolishing it would enable the city to make alternatives & better investments in the future. In other words, the city won't be $2.205-billion poorer due to an archaic highway. By the way, that figure doesn't even include the cost of road pollution (air & noise, and lack of greenery).
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You initially posted a tweet that said "'Cool, so tear down the Gardiner and you still have some pocket change to support other programs." with regard to a $1.35 billion deficit.

This suggests that cancelling the Gardiner would save an amount at least somewhat greater than $1.35 billion.

That's what I was correcting. The amount would be less than 1/3 that, $400 million.

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.
 
Issue I have is that all the downtown roads south of front get lof jammed with cars making it a hostile environment for pedestrians and just undesirable.


If a boulevard ignores moving traffic your pedestrian and urban friendly fatnasty will just be a noisy polluting parking lot most of the day.


So unless the boulevard moves traffic well.
 
innsertnamehere said:
You initially posted a tweet that said "'Cool, so tear down the Gardiner and you still have some pocket change to support other programs." with regard to a $1.35 billion deficit.

This suggests that cancelling the Gardiner would save an amount at least somewhat greater than $1.35 billion.

That's what I was correcting. The amount would be less than 1/3 that, $400 million.
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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.

innsertnamehere said:
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.
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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.

Jasmine18 said:
Issue I have is that all the downtown roads south of front get lof jammed with cars making it a hostile environment for pedestrians and just undesirable.


If a boulevard ignores moving traffic your pedestrian and urban friendly fatnasty will just be a noisy polluting parking lot most of the day.


So unless the boulevard moves traffic well.
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The Gardiner is a barrier to the lake, but frankly I don't see how an 8 (or even 6) lane "boulevard" is much better. Sounds like just another traffic sewer to me and doesn't sound any more pedestrian friendly.
 
kali said:
The Gardiner is a barrier to the lake, but frankly I don't see how an 8 (or even 6) lane "boulevard" is much better. Sounds like just another traffic sewer to me and doesn't sound any more pedestrian friendly.
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How about a 4 lane Gardiner and a 4 lane Lake Shore?
 
kali said:
The Gardiner is a barrier to the lake, but frankly I don't see how an 8 (or even 6) lane "boulevard" is much better. Sounds like just another traffic sewer to me and doesn't sound any more pedestrian friendly.
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8 lanes is a non-starter. 6 isn't ideal but could be made to work.

East of Jarvis could be 4.

Hard not to do six for portions of the core; but not impossible with enough alternative investment in transit etc.

Keeping in mind that the current Lakeshore is already six; I don't have a problem with six that no longer has the ugly overhang and can now be lined with trees.

That said, the immediate project is about the section east of Jarvis.

There is no project proposal (nor was there) in recent times to replace the balance of the freeway.

So one thing at a time.

The section east of Jarvis can easily be made to work at six lanes, and maybe driven down to 4 and either way would be a marked improvement over the current situation or the hybrid.
 
Haydenpoon said:
How about a 4 lane Gardiner and a 4 lane Lake Shore?
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While an interesting idea in certain respects, it would have one clear problem, money; it wouldn't produce any savings to speak of; and its unlikely to free up enough additional land to offset any costs.
 
Haydenpoon said:
How about a 4 lane Gardiner and a 4 lane Lake Shore?
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Would be nice to also install an aesthetically pleasing noise barrier like the Sound Tube in Melbourne.

soundtube-800x480.jpg

Image source

@Northern Light was there any EA done for the section west of Jarvis? I imagine if we were to take down the Gardiner, we wouldn't just do the bit to Jarvis first and leave the rest in place for a few years while an EA was underway.
 
Would also be nice if it were tolled, like just about every stretch of expressway in Sydney.
 
kali said:
@Northern Light was there any EA done for the section west of Jarvis? I imagine if we were to take down the Gardiner, we wouldn't just do the bit to Jarvis first and leave the rest in place for a few years while an EA was underway.
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No.

There was that the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Taskforce (Fung Report) which proposed dropping the Gardiner to grade (Lakeshore and other streets) in conjunction with the Front Street West Extension (or a variant thereof).


The idea was not pursued.

The plan as then proposed is no longer workable, due to subsequent changes in development and the road network; although it could be a jumping off point.

While another study would be nice in the longer term; the only thing on the table right now is east of Jarvis; and I don't see putting that on hold for a decade or more while we sort out the west side.
 
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