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Roads: Keep the Gardiner, fix it, or get rid of it? (2005-2014)

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Urban Shocker said:
Rather than an elevated park, why not reduce vehicular traffic on the Gardiner by building a two lane elevated aqueduct - gently inclined in both directions - to accommodate a crosstown swan boat service, including whitewater off-ramp and on-ramp links to future Don and Humber River express swan boat systems, and park-and-ride connections at the east and west end termini?
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it sure does compliment steve munro's swan boat proposal.
 
I drive, and from the NW no less (see my screen name) and I can tell you that in regular traffic (i.e. any weekday from 6 am to about 8 pm) I completely avoid taking the Gardiner and instead take a local route towards the 400/Black Creek drive area. I have found that unless the Gardiner is utterly empty (allowing one to actually get up to the 90 km/hr speed limit) then a local route + Black Creek/400 is just a quick with out the stop and go traffic of the Gardiner.

That said I still think it's an inportant part of Toronto's (and the GTA) traffic solution. I support burying it and rebuilding a 6 lane grand boulevard type Lakeshore Blvd.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
I drive, and from the NW no less (see my screen name) and I can tell you that in regular traffic (i.e. any weekday from 6 am to about 8 pm) I completely avoid taking the Gardiner and instead take a local route towards the 400/Black Creek drive area. I have found that unless the Gardiner is utterly empty (allowing one to actually get up to the 90 km/hr speed limit) then a local route + Black Creek/400 is just a quick with out the stop and go traffic of the Gardiner.

That said I still think it's an inportant part of Toronto's (and the GTA) traffic solution. I support burying it and rebuilding a 6 lane grand boulevard type Lakeshore Blvd.
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I am going to tie this with a comment someone else made that the Gardiner only saves them a couple of minutes a day......the implication being that it is not adding much value relative to just using surface routes and local streets (as is suggested in this post).

This argument (turned around) is often used by the people who strongly support tearing down the gardiner.

What is often missed in this logic, though, is that you are comparing a world where the Garidner exists along with other roads to one where it is gone. I, too, ocassionally use that 400 Black Creek route (when I do I head out of downtown along the lakeshore, up parkside and then to BC/400....and you are right, it only takes a few more minutes than my traditional Gardiner/427 route.....problem is if the Gardiner were not there everyone would be taking what are, now, the alternative routes....those few minutes would turn into hours.......all of the lanes are full now....if you take 3 or 4 of them away (without replacing them with lanes of similar capacity or satisfactory alternative transit) you will create traffic chaos. It is simple...people have to get to work and, later, like to get back to home.

I have used the Gardiner for about 25 years.....yet I advocate tearing it down.....EVENTUALLY....and that eventually is when all of the GO lines are full-day-two-way-7dayaweek lines.....until then we need this road.....


....so, do not spend $700 + million building a park on top of a road that, ultimately, we will take down.....instead, invest that $700 million (if it exists) in creating the necessary pre-conditions to tearing down the road in the first place.
 
I'm not sure how this will solve the problem of the Gardiner being a "barrier" to the waterfront.

At ground-level this will remain the same eyesore as it is now, from what I have seen.

Viewed from a highrise, yes, it will look much nicer with a "park" on the top.

Though I am not completely against this idea, I am lukewarm.

Rather than curse the darkness, so to speak, I much prefer one of the few alternatives I have heard.

That being, the Toronto Waterfront Viaduct proposal, which would, in a nutshell, involve building a viaduct bridge over the rail corridor (which I believe is an equal barrier to the waterfront). On top of the viaduct will be vehicular traffic with transit on its own right-of-way. Below would be a climate controlled environment for pedestrians, cyclists, retail.

The structure itself, as I have seen it, would be an architectural marvel. Truely iconic.

Too ambitious for T.O? I sure hope not, but I have heard little in the way of support for it to date.

toviaduct.com
 
I do like that idea. Hopefully if they do it, they'll put the condos in the towers.

Any ideas what they should do with it once (if) demand for the expressway no longer exists? What would they do with the Rail Corridor? I still think it should be buried until it reaches the Don River, but maybe they would put it on top of the aqueduct?
 
Whoaccio said:
Its a neat enough idea. Would almost depend entirely on implementation. I am a bit skeptical such a verdant park as depicted in the render could be built without requiring fairly onerous engineering work to accommodate the necessary weight and irrigation requirements. If it just ends up like the ramparts at Nathan Phillips' Square, I'm not sure anybody would make the vertical hike to the top.

It might be a neat idea to make a kind of linear market, though. So, put retail along the central spine of the viaduct with pedestrian promenades along the edges. That should save on the infrastructure required to support a small forest. If it was designed well it could actually be a pretty cool attraction as well. I would like to sit on a patio above the Gardiner looking either to the lake or CBD. Lack of decent retail and commercial activity is the death knell of most waterfront projects.

EDIT: I would add that it is refreshing to see some actual creativity on this issue. As it is, I am sick of hearing dogmatic regurgitation of how the Gardiner is either the antichrist, destroyer of cities and eater of puppies or so impossible to rehabilitate that we ought not even consider it. We put a man on the moon for the love of god, it isn't impossible to do something with the Gardiner. I mean, I'm surprised this is lambasted as 'unrealistic' and far fetched, for a paltry price of 600m for 7km, while demolition of a well used route and replacing it with some million lane super boulevard (with a shrub median, lets not forget) for pretty much the same cost/km is actual municipal policy.
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Neat idea. I think it could be nice with some small retail, cafes etc. Logistics would be an issue (how do you get stuff up there? Service elevators every few hundred meters?). In the long run, I think I'd rather see the Gardiner gone. If anything, could a cut-and-cover tunnel be put in, and put this kind of thing at surface level?
 
Hi Second_In_Pie,
Im not sure if I understand your questions, but once the viaduct is completed, the Gardiner would be dismantled. As for the rail corridor, it would continue as it does now under the viaduct bridge.

After posting my original post, I did a search on the T.O Viaduct in this forum.

Members pretty well ripped the guy who made this proposal where cries of socialism and Jane Jacobs were somehow made part of the discussion.

Kind of a bummer.

I love the viaduct proposal at first blush.

Im not saying it is without flaws, as I am far from an architectural expert, but from what people seemed to be saying the person who made the proposal (Alcock?) is not well liked for whatever reason even outside this forum.

I would just like to see politicians have a non-partisan discussion about this proposal, as on the surface, it seems like a viable option worth discussing.

Anyway, this thread is about the park-on-top-of-the-Gardiner proposal, so it is wise not to hijack this thread when another already exists for the viaduct.

Love the concept of the park on top, compared to what we already have, but there will be those who will say that the ugliness still exists at ground level and the barrier will still exist.
 
I looks cool. It has its own support structure so the Gardiner's structure would not be effected. In fact be being sheltered, it might increase its lifespan. The city could also charge those condos close enough a fee to have direct access. In the winter it could be used as skating rink also.
 
EarthJuice said:
Im not sure if I understand your questions, but once the viaduct is completed, the Gardiner would be dismantled. As for the rail corridor, it would continue as it does now under the viaduct bridge.
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I was talking about the future, when a highway/roadway would not be needed. Perhaps the rail corridor could just be tunnelled as per fantasy and the Viaduct treated as a regular road? That would certainly be interesting actually, but the turnoffs would be a pain.

EarthJuice said:
Im not saying it is without flaws, as I am far from an architectural expert, but from what people seemed to be saying the person who made the proposal (Alcock?) is not well liked for whatever reason even outside this forum.

I would just like to see politicians have a non-partisan discussion about this proposal, as on the surface, it seems like a viable option worth discussing..
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I agree. It would add some flare to the city, and a lot of options in the future. What I'm not sure of is whether it would be better to do this or just tear the Gardiner down and rely on the regular roads until more people start relying on transit.
 
Why don't we just build a huge dome over the entire city while we are at it, so that we can control the weather, and keep away the snow.
 
This "roof of green over the Gardiner" is just so bad I can't begin to enumerate the ways. As for solving the "barrier to the lake", well, this concept makes the barrier more substantial.

I appreciate that the architect has an attachment to Toronto, but really, I would prefer dismantling the Gardiner once alternatives are in place.

Between this scheme and the Viaduct, the Viaduct is much better as it is on stilts high enough that the whole construct would not be a barrier.

I sort of wonder if this new "roof of green" concept over the existing elevated was put forward just to push the superior TO Viaduct concept, an obviously more creative and ballsy scheme.
 
TonyV said:
I sort of wonder if this new "roof of green" concept over the existing elevated was put forward just to push the superior TO Viaduct concept, an obviously more creative and ballsy scheme.
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If by 'ballsy' one means 'stupid' then sure. I don't quite get why we didn't stack the Gardiner over the rail corridor to start with, but it makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever to demolish a well utilized route, only to rebuild it with some ridiculously gaudy cable spans a few meters to the north. Its so shockingly dumb. Its only marginally less dumb to demolish a more or less okay road, then replace it with an underground road directly underneath. The energy inefficiency is so ridiculously glaring. Its almost as if nobody has heard of recycling.

Anyways, I'm not sure why people are so incredulous about this. I'll admit its probably not the most technically thought out proposal, but there doesn't seem to be anything so terribly implausible about it. Building a pedestrian structure is pretty simple, all things considered. Based on the previous image, this seems less complex than the Charing Cross bridge expansions. Imagine building new spans along a bridge opened in 1864, using the same foundations. The more conspiracy minded side of my brains thinks part of the Toronto blogosphere refuses to acknowledge that the Gardiner could ever be rehabilitated. That there is something so fundamentally so un-urban and misplaced about the concept of viaducts.
 
Whoaccio said:
The more conspiracy minded side of my brains thinks part of the Toronto blogosphere refuses to acknowledge that the Gardiner could ever be rehabilitated. That there is something so fundamentally so un-urban and misplaced about the concept of viaducts.
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On the flip-side, though, there seems to be a group that just seems to have nothing more than a gut feeling that removing any piece of the Gardiner would lead to complete and total traffic chaos. "Don't even bother doing a study using sophisticated traffic modeling techniques," they say. "My gut tells me we can't live without it."
 
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