Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[Tulse]

Because tunneling has gone so well in other places.

Keep in mind as well that a lot of the area close to the lake is reclaimed land, and there are often significant problems with managing water and subsidence. I can't imagine it is a very great place to put large tunnels, and it's certainly not like putting a tunnel through bedrock.

 

[aquateam]

Because tunneling has gone so well in other places.

Consider Boston too. There's a five part article explaining everything that went wrong with the big dig. But in the end was it really worth it? Lets see what article 2 says:


http://walkingbostonian.blogspot.ca/2011/12/big-dig-part-2.html


http://oldurbanist.blogspot.ca/2011/04/they-made-desert-and-called-it-park.html

I've visited the area last year and fully agree with the above observations. While it looks much better without the elevated highway, you have to wonder if this outcome was really worth the $15 billion that it costed.

Pretty sure I linked to that exact same blog and seattle article a couple pages back

But those should be required reading for all the "bury the gardiner" people. If we're spending billions on underground infrastructure, it shouldn't be for a highway.

 

[mdrejhon]

I would have paid for a Gardiner Tunnel, but now would prefer to pay towards the DRL instead.

I support the remove option, however, I'm not totally against keeping some form of road grade separation connected between QEW and DVP. (aka the Hybrid option). One thing that has not been brought up as far as I know, is how pretty or ugly the Hybrid option can be made to look.

I suggest we light up a part of the Gardiner with colored LED accent lighting. Not as brightly as this, but perhaps edge lighting, or up-lighting LED lamps mounted low on the poles.

They did this for one section of the Gardiner, it was quite nice

View attachment 47966

They should make it the condition of the Hybrid approach. Install LED lighting on the underneath. Maybe not that much dramatic lighting for the whole multi-kilometer stretch, but at least do a more subdued "edge lighting" or "accent lighting" approach. It will make waterfront and development more attractive despite the hulkiness of a viaduct.

Another good example of a LED light upgrade to a 100-year old bridge, is found in Louisville's Big Four Bridge (Google Images).

What do you think?

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

That's where they have erred - the goal should have been to knit back the fabric of the city damaged by the expressway through development (with the odd parcel of space left as public squares, with great enclosure on all sides) - not aiming for the lowest hanging fruit of poorly designed public "space".

AoD

Yup. You can't drop a park in the middle of a city and call it space, it has to have substance.

 

[dowlingm]

Keep in mind as well that a lot of the area close to the lake is reclaimed land, and there are often significant problems with managing water and subsidence. I can't imagine it is a very great place to put large tunnels, and it's certainly not like putting a tunnel through bedrock.

Yup. Look how much fun the much smaller island airport tunnel has been, and the Bay streetcar tunnel has had plenty of issues down the years.

 

[salsa]

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Link to tweet: https://twitter.com/graphicmatt/status/608321889006718977

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2015/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-81230.pdf

 

[TheTigerMaster]

What kind of settlement are we talking? Hundreds of millions? Billions?

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

A lot I am sure. Scandal-worthy amounts.

We are talking about acres upon acres of land that the City would have misled and misguided the developer in working on.

 

[Tuscani01]

Doubt it would be more than the cost of either option. The potential profit from developing the land would need to be in the billions for the developer to make billions, and in the hundreds of millions to make hundreds of millions.

I don't see how they would be able to sue for more than they were expecting to make in the first place. Plus, density could always be added to help the developer recoup some of their costs.

 

[Tulse]

I'm not quite sure I follow the details here -- how is this related to the Hybrid Option?

 

[MadioBruschetta]

most of the councel man and women are in favor of demolishing it and building a 8 lain road, does that mean 4 lanes in one direction (not the band) and 4 lanes in another?

 

[torontologist]

I'm not quite sure I follow the details here -- how is this related to the Hybrid Option?

Because private land will be needed to construct the necessary ramps.

 

[Tulse]

Because private land will be needed to construct the necessary ramps.

And we didn't know this before? Seriously?

 

[torontologist]

And we didn't know this before? Seriously?

Oh, people knew... it just wasn't in their best political interests to broadcast the fact that these developers would need to be financially compensated.