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

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People point to Boston's big dig and cite the accidents, fires, cost overruns, and time overruns but fail to mention just how complex Boston's dig was. Toronto, for example would be an order of magnitude less complex. It would be a simple straight tunnel of the Gardiner, not under water, not needing a bridge, etc etc. I continue to believe that burying the Gardiner along with re-joining Lakeshore blvd as a grand boulevard (a la University ave) is the best approach for our city.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
People point to Boston's big dig and cite the accidents, fires, cost overruns, and time overruns but fail to mention just how complex Boston's dig was. Toronto, for example would be an order of magnitude less complex. It would be a simple straight tunnel of the Gardiner, not under water, not needing a bridge, etc etc. I continue to believe that burying the Gardiner along with re-joining Lakeshore blvd as a grand boulevard (a la University ave) is the best approach for our city.
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Would be interesting to see a Grand Boulevard design with an LRT down the middle of it. May make sense from a WWLRT (and East Bayfront LRT) perspective.
 
interchange42 said:
So, short of making every day a school holiday or Easter Monday, let's keep the thing in the air, beautify the underside where possible, replace the York/Bay/Yonge ramps with a Simcoe ramp, and keep it operating as is otherwise. It's far cheaper, and the dollars we don't spend on the Gardiner can be put towards far more effective transportation projects such as electrifying and expanding the GO network, building a DRL, etc. We'll never have the cash for those things if we blow it all on replacing the Gardiner.

42
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Sounds like the best option I've heard so far.

Lakeshore Boulevard can still become a grand Avenue with the Gardiner above it, too. It couldn't match the model of University Avenue, but it could still be done very creatively.

Plus, the view from the Gardiner would surely be missed.. Not that this is an actual reason, but damn, have you seen Downtown from the Gardiner recently?

I think we could beautify it, it would make no sense to spend all that capital on a tunnel when you could use that money to improve public transportation.
 
Without hunting down my previous views on the subject in this thread, IF the Gardiner is to be taken down, we need a far more comprehensive rail network. People need to be able to get to and through downtown from all parts of the city at all times.

For example: On Sunday night I arrived back from visiting my brother in New York City at Billy Bishop Airport. My mom gave me a ride back home, and even with slow traffic on the DVP we were back home in Richmond Hill in about 50 minutes. By streetcar/replacement bus, subway, and Viva it would take 1 hour and 26 minutes - and I'm not factoring in the 20 minute walk from the bus stop (not YRT's fault that my parents live in a crappy suburban location and being a student, am too poor to move to a better place). There have also been times I've gone to meet friends in Parkdale and south Etobicoke, and need to take the Gardiner to arrive at my destination.

Yes, ideally the needs of suburbia should not supersede the needs of the city, but in reality people need to get to and through downtown from distant locations. This doesn't necessarily mean poorly planned suburbs, but may include rural and locations from other cities as well. If removing a major roadway like the Gardiner, we cannot simply write-off its users as not important, we need to find ways to accommodate their commuting patterns as best as possible as it may result in a crushing blow to the mobility of the region.
 
I say we demolish the frederick g gardiner express way and make a super wide lake shore road. the only challenge is there is one building that is under the gardiner that must be expropriated by the city because the gardiner is a municipal owned highway, not a provincial owned highway and the city is broke.
 
I never get where people think that the city is broke? its the province that is. Toronto actually has an average, managable amount of debt right now..
 
Electrify said:
On Sunday night I arrived back from visiting my brother in New York City at Billy Bishop Airport. My mom gave me a ride back home, and even with slow traffic on the DVP we were back home in Richmond Hill in about 50 minutes. By streetcar/replacement bus, subway, and Viva it would take 1 hour and 26 minutes
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Well, it would be nice/quicker if TTC would actually serve Eireann Quay with a bus rather than make people schlep to Queens Quay with their baggage for those looking to get to GO Exhibition/Bathurst Subway. If you were getting the YUS subway though isn't the Porter shuttle faster to get to Union?
 
It's probably a bit too late to take down the Gardiner AND be able to create a coherent development plan for the liberated land, given the amount of projects on either side of the expressway. Given the age and maintenance needs of the structure, perhaps we should think about a) reorganizing Lakeshore Blvd; b) reorganizing/rebuilding/eliminating on/off ramps; c) selectively rebuilding stretches of the expressway where it intersects major N-S arterials to minimize disruption to the view corridor and/or create new view termini and d) design and implement landscape and land use plans for the space immediately underneath and around the corridor.

AoD
 
dowlingm said:
Well, it would be nice/quicker if TTC would actually serve Eireann Quay with a bus rather than make people schlep to Queens Quay with their baggage for those looking to get to GO Exhibition/Bathurst Subway. If you were getting the YUS subway though isn't the Porter shuttle faster to get to Union?
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If you're packing light (and I mean light), Bixi is an option!
 
Paolo said:
I say we demolish the frederick g gardiner express way and make a super wide lake shore road. the only challenge is there is one building that is under the gardiner that must be expropriated by the city because the gardiner is a municipal owned highway, not a provincial owned highway and the city is broke.
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The Gardiner is a $1B or$2B piece of infrastructure. Until the maintenance costs approach 3 to 5% of that value (+/- $60M) per year, it is much better to keep it intact. I understand the maintenance cost is now about $10M to $20M. Maybe in 20 to 30 years things will be different.

When the time comes, I like the replacement over the rail corridor option. Currently, the biggest obstructions to the waterfront are: the railway, the condos, lakeshore blvd, and finally the Gardiner. Combine 2 of these obstructions into one, demolish the current Gardiner and make the lakeshore more appealing.
 
dowlingm said:
Well, it would be nice/quicker if TTC would actually serve Eireann Quay with a bus rather than make people schlep to Queens Quay with their baggage for those looking to get to GO Exhibition/Bathurst Subway. If you were getting the YUS subway though isn't the Porter shuttle faster to get to Union?
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Well because Google was giving me some wacky transit directions, I actually had to move the starting point up to Queens Quay.

So let me set it up differently: from Union Station to Bernard Terminal on a Sunday night takes 1 hour and 3 minutes - not including walking to the train or from the bus, but including the walking and waiting from the transfer. Meanwhile by car with smooth traffic it should take only 37 minutes.

The point is that transit needs to be as fast and flexible as possible before we remove the Gardiner. I think of limited stop transit such as subways and Viva as being competitive with artery roads, but not fast enough to compete with highways.
 
BurlOak said:
When the time comes, I like the replacement over the rail corridor option. Currently, the biggest obstructions to the waterfront are: the railway, the condos, lakeshore blvd, and finally the Gardiner. Combine 2 of these obstructions into one, demolish the current Gardiner and make the lakeshore more appealing.
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I like that idea. Personally, I think the rail corridor is a bigger obstacle than the Gardiner is. Building overtop of the rail corridor would be the cheapest replacement option, but I think that if we're going to look at the tunnel option, we should look at combining the rail corridor and the Gardiner in a stacked tunnel. The cost of the tunnel wouldn't be twice as much, but we'd get double the amount of reclaimed land from the project. Not to mention a seamless transition between the city and the waterfront.
 
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