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Dufferin Street: Eliminating the jog

The railway corridor that passes over the intersection would become a multi-modal transportation corridor passing over on a new beautiful modern double-decked cable-stayed bridge that lights up at night. This bridge would carry the railway lines on the bottom deck and a southerly extension of the Black Creek Drive expressway on the top deck. The southerly extension of Black Creek would connect to a rebuilt Gardiner Expressway on a cable-stayed viaduct and would carry express buses to Pearson Airport.

Ah, here's Alcock proposing the resurrection of the 400 Extension, only via the rail corridor instead of the Christie-Clinton connecting expressway from the Crosstown. Get real.
 
What's retarded about that?

It proposes to fill a legitmate transportation need, provide additional cyclepaths, and improved transit. All without demolishing existing neighbourhoods. The cable stayed new Gardiner idea is a bit out there. The the fundamentals of maximizing existing transportation corridors are solid, and much more thought out than the "let's just build LRTs and subways everywhere and then everyone will take transit" ideas.

It's actually quite a decent idea, although it will never come to pass.
 
What's retarded about that?

It proposes to fill a legitmate transportation need, provide additional cyclepaths, and improved transit. All without demolishing existing neighbourhoods. The cable stayed new Gardiner idea is a bit out there. The the fundamentals of maximizing existing transportation corridors are solid, and much more thought out than the "let's just build LRTs and subways everywhere and then everyone will take transit" ideas.

It's actually quite a decent idea, although it will never come to pass.

the part about extending highway 400 down the railway corridor. you would have to build an elevated highway which would be subject to similar wear and tear as the gardiner expressway which would be expensive to build and to maintain in the long term. it would encourage more car use which would encourage the building of more parking lots.
 
What's retarded about that?

They think it's retarded because it isn't a punitive reaction to car use.

Mind you, a giant bridge spanning a large portion of the city is going to introduce some pretty new dynamics to the neighbourhoods it passes by. I'm not sure the effect will be particularly positive. The railway lands already act as barrier, will adding a multi-decked viaduct compound that?
 
it would encourage more car use which would encourage the building of more parking lots.

So? Plan for both. The answer doesn't have to be as dumb as acres of surface parking, or urban racecourses like Richmond/Adelaide. If we ignore the reality of increased car use then we'll always be inconveniently boned by it.
 
What's retarded about that?

It proposes to fill a legitmate transportation need, provide additional cyclepaths, and improved transit. All without demolishing existing neighbourhoods. The cable stayed new Gardiner idea is a bit out there. The the fundamentals of maximizing existing transportation corridors are solid, and much more thought out than the "let's just build LRTs and subways everywhere and then everyone will take transit" ideas.

It's actually quite a decent idea, although it will never come to pass.

If it's not retarded, why will it never come to pass?
 
we have enough car centric infrastructure in toronto. we don't need more expressways, we need to improve what we have. projects like the jog elimination do wonders to remove the kinks and get the traffic flow going. quality (design) over quantity. isn't there still room to improve traffic signaling?
 
If it's not retarded, why will it never come to pass?
Allow me to apply this statement to other things:

Toronto circa the late 1980s:

"The Downtown Relief Line is not a retarded idea!"
"If it's not retarded, why will it never come to pass?"

Or perhaps Toronto circa the late 1960s:

"A light rail line up the Weston Sub is not a retarded idea!"
"If it's not retarded, why will it never come to pass?"

Or maybe the start of the 1990s:

"A subway under Eglinton West is not a retarded idea!"
"If it's not retarded, why will it never come to pass?"

Not saying I support the idea, but saying that something is retarded just because you think it will never happen is, well, retarded.
 
The jog really isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, and a local stop on Gladstone would be lost. People here love throwing around artitectural preservation so what about not affecting the overpass with it's grand stone foundation and grassroots steel, eh?

Anyways, all I'm saying is we've become so accustomed to the jog (of which a similar jog exists on Keele just north of Eglinton [Yore Rd]) that replacing it just to shave a minute off commuting is trivial. Also consider the mass incrase in private vehicular traffic that'd destroy lower Dufferin's pedestrian enclave and further congest Dufferin on Ex event days.
 
can i see a plan/design of this 400 extension to the gardiner with ramps and all?
 
One of either the 400 extension or to a much lesser extent the Spadina Expressway is desperately needed, would make downtown substantially more attractive to businesses. A 400 extension is a brilliant idea, and would have 100% of my support as long as it's done in a non obtrusive way. It's beyond ridiculous that there is no high capacity road link between the downtown core and the central-west part of the city.
 
One of either the 400 extension or to a much lesser extent the Spadina Expressway is desperately needed, would make downtown substantially more attractive to businesses.

If they're the kind of businesses that feel they need a 400 extension or revived Spadina in order to invest in Toronto, then they're substantially less attractive to Torontonians. Okay?

can i see a plan/design of this 400 extension to the gardiner with ramps and all?

http://www.toviaduct.com/

Also

http://spacing.ca/wire/?page_id=1244
 
The jog really isn't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, and a local stop on Gladstone would be lost. People here love throwing around artitectural preservation so what about not affecting the overpass with it's grand stone foundation and grassroots steel, eh?

Anyways, all I'm saying is we've become so accustomed to the jog (of which a similar jog exists on Keele just north of Eglinton [Yore Rd]) that replacing it just to shave a minute off commuting is trivial. Also consider the mass incrase in private vehicular traffic that'd destroy lower Dufferin's pedestrian enclave and further congest Dufferin on Ex event days.

A local stop on Gladstone would be lost? For shame! To think we'd lose that when we fix something that has bothered drivers and pedestrians alike on Dufferin for many a year. The nice thing about this jog is that Dufferin actually is a straight line, it just has to be reconnected.
 

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