Haljackey
Active Member
I assume that you mean there are no other highways in the downtown, because there are also the 401,427,400 and Allen Road (which hardly counts).
There wouldn't be any point in removing the DVP or the Gardiner west of downtown. I just meant that they wouldn't be crucial anymore. It would be fine if we just removed the Gardiner downtown. Car drivers could still get downtown using the Gardiner, it would just dump them onto Lakeshore at, say, Dufferin. Lakeshore would not be that much busier than now, because more people would be taking the subway to compensate for the extra people coming off the highway.
To get from London to Downtown Toronto, there's a VIA train.
That's partially what I mean. The 401 was intended to simply bypass Toronto when it was built, and it still does that to a certain degree today. However, with all the other routes that junction with it, it is also a major connecting route. The sheer volume of traffic flowing onto it from these routes is the reason it has become the busiest highway in the world.
When I visit Toronto, I'll take the train if I'm going to downtown Toronto. But when I'm going other places, I'll end up driving.
But back to the Gardiner, it will still be a crucial route even with these huge transit expansions along with the DVP. Other major cities have several highways servicing the city centre and/or downtown and they can get away with removing a few, but Toronto only has one (I consider the Gardiner/DVP one highway). If the Gardiner is removed, it will increase traffic congestion and thus impact the economic vitality of the area.