Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[W. K. Lis]

Why drive on the Gardiner to get downtown when there could be soon no gas stations to fill up? BTW. Idling cars are the most wasteful use of fuel, since you are going nowhere and when you do it's in the lowest gear (wasting more fuel).

 

[rbt]

Why drive on the Gardiner to get downtown when there could be soon no gas stations to fill up? BTW. Idling cars are the most wasteful use of fuel, since you are going nowhere and when you do it's in the lowest gear (wasting more fuel).

The gas station at Wellesley and Jarvis is going to be around for a few decades yet. I cheered when the old one got demolished over the summer but didn't expect another gas station to replace it.

 

[Euphoria]

Yeah but there still has to be a place for the private vehicle. The moment we've made that impossible to afford, I think we've really lost something on the freedom front. It's a huge step down in standard of living. It's like accepting downtown Hong Kong as reality. In the end downtown only has meaning when you can leave it. Freedom of mobility represents huge wealth in a society. There has to be variation of landscape, different types of lifestyles, for a society to be rich: rural, urban, suburban, and everything in between. It's why we built the Greenbelt. The idea is to have it all in Southern Ontario. It's also about access. Wealth in the future is represented by access, so you have to give access to as many people as possible. Keep it affordable. Sorry, I know I'm speaking public policy now, but that's how it is.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

It's easier said than done. Look at the past mayoral election and you will see how difficult it will be for a Toronto-only based party to draft up their policies/visions.

The GTA is about to represent a majority of Ontario's population. A "Bloc Toronto" could theoretically yield a significant portion of seats in Queens Park, and have significant weight in policy decisions, while making it significantly more difficult for any one party to get a majority government. Maybe the Bloc Toronto would hold the balance of power in QP, threatening elections until GTA's demands are met.

What would the goal of such a party be anyways? To drum up a constitution crisis? . I suppose they'd largely adopt the social policy of the Liberals, while being unwavering in their support of infrastructure and greater regional autonomy.

It's never going to happen. Fun to imagine though.

 

[Rainforest]

Why drive on the Gardiner to get downtown when there could be soon no gas stations to fill up? BTW. Idling cars are the most wasteful use of fuel, since you are going nowhere and when you do it's in the lowest gear (wasting more fuel).

That will have very minimal effect on drivers coming from outside the downtown area. They will just fill up closer to home, and then drive into and out of downtown without the need to refuel.

Absence of gas stations inside downtown will only inconvenience car owners who happen to reside there.

 

[Juan_Lennon416]

Also, cars are very fuel efficient these days so you won't burn the amount of fuel W.K. Lis is alluding to.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Yeah but there still has to be a place for the private vehicle. The moment we've made that impossible to afford, I think we've really lost something on the freedom front. It's a huge step down in standard of living. It's like accepting downtown Hong Kong as reality. In the end downtown only has meaning when you can leave it. Freedom of mobility represents huge wealth in a society. There has to be variation of landscape, different types of lifestyles, for a society to be rich: rural, urban, suburban, and everything in between. It's why we built the Greenbelt. The idea is to have it all in Southern Ontario. It's also about access. Wealth in the future is represented by access, so you have to give access to as many people as possible. Keep it affordable. Sorry, I know I'm speaking public policy now, but that's how it is.

Because a $2 toll is going to determine access, not parking, not amount of road space available, not high cost of housing, etc. Okay.

AoD

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The behind the scenes, from the Star:

https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...hleen-wynnes-relationship-with-john-tory.html

AoD

 

[Euphoria]

All of these inputs set the cost of access: gas taxes, parking, licensing, fares, insurance, tolls, etc. It's one thing when a new user fee or tax is revenue neutral, when it replaces an existing cost, for example, a toll replacing a portion of the gas tax. It's quite another when we are simply adding to the cost of living. When that happens you better have good reasons and a public mandate. I'm not opposed to tolls if the public knows exactly what we're getting for them. There's a bit of a shell game in Tory's toll plan because we're not just using them to pay for transit. Far from it. I don't think we should be adding fees on existing infrastructure for which we already have a funding formula and revenue.

Tolls on new highways are another matter entirely. I support new toll tunnel highways as a means of paying for new transit and reducing congestion. That's revenue neutral funding for transit, yet many seem fearful of novel solutions, so I'm tired of recommending them. Meanwhile we wait for new transit. This is not about levelling streescapes to build expressways. It's the opposite. It's abundantly clear that if you want a less car-oriented city, we should remove the Gardiner east of Jarvis rather than pay to replace it with a surface highway (the real impetus for tolling the DVP and Gardiner).

 

[WislaHD]

Why drive on the Gardiner to get downtown when there could be soon no gas stations to fill up? BTW. Idling cars are the most wasteful use of fuel, since you are going nowhere and when you do it's in the lowest gear (wasting more fuel).

Removing (or taxing higher) a large swathe of parking spots would be way more effective.

 

[amnesiajune]

The current plan to pursue the hybrid option will save the people who use it a few minutes off their rush hour commute, and in order to save those few minutes, there is a premium of $500M over the alternative option being considered that all taxpayers will be forced to pay on behalf of the people who use that piece of infrastructure. How could anyone read that statement and rationally support that option?

The difference is not $500 million as a lump sum. Would you say that the Finch West LRT costs $6.2 billion more than the existing buses? Of course not... You'd say that it costs around $1 billion to build and an extra $52 million/year to operate. Similarly, the Gardiner East hybrid option 3 (the one that city council endorsed) costs about $200 million more than removal in CapEx and $3.5 million/year more per year, on average, over its 100 year lifecycle (in 2013 dollars).

 

[LNahid2000]

The difference is not $500 million as a lump sum. Would you say that the Finch West LRT costs $6.2 billion more than the existing buses? Of course not... You'd say that it costs around $1 billion to build and an extra $52 million/year to operate. Similarly, the Gardiner East hybrid option 3 (the one that city council endorsed) costs about $200 million more than removal in CapEx and $3.5 million/year more per year, on average, over its 100 year lifecycle (in 2013 dollars).

You'd need to subtract the annual operating cost of the existing buses from the $52 million/year. In addition, if you wanted to state the sum of future operating costs as a present value, you'd need to discount it using an appropriate interest rate. You can't just add 100 years of operating costs to get $6.2 billion without accounting for the time value of money.

 

[amnesiajune]

You'd need to subtract the annual operating cost of the existing buses from the $52 million/year.

$52 million/year is the net operating cost. The savings from eliminating bus service are already counted in that figure.

In addition, if you wanted to state the sum of future operating costs as a present value, you'd need to discount it using an appropriate interest rate. You can't just add 100 years of operating costs to get $6.2 billion without accounting for the time value of money.

That doesn't seem to matter much in the Gardiner East discussion.

 

[LNahid2000]

$52 million/year is the net operating cost. The savings from eliminating bus service are already counted in that figure.

Nope:

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2016/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-97921.pdf

As discussed below, the gross costs will be partially offset by reductions in bus operating and maintenance costs on these routes and also by increases in fare revenue as a result of increased ridership. However, a full analysis of the net impact has not been completed for all of these routes. A preliminary analysis for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT indicates that the bus operating and maintenance savings, along with incremental fare revenue, will offset approximately 50% ($39 million in $2021) of the gross operating and maintenance costs of the LRT.

See page 10.

 

[amnesiajune]

I'm referring to Finch West, not Eglinton. Anyways, this is getting off-topic. I'm just saying that we shouldn't be bundling operating costs in with capital costs.