Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[DarnDirtyApe]

And in a nutshell, that's not what most people want. Hawc is free to run for office on a libertarian platform, but he will lose.

Politics is the art of compromise.

EDIT: the quote is "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable - the art of the next best".

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

And in a nutshell, that's not what most people want. Hawc is free to run for office on a libertarian platform, but he will lose.

Politics is the art of compromise.

EDIT: the quote is "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable - the art of the next best".

Actually, I'd say that's what most people want - maximizes ones' utility, minimizes ones' cost. Fair and square - and of course, it is also one reason why things (e.g. subways, new infrastructure, whatnot) don't get done. And when that happens, the first line of talk is how come my contribution isn't sufficient to cover my needs and expectations - and not acknowledging that there are competing needs and expectations.

AoD

 

[hawc]

And in a nutshell, that's not what most people want. Hawc is free to run for office on a libertarian platform, but he will lose. Politics is the art of compromise.

Hey now, I'm far from Libertarian. I'm a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. I'm a John Tory supporter. In my opinion Miller took the city too far left and Ford took it too far right. I'm a big fan of development and gentrification. I believe that public transit and private transit both have a place in this big city of ours. We are neither a NYC/London/Tokyo model nor are we a L.A. model. There is room for both cars and bikes and streetcars and subways.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

In my opinion Miller took the city too far left and Ford took it too far right. I'm a big fan of development and gentrification. I believe that public transit and private transit both have a place in this big city of ours. We are neither a NYC/London Tokyo model nor are we a L.A. model. There is room for both cars and bikes and streetcars and subways. Toronto is a very big city.

Actually Ford isn't too far right - he is too far off the rockers.

AoD

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

For the most part, those residents don't live there today. There are many other locations where new development can be accommodated. Should we also tear down other highways adjacent to development parcels for the benefit of potential future residents? How about we favour existing residents and existing travel patterns instead?

We should be favouring future residents when it is on this scale, when it can unlock this much revenue and when it is part of our overall effort to revitalize the waterfront. I don't like the word 'potential' either, it's not a question of 'if' but 'when'.

Remember, this is a decision that will live on for decades, when existing residents have passed on, moved elsewhere, or maybe even switched modes of transportation. Of course we need to consider future generations in this context, the millenial generations that prefer walkable, livable communities and taking transit.

 

[salsa]

Since when does 120,000 people a day count as "underutilized"?

Because that number is less than what the highway was designed to carry. The highway could have been as wide as the 401 and you would still think it's well utilized by your logic just because 120,000 people a day sounds like a lot. I've said it already that even the replace option will see a reduction of traffic lanes compared to what exists today.

Actually Ford isn't too far right - he is too far off the rockers.

AoD

Ford isn't too far right, he is too far wrong.

 

[hawc]

View attachment 44153

^^^ I definitely support the removal of the loooooong ramp down to Carlaw after the turn north to the DVP. That's a crazy long exit ramp that's not necessary. You could certainly dump all Eastbound traffic that's not turning North up the DVP on to Lakeshore at Jarvis. So long as there's still a few lanes of Gardiner and aramp to the DVP for those who want to go from the Gardiner Eastbound to DVP Northbound. To dump everyone off a highway on to surface roads and then force them to get right back on a highway would be crazy (but perhaps no one is proposing that.)

As for the Southbound DVP to Westbound Gardiner, again to me it would seem nuts to flow all that traffic down on to a surface street (Lakeshore?) till Jarvis and then ramp it all back up on to the Gardiner.

 

[aquateam]

A vehicle tax or a toll on that piece of highway comes to mind.

Absolutely. Of course, then, let's put a toll on public schools and healthcare too. Because it's only fair that people who use it more should pay for it. Let's also put a toll on public parks, bikes lanes, and other things that some people use and others don't. I don't have any kids, yet my taxes pay for other people's kids to go to public school. I've never been to the emergency room of a hospital, yet my taxes pay for other people who use it. Let's put a toll on bike lanes and public parks. We spend millions building and upkeeping those things yet not everyone uses them, so let's put tolls on all those things too. It's only fair that those who use those things should pay for it and those who don't shouldn't.

When you add road tolls, you add a price to using the road that prevents congestion. Because drivers do not see a direct cost from their road use (besides their time) that encourages overconsumption of a finite resource (road space) which is what happens when everyone piles on to the Gardiner at rush hour. Tolling the Gardiner (according to the time of the day) would put a price to road use and would give people the option of spending money to save time (taking the gardiner) or save money by spending time by taking another route. Road pricing is the only way to ensure that traffic is always free-flowing, as we see on the 407.

Contrast this with education: you are only going to put a few kids through school, and free education isn't going to make you decide to have a dozen more. Paying upfront the costs of education isn't going to discourage overuse and it puts a burden on something (educating kids) that we would prefer to subsidize, whereas car use is not something that you would want to subsidize. Same thing with the emergency room, just 'cause it's free doesn't mean you're going to stop looking when you cross the street and clog up the emergency room.

Or...... let's agree that we've already paid those 'tolls' through our property taxes and shouldn't be re-taxed on them again.

I agree with this, which is why I wouldn't support tolling existing roads. But if the section is being completely rebuilt at great cost then it hasn't "already been paid through our property taxes" and I think it's fair to finance it through tolls.

Come on knock it off with the toll nonsense, because it's a slippery slope. One can very quickly argue that every city service should have an additional user tax because not EVERYONE uses all things equally.

I think that taxes/fees/tolls should be applied in situations where you have a capacity-limited public good and you want to prevent overconsumption of it. Green space and sidewalks are plentiful and costs don't scale with use. Garbage, water, and electricity have costs that scale up with use (landfill by the tonne, water treatment by the litre, etc.) and should try to recover them. Sidewalks are used by everyone roughly equally and are funded by general revenue. Roads are primarily used by vehicles and should have their general maintenance funded through the gas tax.

I found these renderings from an old presentation in Feb 2014, but they should be more or less the same as the latest report.

View attachment 44154

Is it just me or does the "improve" option just look like they strung up christmas lights under the existing gardener? Either way I'm for it .

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

I would be happy with a toll - after all, it's only fair that those who use infrastructure should pay for it.

This stretch of the Gardiner is always green on Google maps because it's oversized relative to other choke points in the road network, such as the DVP, the central 2 lane section of the Gardiner, and the intersections and on-ramps downtown. That doesn't mean it isn't heavily used, it's just not congested. Do we really want to intentionally create a road that will be always be at capacity? It just seems very short-sighted.

Uhhh, yes. I would like to intentionally build a road that will be at capacity. That way, drivers won't switch to it from other roads and it will only be used for my intended purpose. However, we all know that the human mind is a supple leopard, and will figure out a way to use capacity to immediately do something that the road builders did not imagine...

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

For the most part, those residents don't live there today. There are many other locations where new development can be accommodated. Should we also tear down other highways adjacent to development parcels for the benefit of potential future residents? How about we favour existing residents and existing travel patterns instead?

That really depends on the context, doesn't it? I mean, tearing down the 404/401 interchange to build condos seems a little suspect, whereas tearing down a crumbling piece of infrastructure to re-invigorate our downtown core seems, on whole, a pretty darn good idea.

 

[salsa]

Is it just me or does the "improve" option just look like they strung up christmas lights under the existing gardener? Either way I'm for it .

Fortunately there's a bit more to it than just christmas lights.

Note that the highway would be reduced to 4 lanes under this scenario too, just like with the replace option. If this piece of infrastructure was really well utilized like DarnDirtyApe keeps yammering about, they wouldn't be shrinking this to the size of a rural highway.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

As for the Southbound DVP to Westbound Gardiner, again to me it would seem nuts to flow all that traffic down on to a surface street (Lakeshore?) till Jarvis and then ramp it all back up on to the Gardiner.

Uhh why is that nuts? Who else is using the Lakeshore between Jarvis and the DVP? It only alights at Cherry, Sherbourne and Parliament, not exactly the most used streets...

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Call me crazy, but I think roads meet the same definition "public good' and shouldn't be operated on a user-pay basis either. What's next are we going to start charging tolls on sidewalks, bridges, bike paths, streetlights etc?

OK -- you're crazy. I get that you're car-centric, but to say that a road and public education and health care are both public goods is risible. If we tore down the Gardiner East and didn't replace it, there would be almost no discernable change in Canada's or Toronto's GDP, health, or growth rates. If we stopped funding our hospitals or schools, we would live shorter lives and our GDP and GDP growth rates would drop precipitously.

Personally, I think this is a poor choice to toll. If you want to toll downtown, it should be some kind of London-like CBD scheme, but I don't even want to do that. A toll here is unfair to the drivers who need to use this stretch unless you decide to toll the whole 400-series highways across the province. In contrast, the 407 was a great idea -- new road, other choice if you wish to use it, Bob's your uncle.

But, in the context of keeping taxes as low as possible while funding much better infrastructure, causing some minor inconvenience to (mostly) drivers who are either leaving the area (a la DDA) or entering the area from outside Toronto, this is a slam dunk project. Remove the bloody thing and let's get on with our lives.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Since tolls seem to be completely out of the equation, I wonder if council would consider the tunnel option provided that tolling the tunnel be included in the plan.

The tolls could offset the cost of tunneling, plus the sale of land that the Gardiner now occupies can also go towards the cost of building the tunnel. (Better yet, drop the land sale and turn the land into a linear park!, and use tax increment financing along the entire route to help recoup some of the costs)

They axed the tunnel option early on because it was in the $2-2.5bn range, more than twice as much as any other option, even the most expensive elevated options.

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

Hrmph!

I believe that streetcar trips east of Leslie take too long to get downtown. While it would be a minor inconvenience for the small number of people affected, I proposed that streetcars make no stops within the borders of Riverdale so that the large number of people outside of the area can have a faster trip into downtown. After all, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

What's the estimate for daily ridership on the Scarborough Subway Extension? The Scarborough RT has daily ridership of approx. 40,000. Perhaps we should just tear it down and re-route all buses to Kennedy station, because there isn't enough demand to justify a subway.

I would rather have a Gardiner tunnel than the SSE... and would pay for the privilege of using it. As it is, my taxes are going up so that a small number in Scarborough can get a faster commute for no extra cost.

(I realize that most probably don't support the SSE, it's just frustrating)