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

[milkycontent]

Except, for, you know, the report which was submitted to council in February of this year..

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/mpb/comm/communicationfile-165804.pdf

Over $500 million has already been spent by the city on Gardiner East.



None of what I am saying is an "uninformed opinion". At all.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gardiner-expressway-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-options-1.3033963

Gardiner East "hybrid" was estimated to have a capital cost of $414 million and $505 million for operations and maintenance over the anticipated 100-year lifecycle. So a total of $919 million.

Gardiner east "removal" was estimated to have a cost of $326-million in up front in capital costs and $135-million for operations and maintenance costs over the anticipated 100-year lifecycle. So a total of $426 million.

So sure, Removal would have saved $458 million, over 100 years. But we have already spent $350 million+ now which would be "throwaway".

Returning to the "hybrid" option would likely increase short term capital costs as there was only a difference of $88 million in up front capital costs between the two.. Lots of cost escalation has occurred since then increasing costs, but I imagine not so much as to offset the $350 million we would be throwing away by switching now.

The city has made the decision on the matter. The city has spent hundreds of millions on it, including roughly half of the entire Gardiner East project. It's literally half-built. Switching now would throw away all of money spent so far, and negate the original cost savings of demolition.

This accounting fails to consider the value of the land that would be freed up as well as the property taxes that land would generate in perpetuity. Not to mention the massive improvement to the public realm we would gain. That's what you're paying for.
Quibbling over sunk costs on the big ugly road is penny wise and pound foolish. The best time to do the right thing was yesterday. The second best time is now.

 

[innsertnamehere]

This accounting fails to consider the value of the land that would be freed up as well as the property taxes that land would generate in perpetuity. Not to mention the massive improvement to the public realm we would gain. That's what you're paying for.
Quibbling over sunk costs on the big ugly road is penny wise and pound foolish. The best time to do the right thing was yesterday. The second best time is now.

perhaps - and I think that's what people who are supportive of the removal are hanging on to still.. but I disagree that the public realm would be substantially better with an 8-10 lane Lake Shore stuffed with traffic than it would be with a 4-6 lane Lake Shore and a 4 lane elevated Gardiner, and any cost savings must be viewed in the sense that they would not be realized for a generation or two for the wasted rebuild money to be recouped. At the very least demolishing the eastern Gardiner at this point would make the City's short-term financial situation worse, not better.

Remember as well that the "hybrid" option still represents a substantial shrinking of the Eastern Gardiner with the Lake Shore ramps shifted and the highway shrunk to 4 lanes east of Cherry.

 

[tstormers]

Except, for, you know, the report which was submitted to council in February of this year..

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/mpb/comm/communicationfile-165804.pdf

Over $500 million has already been spent by the city on Gardiner East.



None of what I am saying is an "uninformed opinion". At all.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gardiner-expressway-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-options-1.3033963

Gardiner East "hybrid" was estimated to have a capital cost of $414 million and $505 million for operations and maintenance over the anticipated 100-year lifecycle. So a total of $919 million.

Gardiner east "removal" was estimated to have a cost of $326-million in up front in capital costs and $135-million for operations and maintenance costs over the anticipated 100-year lifecycle. So a total of $426 million.

So sure, Removal would have saved $458 million, over 100 years. But we have already spent $350 million+ now which would be "throwaway".

Returning to the "hybrid" option would likely increase short term capital costs as there was only a difference of $88 million in up front capital costs between the two.. Lots of cost escalation has occurred since then increasing costs, but I imagine not so much as to offset the $350 million we would be throwing away by switching now.

The city has made the decision on the matter. The city has spent hundreds of millions on it, including roughly half of the entire Gardiner East project. It's literally half-built. Switching now would throw away all of money spent so far, and negate the original cost savings of demolition.

Also, this one.

Do we need to tear down the Gardiner Expressway?

A recent report prepared by Waterfront Toronto and the City touted the benefits of tearing down the eastern end of the Gardiner from Jarvis to the Don Valley Parkway, and replacing it with an eight lane boulevard style road.

www.caasco.com

I don't think most of the people saying to tear it down live in the east end nor take the DVP/Gardiner. I take it everyday and most days it is backed up. Might not look full but it does go from 2 lanes to 4 spreading out traffic. I am backed up on the ramps almost everyday going onto the DVP. Also, Lakeshore is already a mess with traffic. Imagine adding all of the traffic from the DVP to a road that is only one more lane wide and then add in the existing traffic nightmare getting on and off lakeshore at each light. Just look to the Allen at Eglinton for the backups at a highway with a light and the traffic on there pales in comparison to the DVP.

Downtown already has an issue with cars in intersections, inefficient lane markings (Wellington @ Blue Jays Way where two lanes go through an intersection to one without markings + others) and restrictions (no right on red, when it is single lane route) causing more traffic issues. (speaking that it takes 15 min on a good day to get from Adelaide to the Gardiner on almost every route during rush hour, (not including Jays games). I am of the opinion that some of the DT traffic management implementations are done in isolation rather than studied as a whole while sill achieving the vision zero goals.

I realize and accept that I am lucky to drive and a privilege, etc. but to rebuttal that is the fact that I used to take the TTC and it took me an hour each way everyday with 3 transfers, compared to 25-40min each way going home (Far side of East York). The transit in this city is far from adequate to change when time is a precious commodity. The article above and others have agreed with the addition of around 10 min extra to these commutes and if you live outside of Toronto, especially the east end of the GTA, I am betting these are underestimated especially when you think of the extra people that come to the GTA on a yearly basis that need to get around. Please post the reports that say all will be 3-4min more commute. Plus ever walked across some of the intersections in Mississauga and Brampton that are 8-10 lanes wide....great pedestrian experience. At least with a raised road you can activate it with the Bentway, basketball, art etc.

I am a big advocate for more transit, subways, lrt's, brt's, bike lanes. But when are these coming? Most are still napkin sketches, unfunded pipedreams (which I would love to have in this beautiful city). The OL is still 10 years from completion, Eg LRT took forever, which leads to believe any new funded ones will also take a decade each from design to opening.

This all on top of the council repeatedly accepting the hybrid option even a few months ago to continue, millions spent, signed for, planned and assessed, plus the Gardiner is already in need of replacement. Changing course would add almost 3 years in just the Environmental Assessment alone. How would things look if the already in need section falls apart enough during the redesign time that it is unusable/shutdown or added funds to keep it open when we could have had construction on schedule as it is currently (even if still too far away in my opinion). What a nightmare that would be adding to our international view of a city that flip flops with every new change in leadership and gets nothing built.

The hybrid option in my opinion is the best bet overall with everything considered even land development as by the time our city finally catches up with enough transit to sufficiently move the existing population around we can tear it down then and gain that land back, probably the entire Gardiner could go by then. I am positive I've missed saying something, but there is my opinion/thoughts.

 

[robmausser]

This accounting fails to consider the value of the land that would be freed up as well as the property taxes that land would generate in perpetuity. Not to mention the massive improvement to the public realm we would gain. That's what you're paying for.
Quibbling over sunk costs on the big ugly road is penny wise and pound foolish. The best time to do the right thing was yesterday. The second best time is now.

And the right thing to do, is to keep the Gardiner.

 

[milkycontent]

but I disagree that the public realm would be substantially better with an 8-10 lane Lake Shore stuffed with traffic than it would be with a 4-6 lane Lake Shore and a 4 lane elevated Gardiner,

Plus ever walked across some of the intersections in Mississauga and Brampton that are 8-10 lanes wide....great pedestrian experience. At least with a raised road you can activate it with the Bentway, basketball, art etc.

The elevated road or number of lanes is not really the thing that cause traffic or a bad public realm experience. It's the ramps.
A wide boulevard with normal intersections would be vastly superior to the car sewer of on-ramps and turning lanes we have now.
No amount of public art of basketball courts can fix this:

 

[Admiral Beez]

I don't think most of the people saying to tear it down live in the east end nor take the DVP/Gardiner. I take it everyday and most days it is backed up. Imagine adding all of the traffic from the DVP to a road that is only one more lane wide and then add in the existing traffic nightmare getting on and off lakeshore at each light. Just look to the Allen at Eglinton for the backups at a highway with a light and the traffic on there pales in comparison to the DVP.

The city needs to prevent those cars from entering the downtown core entirely. It's not about diverting cars from a torn-down Gardiner onto a wider or more efficient Lakeshore Blvd. or other arterial roads, but instead the cars that were on the Gardiner not belonging to 416 residents must be eliminated.

 

[innsertnamehere]

The elevated road or number of lanes is not really the thing that cause traffic or a bad public realm experience. It's the ramps.
A wide boulevard with normal intersections would be vastly superior to the car sewer of on-ramps and turning lanes we have now.
No amount of public art of basketball courts can fix this:
View attachment 488526

View attachment 488527

Good thing that second ramp is due for demolition and the first one is getting some changes:

Jarvis is probably the worst intersection on the Gardiner however, and likely would have remained so with demolition as it would have been the first intersection at the end of the expressway and would have remained full of aggressive driver behavior.

The remove option had 10 lanes to cross on the east side of the Jarvis intersection and 9 to cross on the west side.. 19 lanes total. This is 2 more lanes of traffic to cross over the existing configuration:

(note that this image isn't completely accurate as it does not show the large down-ramp west of Jarvis which would exist from the Gardiner)

 

[tstormers]

The elevated road or number of lanes is not really the thing that cause traffic or a bad public realm experience. It's the ramps.
A wide boulevard with normal intersections would be vastly superior to the car sewer of on-ramps and turning lanes we have now.
No amount of public art of basketball courts can fix this:
View attachment 488526

View attachment 488527

But the portion in the bottom photo is staying though that ramp i think is scheduled to close with the new ramp at Jarvis opens (can't remember what construction needs to be completed first).

As for the top one, the turning lanes will still exist as they will be needed to connect to the N/S roads, not much improvement other than open sky, but more lanes. The new section we are talking about will not have Lakeshore Blvd under it for a large section than is currently existing which would have room for the activation I mentioned. These at grade intersections are bad enough now, but the full boulevard option would need full dedicated turns/lighting to function well, which would also add to the negative wait times to cross the road.

 

[tstormers]

The city needs to prevent those cars from entering the downtown core entirely. It's not about diverting cars from a torn-down Gardiner onto a wider or more efficient Lakeshore Blvd. or other arterial roads, but instead the cars that were on the Gardiner not belonging to 416 residents must be eliminated.

Good luck with that! Would be nice.

Every major city in the world has traffic into it from outside its borders. The ones who have less have city centre fees (great I do support that, but won't happen anytime soon), and/or have a well served downtown with higher order transit (we are severely lacking/behind in this regard and inefficient).

 

[TTCdinosaur]

Since we're all just giving opinions based on personal anecdotes and feelings, I say keep it and let drivers swallow themselves in their concrete prison lol. It's only going to get worse, not better, to drive.

 

[Rainforest]

This accounting fails to consider the value of the land that would be freed up as well as the property taxes that land would generate in perpetuity. Not to mention the massive improvement to the public realm we would gain. That's what you're paying for.

And that, in turn, fails to consider the cost of providing transit and expanding utilities for those new highrises.

Plus the fact that they could have been build elsewhere, for example in the vicinity of many midtown subway stations still surrounded by low-rise SFH, if the zoning restrictions were relaxed. Generating the same amount in property taxes, while being better served by transit, and possibly requiring a lesser investment in utilities (hydro, water etc).

 

[Rainforest]

I will then add, no one would run for politics if they were personally, financially, on the hook for every decision if it went sideways, or the public later expressed disapproval. As such I can't really endorse 'sending the bill' to politicians or their donors or lobbyists for routine decisions with which I disagree, should the political winds shift.

However, I would support removing parliamentary immunities from being sued where there is a clear case of bribe-taking, or other favour-trading, or where a politician or bureaucrat clearly knew prior to casting a vote or signing off on a project that it was contrary to the public interest.

I don't mean should have known or anything fuzzy; but clear, written or video evidence or the like that the person pushing a project knew and understood it was adverse to the public interest. In such cases, I do favour the ability to sue and recover costs, in part, from politicians, lobbyists, bureaucrats or others, as I feel this would reduce poor decision making.

In case of bribe-taking, in the form of money or money equivalents, sure. That should be a subject of immunity withdrawal and a criminal investigation. I believe the procedures for that exist already, not sure if they are easy to apply.

On the other hand, favor-trading is the way political systems in all democratic countries work. If two parties form a coalition government, they split the ministerial positions. Some are taken by party X and some by Party Y. That's favor-trading. Even in case of a one-party government, usually there are internal factions that need to find a balance for the party to remain united. That's another case of favor-trading.

And "public interest" is a subjective term. In all debatable cases, there exist 2 or more groups of public and their interests do not align. You believe Gardiner should be turned into an at-grade boulevard, I believe it should be be built as per the official plan, and some people believe it should be tunneled. All three positions will attract solid support in an opinion poll or a plebiscite, so which of them represents a singular "public interest"? I believe both Gardiner and DVP should be tolled, while many people who drive there every day probably want them to remain free. Again, both positions appeal to a sizeable part of public.

So, I do not see how "public interest" can be determined in court proceedings in cases the public opinion is sufficiently split.

 

[Metroscapes]

Only hope is ford has the MTO take over.

Even if rebuidling the Gardiner is not what Olivia wants, this would be a win for Toronto. All operation and maintenance costs transferred to the province.

 

[AlexBozikovic]

I wrote another piece on this recently, reiterating my support for the compromise: to rebuild the last section, east of Cherry, at grade.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/art...nes-on-the-future-of-the-gardiner-expressway/

This would in fact open up more land, about five acres; and building and maintaining ~800m of road at grade vs elevated would be meaningfully cheaper. Nobody knows how much cheaper, because the city has refused to study it.

 

[rbt]

Even if rebuidling the Gardiner is not what Olivia wants, this would be a win for Toronto. All operation and maintenance costs transferred to the province.

You're imagining a transfer of the asset and all responsibilities for it to the province.

More likely is the revival of an old GO Transit style funding mechanism: a legislated order for Toronto to pay the MTO to maintain the highways, including upgrading them to MTO standards in a cost-plus manner. MTO makes all the decisions, and Toronto receives an annual bill.