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Roads: Gardiner Expressway

DarnDirtyApe said:
Those prior studies were also done with a political goal in mind - trying to convince people that the surface option would be okay. That's why they sliced and diced the numbers to make it seem like that section was barely used (sure, as a percentage of total commuters into downtown) but ignored the fact that in absolute numbers the volumes are quite significant, and there are few alternatives particularly for off-peak trips that don't end downtown.
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Traffic volumes are irrelevant. What actually matters is how much will commuting times increase if the gardiner is removed.
 
salsa said:
Traffic volumes are irrelevant. What actually matters is how much will commuting times increase if the gardiner is removed.
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Overall commute times (Gardiner + non-gardiner drivers) might actually improve due to the large amount of traffic removed between the ramps and office building garages. Gardiner carries something like 25% of the vehicle traffic into downtown (4% of overall commuter base), so 75% of downtown drivers would have an improved experience.


GO would need to radically up their game in order to make it workable but GO RER with 8 to 12 car trains (instead of 3 to 6 car trains) would more than do it.
 
rbt said:
Overall commute times (Gardiner + non-gardiner drivers) might actually improve due to the large amount of traffic removed between the ramps and office building garages. Gardiner carries something like 25% of the vehicle traffic into downtown (4% of overall commuter base), so 75% of downtown drivers would have an improved experience.
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Hang on. They are only talking about removing the Gardiner east of Jarvis. So it only impacts anyone coming on the Gardiner from the west, who goes further than Jarvis ... which is no one going downtown. Those coming down the DVP mostly take Richmond/Adelaide, so no change there.

It isn't people going downtown who are hurt if the Gardiner goes. It's those down the DVP or from Leslieville/Beaches to the west end, and vice-versa. Very little impact to those working downtown.
 
rbt said:
Overall commute times (Gardiner + non-gardiner drivers) might actually improve due to the large amount of traffic removed between the ramps and office building garages. Gardiner carries something like 25% of the vehicle traffic into downtown (4% of overall commuter base), so 75% of downtown drivers would have an improved experience.
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This just moves the choke points around. Some other neighbourhood will then have the same congestion and commute times will wind up the same.
 
Yup... Lakeshore, Richmond & Adelaide will just become totally large overloaded for 12 hours a day. As it is, Richmond and Adelaide are very congested during the PM rush - even Richmond inbound to downtown can be quite congested.

Unfortunately, the combination of years of under-investment in transit capacity and the high cost of moving (high prices in general, the double LTT and realtor fees) make it hard to believe that people will actually be able to adjust to drive less in the event of a Gardiner teardown.
 
I'd really hope the DRL gets run through the core before they think of closing down the Gardiner. I can just imagine the mess if the Gardiner were closed simultaneously to one or more of King, Adelaide, Richmond, or Queen being torn up for several years to facilitate headwall construction and tunneling.
 
Price tag on Gardiner East proposal more than $900-million, assessment to say

Retaining the eastern part of the Gardiner as an elevated expressway, using the “hybrid option” put forward for the aging thoroughfare during the recent Toronto mayoral campaign, will cost more than $900-million, The Globe and Mail has learned.

An environmental assessment, led by city staff and Waterfront Toronto, that details the long-term costs of the proposal will be released Wednesday. City staff will use it to craft a report that will recommend the best approach for the Gardiner, east of Jarvis. The report is expected by next month, putting the thorny issue in front of city council.

Two sources say the environmental assessment will show that this hybrid option, originally intended to reroute the highway between Jarvis and the Don Valley Parkway, would cost just over $900-million for capital and long-term operating and maintenance costs. This figure is close to double the overall cost of the other main option, removing the Gardiner East and replacing it with a boulevard, which would allow more development but would slow some drivers.
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Woof. $900 million. For that chunk of change, you could build the East Bayfront and Waterfront West LRTs.
 
Let be clear - $900MM is for construction *and* ongoing operational/maintenance costs for some unspecified number of years (10 years? 25 years?).

Later in the article it says the capital costs alone would be approx 50% more than the boulevard ($360MM vs $240MM). No discussion of similar ongoing costs for the teardown option - admittedly, likely to be less than an elevated solution.
 
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Another interesting finding:

The environmental assessment results are expected also to show that the hybrid option has evolved into something that looks very similar to the current highway. Rerouting it close to the rail corridor, as originally planned, proved difficult because it meant curves too sharp to allow for highway speeds.

Instead, the replacement highway would follow roughly the current route. Some ramps will be modified near the Unilever site, allowing development there. But a parcel of land that would be opened up to development by the removal option or by the original hybrid proposal will remain enclosed by elevated highway and the rail lines.
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For those who read the article, it appears that Great Gulf pushed the new hybrid option, and the whole EA now is geared toward a solution to open up Unilever lands so that Great Gulf can benefit the most. Let them pay for it then.
 
salsa said:
And those LRTs would carry far more people than that decrepit highway ever could. It will be interesting to see if Tory and all those "fiscal conservatives" will be willing to waste that much money.
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Except for the small problem that those aren't actually substitutes for the Gardiner. Focusing solely on daily commuting numbers ignores the fact that there are many people who use that stretch of the Gardiner occasionally and would be inconvenienced if it was torn down.

Guess what: the most popular option in a recent poll was "replace with tunnel" at 27% support, followed by "repair existing" at 25%. Only 13% of poll respondents favoured the surface road option.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/04/14/half-of-torontonians-want-gardiner-expressway-down.html
 
Has any thought been given to building a new elevated structure directly above the rail corridor, from west of Jarvis to the DVP? I mean, the rail corridor is already a dead zone, so why have two dead zones side by side when you can stack them one on top of the other?
 
gweed123 said:
Has any thought been given to building a new elevated structure directly above the rail corridor, from west of Jarvis to the DVP? I mean, the rail corridor is already a dead zone, so why have two dead zones side by side when you can stack them one on top of the other?
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Why would one want involve themselves with the hassle and expense of building atop a railway corridor if they could avoid that. I'd think it would be cheaper to rebuild the Gardiner entirely and avoiding the mistakes of the previous design.

AoD
 
bobbob911 said:
Let be clear - $900MM is for construction *and* ongoing operational/maintenance costs for some unspecified number of years (10 years? 25 years?).
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The main inspiration for the boulevard was the 20x cost difference between maintaining elevated Gardiner and the at-grade Don Valley.

Maintenance is a big part of that.
 
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