Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[DaveFlavanoid]

Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

While the hipster millennials who currently live downtown don't drive, once they realize they want to get married and have a family, they will look to the suburbs to find affordable housing.

The price of gas is not a huge concern as cars are getting more efficient every day and electric cars are already here.

Europe is not the best example as their population is not really growing at all, even declining in some areas. Immigration here plays a huge factor as they suburbs get more saturated. This means more cars will be on the road as the peak periods become stretched out over more hours.

Will they leave the downtown core though for the suburbs though? We honestly do not have a good answer for this. We assume that's what will happen because of historical trends, but research is showing that this might not necessarily be the case. With millennials delaying having children to later in life, combined with the soaring cost of actually owning a home, we may actually see a shift in the traditional idea of 'move to the suburbs have a family'.

Look into the work of Prof. Markus Moos at UofW, his work is focused primarily on millennial locational trends. http://generationedcity.uwaterloo.ca/

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Or more realistically they will buy small houses in the east and west shoulders of downtown, buy cars when they have their first child, then drive to visit friends or family on the other side of town because the TTC is so slow relative to driving off-peak or they're heading somewhere like Mississauga or Markham. Then they will realize that it was a bad idea to tear down the Gardiner without improving transit because it now takes 30 minutes to clear the "boulevard" during the usual 3PM-8PM clusterf*** that is downtown traffic. Or they will try the 401 and realize that it's also a disaster most of them time too.

DDA, your life is not an example of everyone else's life. But your argument -- they can't tear down the Gardiner, because it'll ruin my life -- is the same argument of every other single car driver who feels it's your 'right' to have a freeway to take you from one part of your life to the other part of your life, just because. And it's the wrong way to decide anything to do with a city's infrastructure.

 

[DaveFlavanoid]

CodeBlue has been saying that the cost estimates of both options do not take the following into account:

1. The expropriation cost of new ramps for the 'hybrid' option.
2. Greater profits from land sales - and therefore development charges- for the boulevard option

Does anyone know how true this is? If so, why would this not be considered?

 

[Napoleon]

You think car trips in the Gardiner will be bigger in 30+ years than it is today?

I think we've reached peak car.

We've certainly reached peak car for normal work day commuters. Sure, maybe some additional trips will fill in capacity away from commute time (see Los Angeles on a Sunday evening for that), but the truth of the matter is that at peak commuting times, we just can't stuff any more cars on the roads that are already at capacity.

For me, I'm framing this as a decision more for the future than for right now. And the number of commuters will grow, and the only way to grow the carrying capacity is through transit and active transportation.

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

DDA, your life is not an example of everyone else's life. But your argument -- they can't tear down the Gardiner, because it'll ruin my life -- is the same argument of every other single car driver who feels it's your 'right' to have a freeway to take you from one part of your life to the other part of your life, just because. And it's the wrong way to decide anything to do with a city's infrastructure.

Everyone in my cohort with kids has moved out of the downtown core, bought a house and a car, and use that car when visiting each other - or even going downtown - unless the destination is really nearby because it's easier, faster and usually cheaper than transit.

I don't see the point in intentionally making our lives more difficult so that developers can build more condos in one specific place to serve future residents who don't exist yet.

Sometimes I wonder if the "war on the car" people were not that far off.

 

[torontologist]

While the hipster millennials who currently live downtown don't drive, once they realize they want to get married and have a family, they will look to the suburbs to find affordable housing.

Denzil Minnan-Wong, shouldn't you be at city hall or investigating the Sugar Beach umbrellas or something?

 

[CDL.TO]

As Matt Elliott pointed out, in this image which option features a better pedestrian experience?

The pedestrian argument is bunk.

It's vital to have this freeway "ring" connection otherwise dump trucks will be ripping up the local roads in the middle of the night.

Good lord that's a ridiculous notion. No one is proposing for there to be no road in this corridor. There's still going to be a road. That road is still going to be the fastest way across downtown. The only difference is that there is going to be 4 traffic lights that the truck *might* have to stop at. Is this hypothetical truck going to choose a "local road" with 5-10 traffic lights plus possibly streetcars and parking cars just to avoid a wide, fast boulevard with 4 traffic lights?

All arguments about vehicles, other than the ones about capacity, really just come down to "I don't want to have to *possibly* stop at a traffic light.".

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

CodeBlue has been saying that the cost estimates of both options do not take the following into account:

1. The expropriation cost of new ramps for the 'hybrid' option.
2. Greater profits from land sales - and therefore development charges- for the boulevard option

Does anyone know how true this is? If so, why would this not be considered?

If we are looking at 100 year costs, future property taxes from the land development in the boulevard option should be included as well.

And I guess, the costs of the eventual lawsuit and damages when C3 takes the City to court over the Cherry ramps in the 'hybrid' option.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I don't see the point in intentionally making our lives more difficult so that developers can build more condos in one specific place to serve future residents who don't exist yet.

Why not, unless you want to say that continued densification of the underused areas around the core, proximate to the CBD, is a bad thing. I am fairly certain the economic activity generated by those future residents and business would be far, far more worthwhile than the relative inconvenience to a few thousand drivers.

It's not a war on drivers (if it was, you'd be seeing the entire stretch of highway torn down and speedbumps on the Blvd) - it's making a judgement that the core of the city is always more economically worthwhile, and that removing a short section of the highway represents a balance between accessibility by vehicles and unlocking the economic potential for a city that has limited land for development and accomodating growth.

AoD

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

Why not, unless you want to say that continued densification of the underused areas around the core, proximate to the CBD, is a bad thing. I am fairly certain the economic activity generated by those future residents and business would be far, far more worthwhile than the relative inconvenience to a few thousand drivers.

It's not a war on drivers (if it was, you'd be seeing speedbumps on the Blvd) - it's making a judgement that the core of the city is always more economically worthwhile.

AoD

Because there are thousands of other sites in the city that could be redeveloped before this area, which despite being close to the CBD has no existing transit access and will never be as well located as the areas north of the railway tracks. We could designate the whole area as a giant park and it would have literally zero net impact on the city's economy as other areas would be developed instead.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Because there are thousands of other sites in the city that could be redeveloped before this area, which despite being close to the CBD has no existing transit access and will never be as well located as the areas north of the railway tracks. We could designate the whole area as a giant park and it would have literally zero net impact on the city's economy as other areas would be developed instead.

Funny, the developers don't feel that way - they certainly spent enough money acquiring those properties and took the long view.

AoD

 

[Soop]

I think the boulevard, any boulevard, is without a doubt a better pedestrian realm than the elevated highway.

Having crossed Lakeshore at Lower Sherbourne every work day for a year, I think it would be a much better experience without the dankness of the elevated highway. Especially on those rainy days and warm, melt-y winter/spring days when the water from above would filter through years of pigeon crap and rust and wash down on those below.

 

[arcum]

As Matt Elliott pointed out, in this image which option features a better pedestrian experience?



The pedestrian argument is bunk.



Good lord that's a ridiculous notion. No one is proposing for there to be no road in this corridor. There's still going to be a road. That road is still going to be the fastest way across downtown. The only difference is that there is going to be 4 traffic lights that the truck *might* have to stop at. Is this hypothetical truck going to choose a "local road" with 5-10 traffic lights plus possibly streetcars and parking cars just to avoid a wide, fast boulevard with 4 traffic lights?

All arguments about vehicles, other than the ones about capacity, really just come down to "I don't want to have to *possibly* stop at a traffic light.".

You are missing a few things. Take this example:
A dump truck coming from the east end of the city needs to go to a Bathurst/Dundas construction site. Right now they would take the DVP down to the Gardiner and get off at Spadina. With the Gardiner out, the boulevard is no longer the fastest route, so now they might get off at Bloor or Richmond and tear through downtown in the middle of the night.

As for the pedestrian argument, the remove option won't get rid of the similarly nasty Lake Shore crossings at Spadina/Bay, etc. under the Gardiner.

A wide boulevard wouldn't be perfect either, as to accommodate the traffic the signal timings will probably give a short north/south duration, resulting in 2-stage pedestrian crossings, similar to University Ave.

 

[Videodrome]

I have a question. If council votes for the "hybrid" option, how long would that take to get done?

 

[11th]

DDA, your life is not an example of everyone else's life. But your argument -- they can't tear down the Gardiner, because it'll ruin my life -- is the same argument of every other single car driver who feels it's your 'right' to have a freeway to take you from one part of your life to the other part of your life, just because. And it's the wrong way to decide anything to do with a city's infrastructure.

That's quite a dangerous ground to tread on. Obviously everyone has their own self-interest whether they are for removal or hybrid.