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

In June 2020 Council approved this Report:


Authority to Enter Into a Project Delivery Agreement with Waterfront Toronto for the Design of Lake Shore Boulevard East, Don River to Logan​
City Council Decision​
City Council on June 29 and 30, 2020, adopted the following:

1. City Council authorize the City to enter into a Project Delivery Agreement with Waterfront Toronto (the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation) for the completion of the design, cost estimate and traffic impact assessment for Lake Shore Boulevard East including a new bridge over the Don River on terms and conditions satisfactory to the Deputy City Manager, Infrastructure and Development Services and in a form satisfactory to the City Solicitor..

In November 2020 the Waterfront Toronto FARM Committee will vote on a motion reading:

ON MOTION duly made, seconded, and carried, be it RESOLVED that the Finance, Audit and Risk Management Committee recommends to Board of Directors for approval: a) the incremental Capital expenditure of $147.24M to complete the Lake Shore Boulevard East – Bridge and Public Realm project construction (the “Project”), SUBJECT TO approval from City Council and execution of a funding agreement with the City of Toronto; b) the Project be constructed by Ellis Don Civil Construction (ED) under the existing PLFP Construction Management Agreement between and WT; and c) the Project being added to the Corporation’s Rolling Five-Year Strategic Plan (2021/22 – 2025/26).

Details are in the FARM Committee meeting documents for 26 November 2020. are at: https://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/nbe...mber+26,+2020+(updated+11-24).pdf?MOD=AJPERES​
 
Rainforest said:
This touches two separate issues. The loss of fuel tax revenue is inevitable, whether the new electric transportation is dominated by public transit or personal vehicles. We can't lament about the fossil fuel being evil, and at the same time maintain that we can't stop using it because it creates irreplaceable tax revenues.

Regarding the use of urban real estate: it is likely that any kind of personal vehicles will remain less efficient (compared to public transit), but some improvements can be made. For example, autonomous vehicles may be able to hook themselves into a train made of 5 / 10 / 20 units, and travel the common / most congested section of their route in that fashion. That would save the road space because the bundled vehicles wouldn't need to maintain the 2 seconds gap. The gap is legally required between independently moving vehicles to prevent collisions; each vehicle must be able to break and stop if the vehicle ahead stops suddenly. But if the vehicles are physically connected, the gap wouldn't be required.
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Did you just invent the bus 🤔;)
 
DtTO said:
Unfortunately? For the price of the "Big Dig", we could build 5 subway lines. I'll take 5 subway lines and either keep the Gardiner or turn it into a non-grade separated parkway. There's nothing remotely visionary or admirable about that catastrophe.
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Burying the expressway was only one part of the Big Dig. And the length that will bury the Gardiner is a lot smaller than what they did in Boston.

So Costs will be significantly less than the Big Dig.
 
Mercenary said:
Burying the expressway was only one part of the Big Dig. And the length that will bury the Gardiner is a lot smaller than what they did in Boston.

So Costs will be significantly less than the Big Dig.
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85% of the "Big Dig" funding came from the US federal government (final total cost was $24.3 billion by 2007). The rest from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Do you really think the Canadian and provincial governments would chip in to fund burying a "local" road like the Gardiner Expressway. Toronto can't get permission to toll the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.
 
W. K. Lis said:
85% of the "Big Dig" funding came from the US federal government (final total cost was $24.3 billion by 2007). The rest from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Do you really think the Canadian and provincial governments would chip in to fund burying a "local" road like the Gardiner Expressway. Toronto can't get permission to toll the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway.
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Absolutely not.

Maybe if an earthquake happens in Toronto and Gardiner collapses only then will they decide to bury it. Which wont happen.
 
Why Highway Teardowns Make Great Infrastructure (and Equity) Investments

https://twitter.com/x/status/1337080517125148676

As Washington lawmakers look to big infrastructure projects to get Americans back to work after the pandemic, progressives are making the case that the money would be best spent tearing down urban highways — and reinvesting in the Black and brown communities torn apart by those bad road projects decades ago.

In a groundbreaking new policy proposal, nonprofits Transportation for America and Third Way recommended that the next administration create a new, $5-billion competitive grant program that states could draw on to tear down their misguided downtown highways and redevelop the land that’s left behind in better ways.

But notably, the proposal also specifies that all that newly highway-free land would be held in trust for the benefit of the communities that surround it — communities that, often, are the direct descendants of Black and brown residents whose lives were upended when the highways were built in the first place. The groups say spending the money is essential to maximizing the antiracist potential of the major transportation investment.

“[The land trust idea] is really key to regenerating wealth in communities that highway projects helped bankrupt in the first place,” said Alex Laska, transportation policy adviser at Third Way. “It’s really important to talk about not just the economic benefits of highway removal, but how to make sure that the people who already live there see that benefit.”

The proposal offers a kind of restorative justice redux on the “Highways to Boulevards” concept that has been popular in urbanist circles for decades. Ever since the Federal Highway Act of 1956 handed state DOTs a hefty incentive to use heavily-subsidized highway projects as a pretext to clear BIPOC neighborhoods, mobility justice advocates have argued that highway removal projects could be key to repairing the harm wrought by the urban renewal era — but worried that doing it could precipitate gentrification that could destroy Black and brown communities all over again.

Despite those well-founded fears, at least 18 American cities have already torn down urban highways, usually citing the comparatively low costs of highway removal and local redevelopment when stacked against the staggering costs of maintaining the infrastructure. The only question is whether the local economic windfalls those removals often precipitate can be channeled into the Black and brown communities that have been ravaged by highway programs in the past — and help those same communities recover from the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19.

Housing reparations, meet infrastructure reparations

Though it could fit neatly into a COVID-19 relief bill or an infrastructure stimulus bill — both of which are likely to be among the first priorities for the next administration — a highway teardown bill wouldn’t just be about roadways.

Central to T4A and Third Way’s proposal is the concept of the community land trust, a land management model that can help low-income communities retain more control over their development future. Under the model, the community collectively owns and leases out the land upon which buildings in their community sit, but still allows individuals to develop and own buildings themselves. Among other benefits, the model allows the trust to set limits on things like the sale price of new developments, which can keep housing and commercial spaces affordable in perpetuity — preventing the kind of rapid gentrification by big developers that some cities have experienced when they’ve opened up new downtown land by tearing out a highway.
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north-of-anything said:
I, for one, love how "Streetsblog USA" used an image of the Gardiner for their typical American urban expressway. Look at the exit sign on the bottom right, it's the westbound exit onto Spadina!
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And how the article talks about the marginalized minority communities that line urban freeways, and then provides a picture of a bunch of million dollar condos... lol
 
Don't think they are many elevated expressways in USA which are flanked on both sides by high rises. Boston and Seattle both demolished theirs.
 
Madrid's City Council has enacted the demolition of another of theirs flyovers / overpasses road. The neighbors have been demanding its demolition for decades.

It actually comes as a nice surprise, since the current mayor is a right-wing conservative. Hopefully Toronto would be next one day.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1343682028273860614

https://twitter.com/x/status/1053262956652384256

This year alone, a 4th flyover / overpass road has been demolished.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1333505236930097152
 
urbanflight said:
Why Highway Teardowns Make Great Infrastructure (and Equity) Investments

https://twitter.com/x/status/1337080517125148676
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Buffalo is likely to see its Skyway demolished. The Governor seems committed to the idea.

But there is much debate over whether preliminary plans for its replacement at-grade road go far enough in terms of pedestrian-priority and re-urbanization.

www.cnu.org

Buffalo needs a true boulevard to replace Skyway traffic

Current NYSDOT proposals prioritize the high—speed movement of automobiles—the design should be improved to focus on safety and community.
www.cnu.org www.cnu.org
 
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