Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[TheTigerMaster]

I guarantee we'll get the hybrid option. There is no way they're just going to have the entire Southbound DVP end at a traffic light with a right hand turn. That would be insane.

With either option I guess we can say goodbye to the long Carlaw offramp once and for all.

When will it be torn down by? Will it be gone in 24 months?

We'll have one side of council arguing, "you want to spend how many hundreds of millions of dollars to save a few thousand drivers two or three minutes!?!?!" and the other side arguing "war on cars; this will be a disaster if it's demolished!!!". We shall see which side will persevere.

 

[salsa]

I don't see why there isn't an option to realign the gardiner so instead of jogging south to the waterfront it stays hugging the rail corridor. That way the Gardiner would be next to the industrial rail corridor instead of blocking prime waterfront property. Even if there are reasons why that isn't practical (looking at the satellite images of google maps I don't see anything in the way) it would be nice to have a comparison. The tricky part would potentially be the reconnection with the DVP.

My impression for why it jogs like that is because it was meant to continue east onto the "Scarborough expressway" that was never built that would have gone where Lakeshore East is today.

It's been already determined that the realignment as you propose is unworkable because the DVP to Gardiner ramps would have to turn way too sharply and thus can't sustain high enough speeds for a highway. The hybrid alignment would be almost exactly the same as the existing highway.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The live presentation is on now: http://hosting.epresence.tv/livemedia/52/page/Home.aspx

 

[salsa]

I'm at the public meeting right now. Here are some of the display boards:

Remove:

Hybrid:

Replace:

Hybrid:

I'm on my phone so I apologize in advance for any spelling/grammatical errors.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Can't they design the hybrid to look nicer? It looks horribly ugly with all those pillars.

 

[salsa]

And here's the one thing everyone cares about most:

 

[hawc]

Thanks salsa! Nice to have someone there taking pics.

So wait, 2031... are they saying this project won't be completed for another 16 years?

I just realized that with either option, folks coming in from Lakeshore east (east of Carlaw like Beaches and stuff) are going to get screwed because there's no more westbound ramp to the Gardiner. They can't get on to the Gardiner until what... Jarvis now? Whereas before they would have been on it at Booth. Ouch.

Also, I realized that whichever option they build you're going to have a nice flyover ramp right across the redesigned mouth of the Don. Ouch again.

 

[wopchop]

I just realized that with either option, folks coming in from Lakeshore east (east of Carlaw like Beaches and stuff) are going to get screwed because there's no more westbound ramp to the Gardiner. They can't get on to the Gardiner until what... Jarvis now? Whereas before they would have been on it at Booth. Ouch.

When I look at the above photos, there seems to be a westbound on-ramp at Munitions street.

 

[salsa]

aquateam: hope this answers your question

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Thanks salsa! Nice to have someone there taking pics.

So wait, 2031... are they saying this project won't be completed for another 16 years?

I just realized that with either option, folks coming in from Lakeshore east (east of Carlaw like Beaches and stuff) are going to get screwed because there's no more westbound ramp to the Gardiner. They can't get on to the Gardiner until what... Jarvis now? Whereas before they would have been on it at Booth. Ouch.

Also, I realized that whichever option they build you're going to have a nice flyover ramp right across the redesigned mouth of the Don. Ouch again.

Yes, some people are going to be inconvenienced... but they consist of such a fraction of total downtown bound car commuters...

 

[salsa]

Can't they design the hybrid to look nicer? It looks horribly ugly with all those pillars.

Those are in fact the exact same pillars as the existing highway, in the same locations.

 

[hawc]

So is 2031 really the completion date? Most of us will be dead by then.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

So is 2031 really the completion date? Most of us will be dead by then.

Speak for yourself, I'll only be 36.

I believe 2031 is merely the date of the projected travel time. We plan for the future, not for the present, so no use in comparing to 2012 travel times. The project will probably commence soon after whatever option is approved by council.

edit: There you go. Question answered:

 

[salsa]

 

[salsa]