Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[DarnDirtyApe]

Everyone here knows that Tory lives at Bloor and Bedford, right?

In a building with a Starbucks, no less.

 

[clarkburglar]

There's another fudge. It's not just 5-6K commuters... that's the number per hour during rush hour. Over the course of the day, the number has been shown to be in excess of 100K.

The rush hour commutes are the only concern because the non peak hour commutes only increase by 52 seconds.

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

The rush hour commutes are the only concern because the non peak hour commutes only increase by 52 seconds.

That 52 seconds is the average delay for every single driver in downtown Toronto, not the extra time it will take to drive through this section. It is a meaningless number.

 

[salsa]

It has to be on the assumption that fewer people overall will drive... funny that this is never explicitly mentioned anywhere in the presentations though.

City staff explained it better during question period in council. From what I remember, many motorists go out of their way to use the Gardiner even if it increases their travel distance. Here's a simple example:

In other words there are "lower vehicle kilometers travelled in the transportation system" associated with the remove option. There's also reduced traffic congestion on north-south streets because today the Gardiner on/off ramps dump a bunch of cars onto just a couple of streets, whereas the boulevard allows many more exit routes. Other than that they assume a traffic evaporation of 10% (a conservative estimate, other cities had better results). They also mentioned that the remove option has significantly less paved surfaces and allows for the planting of 1,237 more trees than the hybrid, providing 52% canopy coverage rather than 12%.

The reduced GHG associated with the remove is one of those things that is not very intuitive, which is why I prefer to rely on staff advice rather than argue with logic, gut feelings and sob stories.

 

[Eug]

Wasn't there also an estimate of $37 million extra economic cost with remove, per year (for the first several years)?

 

[Palma]

The reasons for discounting the U of T study are clear. The 10 minute figure assumes that there won't be an island in the middle of the blvd. Therefore pedestrians would need to cross the road in one shot, so red lights would last a lot longer. This adds 4.5 minutes on to the commute time bringing it down to a 5.5 min plus difference for the boulevard. On top of that, the trip they used is of someone driving almost the entire length of the gardiner/dvp. Few people, if anyone will drive this route. By the studies own metrics, someone driving just the east-west portion of the gardiner will only have 2 minutes added onto their commute.

You can read more about it here: http://www.thestar.com/news/city_ha...sleading.html?referrer=http://t.co/xuDD7IsVNt

All of this makes Tory's campaign for the gardiner seem incredible sleazy. Even referring to it as the "hybrid," is total bull, and all the evidence he gave for it was anecdotal, or an incorrect statistic. Not to mention, passing motions into law that he knows are terrible in order to win a few votes.

But he must know those motions will be studied and rejected by staff. Do these councillor that put in motion for tunneling actually think staff will come back and say yes due to the cost? So Tory must have thought he is not loosing anything by agreeing to the motions

 

[Electrify]

Since the hybrid option is going through, any chance of using it to improve transit? I was drawing up a BRT proposal for the east end, where said buses would use the Gardiner between Jarvis and Cherry to skip a few lights and cross traffic.

For the rest of the route, we could dedicate a lane for GO and intercity buses heading north and east of Toronto.

 

[Eug]

Wasn't there also an estimate of $37 million extra economic cost with remove, per year (for the first several years)?

Found it. It was actually in the original EA:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/murtaza-haider/gardiner-hybrid-option_b_7542794.html

The EA report quantifies the economic loss in productivity resulting from the increase in traffic congestion once Gardiner East is dismantled. It estimates that the average delay of 52 seconds per vehicle will add an additional 2.9 million hours of congestion amounting to an annual $60 million loss in economic productivity, $37 million more than the Hybrid option.

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

City staff explained it better during question period in council. From what I remember, many motorists go out of their way to use the Gardiner even if it increases their travel distance. Here's a simple example:

View attachment 48363


In other words there are "lower vehicle kilometers travelled in the transportation system" associated with the remove option. There's also reduced traffic congestion on north-south streets because today the Gardiner on/off ramps dump a bunch of cars onto just a couple of streets, whereas the boulevard allows many more exit routes. Other than that they assume a traffic evaporation of 10% (a conservative estimate, other cities had better results). They also mentioned that the remove option has significantly less paved surfaces and allows for the planting of 1,237 more trees than the hybrid, providing 52% canopy coverage rather than 12%.

The reduced GHG associated with the remove is one of those things that is not very intuitive, which is why I prefer to rely on staff advice rather than argue with logic, gut feelings and sob stories.

Makes some sense, although did they also account for higher emissions per km for city driving? My car supposedly uses 6.0L/100km on the highway and 9.0L/100km in city driving. I have some trouble believe that total vehicle km traveled would drop by more than 33% to compensate, although your example does indeed show a 36% reduction for that particular segment alone.

 

[Eug]

Hmm... Eastern is often a disaster on that stretch during rush hour.

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

Yes, well I would never drive that way in the morning (or ever, really) but the point is valid.

 

[nfitz]

Hmm... Eastern is often a disaster on that stretch during rush hour.

No it isn't. Once you get west of Broadview, it's clear sailing. Heck, once you get past Logan it's pretty clear.

Your start to get a bit of congestion on Front - but it's mostly west of Sherbourne, and the example here was east of Sherbourne. There's a bit of traffic on Front ... but also on Sherbourne.

I can't imagine anyone taking the DVP south, onto the Gardiner, and up Sherbourne to get the Front/Berkeley area. I guess people do ... but wow ...

 

[Edward Skira]

I can't imagine anyone taking the DVP south, onto the Gardiner, and up Sherbourne to get the Front/Berkeley area. I guess people do ... but wow ...

I have done this but mainly because of the better view of the skyline you get this way than via Richmond.

 

[nfitz]

I have done this but mainly because of the better view of the skyline you get this way than via Richmond.

On a one-off maybe ... I doubt there are too many doing this on a daily basis, just for the view! But perhaps I'm just too practical.

 

[salsa]

Makes some sense, although did they also account for higher emissions per km for city driving? My car supposedly uses 6.0L/100km on the highway and 9.0L/100km in city driving. I have some trouble believe that total vehicle km traveled would drop by more than 33% to compensate, although your example does indeed show a 36% reduction for that particular segment alone.

I was wondering the same thing regarding city vs highway MPG, but emissions are still less when all other things are considered. Whatever I heard from staff during the council debate seemed to make a lot of sense, but I'm unable to explain it as well as they did or remember all of their findings. It's not a huge difference anyway; around 12% less GHG emissions with the boulevard. A councillor asked if that number includes the air-cleaning benefits of the large number of additional trees made possible with the boulevard, to which they said no thus the actual number might be slightly higher than 12%.