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Roads: Gardiner Expressway

An elevated berm that looks like that EAST of Jarvis? Instead of just a surface street? That's even worse than the elevated solutions.
 
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At least it wouldn't be as dreary as it is now. We're not even allowed to add a splash of colour to that drab concrete with our graff....may as well be buried under shrubbery.

That being said, I still volunteer myself to demolish the damn thing should that ever become the plan from on high.
 
nfitz said:
Good grief - build an elevated berm that looks like that EAST of Jarvis? Instead of just a surface street? That's even worse than the elevated solutions.
What kind of city-hating anti-environmentalist would think up such an absurd destruction of our city!?!
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That's ridiculous - the whole point of the exercise was to pull Lakeshore out from the Gardiner and merge the highway and the rail berm. It's far superior to an elevated solution which keep the Lakeshore underneath. As to "city-hating anti-enviromentalist" label - stop being so histrionic, especially considering the proponents' record of city building.

AoD
 
The amount of land sterilized by that unnecessary expressway does nothing for city building. I don't even know who the proponent is ... let alone their record. But proposing an expressway rather than a city street isn't city building; particularly one that you can't even use the underside.
 
nfitz said:
The amount of land sterilized by that unnecessary expressway does nothing for city building. I don't even know who the proponent is ... let alone their record. But proposing an expressway rather than a city street isn't city building; particularly one that you can't even use the underside.
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Paul Bedford, ex-chief planner for the City of Toronto and du Toit Allsopp Hillier - a very well known and regarded (think West Don Lands?) local landscape design/architecture/planning firm? Perhaps it would be helpful to know their record before blasting out invectives. The choice of keeping it as an expressway is a council decision - this is merely choosing an outcome that is the most desirable within that context.

AoD
 
It's endorsing a bad city-destroying decision. If they had any integrity, the'd propose a solution that doesn't look like an expressway - or at least allows for a usage underneath it.
 
nfitz said:
It's endorsing a bad city-destroying decision. If they had any integrity, the'd propose a solution that doesn't look like an expressway - or at least allows for a usage underneath it.
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Bedford preferred the boulevard option (which certainly didn't "look like an expressway"), but since council voted against that he's just trying to find the next best solution.
 
nfitz said:
It's endorsing a bad city-destroying decision. If they had any integrity, the'd propose a solution that doesn't look like an expressway - or at least allows for a usage underneath it.
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City destroying? It may not be the best option, but it definitely didn't wreck the city - especially this part of the city in question (since really, there was nothing to wreck) - hyperbole can only take you so far. Being professional and having integrity meant proposing solutions and improvements even if the political decision doesn't align with one's choices, not rehashing the same unproductive old that gets us nowhere.

AoD
 
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Perhaps someone with Bedford's stature should be out there attacking what council has done, and campaigning to fix it, rather than endorsing council's decisions and playing along. He's no long a civil servant, and not bound to play along.
 
nfitz said:
Perhaps someone with Bedford's stature should be out there attacking what council has done, and campaigning to fix it, rather than endorsing council's decisions and playing along. He's no long a civil servant, and not bound to play along.
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Perhaps he knows better than you that it isn't an irredeemable choice like you've presented it to be?

AoD
 
salsa said:
Perhaps this picture from the Star could help visualize what the berm would look like.


Aside: I really dislike Lakeshore Blvd in the west end just as much as the downtown segment. The road is very wide, every single intersection (like the one in the photo) has a terrible design that is extremely unfriendly to cyclists and pedestrians, and it wastes a lot of land on the waterfront:

One day I hope the city will completely rebuild the whole damn thing between Bathurst and Parklawn.
1. Shift the roadway north right up to the Gardiner so that it's away from the Martin Goodman trail. Right now it feels like you're cycling beside a highway with all the traffic noise.
2. The parks along the waterfront could be significantly expanded with all the new land that would be made available.
3. Rebuild all intersections to modern standards.
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I'd agree with this. Interestingly, your points about Lake Shore E+W are one of the main reasons I support an elevated, limited-access highway. As a pedestrian and cyclist, I hate that Lake Shore is like a highway. And I find that it's what really hampers waterfront access and the pedestrian realm. No doubt the Gardiner needs improvements, as well as its on/off ramps and how they meet the surface network. But if anything we should be narrowing Lake Shore, reducing its speed limit, and encouraging more Lake Shore drivers to use the Gardiner.

Lake Shore West I haven't given much thought about how it could be improved. But aligning it further north seems reasonable. The section between the Ex and Kingsway I find myself and the flow of traffic driving upwards of 90kmh, which is bs considering its within metres of playgrounds and people. I think there needs to be more of a buffer beyond a simple curb.
 
44 North said:
I'd agree with this. Interestingly, your points about Lake Shore E+W are one of the main reasons I support an elevated, limited-access highway. As a pedestrian and cyclist, I hate that Lake Shore is like a highway. And I find that it's what really hampers waterfront access and the pedestrian realm. No doubt the Gardiner needs improvements, as well as its on/off ramps and how they meet the surface network. But if anything we should be narrowing Lake Shore, reducing its speed limit, and encouraging more Lake Shore drivers to use the Gardiner.

Lake Shore West I haven't given much thought about how it could be improved. But aligning it further north seems reasonable. The section between the Ex and Kingsway I find myself and the flow of traffic driving upwards of 90kmh, which is bs considering its within metres of playgrounds and people. I think there needs to be more of a buffer beyond a simple curb.
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There were plans to rework some aspects of Lakeshore West under the Western Waterfront Master Plan - which was of course utterly unfunded.

http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toro...ariat/files/pdf/wwmp-final-report-21aug09.pdf

AoD
 
Interesting that that illustration posted back a page or two shows 6 lanes on the berm and 4 on the ground - I think the original was the opposite. Either could work. And I thought it was a question of expanding the rail berm rather than building a separate one with a moat. But those are details that could be worked out.

This seems like a better and ultimately cheaper idea than keeping the elevated. Not as bold as the scheme to build over the rails, but that's risky. If there are problems with keeping the current thing standing, why build another one with even more layers on top of another piece of critical infrastructure?
 
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