Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[muller877]

I was making a point about the misplaced priorities of this mayor when it comes to transportation policy. I don't know how the city-wide mode share is relevant to the Gardiner discussion, because the only numbers that should matter is this one.


View attachment 78832



But council decided that any increase in commute time for those drivers is unacceptable. That's fine, but at what cost? How much money are we gonna spend on a piece of car infrastructure to benefit a small percentage of commuters? How many cycling/transit initiatives will the mayor defer/refuse to fund because it's not a priority or because there is no money left over? What will be done to mitigate the impact of this blight on waterfront revitalization efforts, quality of the public realm and pedestrian environment?





Please don't cherry pick. The delay quoted in the media was between 2 and 5 minutes, along with a 300% increase in cycling. City staff said that the delays were mostly attributed to the intersection at Gerrard St, where they later installed an advanced left turn phase to address this. New travel time statistics were generated after the change was made, but PWIC (chaired by Denzil Minan Wong) did not release those numbers to the public when they decided that removing the bike lane was the right thing to do.

I'm giving you to decision on why Tory has decided to keep the Gardiner. It's not about how many people use the Gardiner nor the increased in bikes. It's a proxy battle for the 50% of people who drive to work across the city and their horror of a commute (for many of them). And reality is for a large portion of them there is no bike or transit option. So they are currently commuting from one transit desert to another and it's just getting busier and busier. And they worry their 4 lane road will be narrowed to 2 for a bike lane as well.

It maybe paranoia (or fact if you listen to some cycling advocates) but it feeds the ballot box.

For the travel time...from my experience for those who have to start work at 9 the travel time increased by 5 minutes. I'm assuming they had a 3 hour window for "rush hour" so for those people who can start work at 8 or 10 it was only a 2 minute delay. But 2 or 5 minutes...on a route that normally is 6 minutes long that's either a 33% or 90% increase in travel time!

Or another way....from Jarvis to the Sherbourne bike lanes (and back) it's only 2 minutes)....if 2 minutes is no big deal for cars why is it different for bikes? (personally they should have put the bike lanes on Church and got rid of on-street parking and let Jarvis be...so every other N-S road could eventually have bike lanes most of the way from Bloor...Sherbourne, Church, Bay)

 

[Filip]

2017 is when they start on the rebuild of the York-Bay ramp from eastbound Gardiner. Hopefully, it will have a 24-hour work schedule.

(Crossing my fingers) I just hope that the Lakeshore GO train could have its enhanced schedule (15-minute two-way, all-day service, seven days a week between Burlington and Union Station) by then. If not, expect the traffic jams to continue.

What kind of staging are they proposing? I don't see how they can't rebuild the ramp while maintaining 3 through lanes eastbound. Now for those who need to get off downtown... The Spadina exit is going to go from bad to disgusting.

 

[LNahid2000]

The occasional monthly conk out of the subway system does not compare to 2 years of unreasonable traffic in an area with no rapid transit to get people out.

I don't know why you moved to an area with no rapid transit just to constantly complain about lack of rapid transit. If I wanted rapid transit, I'd have moved to a place that already had it rather than just expecting it to come to me.

 

[Filip]

I don't know why you moved to an area with no rapid transit just to constantly complain about lack of rapid transit. If I wanted rapid transit, I'd have moved to a place that already had it rather than just expecting it to come to me.

I don't know how many times I have to repeat to you that I've lived pretty much at Fleeceline/Lake Shore for the last 20 years (condo, then house, now my own condo). And it used to be pretty nice. Wasn't that bad even 5 years ago. However, I think we were all expecting some form of rapid transit to naturally come out of all that growth.. (and rapid transit plans from a GO station at Park Lawn to the LRT go back to the late 80s/early 90s). Now we know that was wishful thinking and are not letting the city/province get away with it. It's nice to see a neighbourhood finally band together.

 

[Dan416]

I see no point in complaining about people who moved into an area that was getting developed by the city, expecting rapid transit, and then the city didn't make good. Focus your energy on the government who failed these residents.

 

[junctionist]

If you want to reduce sprawl by increasing density, you need to invest in the utilities, schools, policing, parks and transit that all those new residents will use (unless an area is already well equipped to handle the additional residents). Since the province is taking the lead on reducing sprawl with its legislation, Metrolinx should be quick to respond with new transit planning and construction for growing areas. The city has to be ready to pay its share too.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

Did demolishing the Embarcadero Freeway really not make traffic worse? My guess is that most of the traffic ended up taking Bay Bridge, I-580 and Richmond-San Rafael bridge instead of the demolished freeway and the Golden Gate Bridge. The Bay Area doesn't exactly have a lack of traffic congestion, and the transit system is lousy. Many people have no alternatives to driving.

I do not believe that demolishing the Gardiner Expressway will not result in severe traffic congestion. Look at what happens when the Gardiner or DVP is closed for construction or "Ride for Heart". You get severe traffic jams on almost every road in the city those weekends. I think that "induced demand" is largely a myth perpetuated by anti-car types.

It is pretty unusual to demolish a busy expressway in a major city without replacing it, except in cases where the expressway collapsed. The only expressways that I can think of that were demolished were very lightly used, such as the Gardiner east of the DVP, or a section of the Robert Moses State Parkway in Niagara Falls, NY.

I suggest reading about these case studies of urban highway removal projects in major cities here.

It does happen and their removal have had positive effects.

 

[TransitBart]

The graphic is a bit misleading, as are people that post it to disingenuously claim the Gardiner carries such a small percentage of commuters. The graphic is showing commuters TO downtown, not THROUGH downtown. Yes only 7% take the Gardiner into downtown in the AM peak, and I'm actually glad for that. And I'm also glad that there's a grade-separated highway to carry tens of thousands of drivers across downtown to areas beyond without using the downtown surface network - interfering with transit, cyclists, pedestrians, and the downtown's overall wellbeing in the process.

Another issue that's misleading in the debate are the costs used. When do we ever see 100-year lifecycle costs brought to any debate? We don't. If we saw 100-year lifecycle costs for any subway project - like say tunneling below uninhabited farm fields, highways, industrial lots, or big box land in York Region - would people still support it? I'm sure some would, but level-headed people would become a helluva lot more skeptical. As they should. But we don't see that, and we'd be lucky to see 25yr costs. In other words not a century.

As much as people hate the Gardiner, there are few things that we know and are obvious. 1. Elevated highways in TO don't really hinder development or property values. 2. What's being built isn't a new highway, it's an improvement of an existing highway - and this improvement is for everyone's benefit: peds, cyclists, development, etc. 3. We're maintaining a critical link between the DVP and Gardiner, which will invariably help keep non-downtown-bound commuters off the surface network. 4. An elevated highway is actually pretty damn urban (can't think of anywhere else in the prov that has such a thing).

What I'd like to see are people questioning places like York Region for pushing projects like Highway 413, or a Highway 427 extension. People think 2km of narrow elevated highway is bad and un-urban, then what about 200m wide surface highways through countryside that serves little other purpose than to promote more auto-oriented sprawl? We're helping to pay for some of the last vestiges of greenspace in the GTA to be swallowed up, but let's ignore that and focus on the improvement of 2km of existing highway.

This is one of the most balanced, truthful ,and common sense postings I have ever read about any transit issue. Thanks for a thoughtful note.

 

[W. K. Lis]

London, England charges a Congestion Charge at £11.50 per day. Meanwhile...

Norway Moves Towards Banning Gas-Burning Cars By 2025

See link.

four of the country’s major parties have reached agreement on a proposal to ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel-powered cars starting in 2025.

Meanwhile, Paris to ban old and polluting cars. See link.

Commercial vehicles produced before 1997 won’t be allowed in the streets of Paris. The measure, which will come into force on 1 July, is intended to reduce air pollution in the French capital.

In the shade of the Tour Eiffel people don’t want to have to do with black clouds emitted by rusty exhaust pipes and polluting emissions. From 1 July Paris will banish cars made before 1997 strengthening the policy of modernisation of the capital’s car fleet and smog reduction. In the past, thanks to this policy, particularly low speed limits and permanent bans have been imposed locally, for example in the Champs-Élysées, and diesel cars will be completely banned by 2020.

Meanwhile, Toronto is going to rebuild the eastern part of the Gardiner Expressway. Why? When the rest of the world is going in the opposite direction?

I predicate, the eastern Gardiner will become a "white elephant" by the end of this century. But, who thinks that far into the future on city council?

 

[UrbanFervour]

They are banning polluting cars, gas-buring cars... but not cars. I know this is often hard for many people to realize but people LIKE cars. A lot. And they are very useful for getting around. I think people will continue to drive them, long after the laws catch up to ensure they are non-polluting and electric-powered.

I predict the Gardiner will only become more useful for moving goods and people as our inner city gets more and more crowded. - Might be busses, shuttles and ride shares - but people will continue to drive.

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

Norway Moves Towards Banning Gas-Burning Cars By 2025

What does this have to do with the Gardiner?

 

[W. K. Lis]

What does this have to do with the Gardiner?

Maybe a good reason to put on a toll on petroleum burning vehicles to help pay to maintain the Gardiner.

 

[andrewpmk]

Maybe a good reason to put on a toll on petroleum burning vehicles to help pay to maintain the Gardiner.

The trouble with road tolls is that they make traffic worse on every road except the road that gets tolled, as we can see from the 407. So if the Gardiner gets tolled, expect severe traffic congestion on Lake Shore and Highway 401.

 

[Euphoria]

I'm against carbon taxes and cap and trade. Don't worry, the free market and scarcity of resources will drive up the cost of all resources, especially manufactured items. You'll pay more anyway. Technological efficiency is its own reward and will enhance productivity, generating the most wealth for companies and improving the environment. Our biggest influence over the type of economy we have is how we spend our money as consumers. In that regard, tolls are quite fair. You have to pay directly to play. The problem is, we already pay for highways through gas taxes and general revenues, so if we're going to pay tolls, remove these other taxes.

 

[ssiguy2]

I've always disagree with road tolls except for brand new infrastructure like the 407. The BC government is road tolling everoney to death but no new freeways are being built, they are just being improved due to their lack of expansion and maintenance over the decades.

I find it patently unfair that some person who is driving free now gets a new toll tomorrow just because they live in the wrong area. Why should someone be able to drive free from Malvern to Mississauga but pay a toll going from Miminco to Mississauga?

Gas taxes and vehicle levies are the fairest way........the more you drive, the more you pay.