Plans to fill in Allen Road

[jwill]

Even if we wanted to slam the Allen further into the city, it would be virtually impossible. It would require huge amounts of money for very little gain, and massive disruption to the neighbourhoods, including (at least temporary) loss of a ravine and a fair bit of expropriation. It would never be tolerated.

But removing the Allen is another question entirely. In the current political climate (war on cars, war on cyclists, war on pedestrians, etc.) it would be bad optics to remove an expressway. Even one that goes from nowhere to nowhere. If we want to repair the neighbourhood, we can cover the highway and develop it. But if the city decides to remove it, the car lobby will make sure we get a fast and wide surface boulevard in its place. That won't do much good for the area either.

 

[sixrings]

You cant cover the highway and develop it.. Where would the parking Go. Right now it makes sense because its already trenched allowing for buildings to make easy parking (ronic since there will likely be less cars per person in the future) If were going to do something do it right. It makes no sense that we would simply build on top because of fear of car drivers. We can use the land that the allen is on to sell which is 1 good for the city. 2 it will create mixed us which is good for the city... Its a win win. There are sometimes in life that you shouldnt comprimise. This would be one of those times.

PLus you say that it would be bad optics because everyones talking about war on cars vs war on cyclists vs war on pedestrians... Taking down the ALLEN would be great optics for two of your three options.. Pedestrians would get a walkable neighbourhood and Im sure they could accomodate cyclists.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

You cant cover the highway and develop it.. Where would the parking Go. Right now it makes sense because its already trenched allowing for buildings to make easy parking (ronic since there will likely be less cars per person in the future) If were going to do something do it right. It makes no sense that we would simply build on top because of fear of car drivers. We can use the land that the allen is on to sell which is 1 good for the city. 2 it will create mixed us which is good for the city... Its a win win. There are sometimes in life that you shouldnt comprimise. This would be one of those times.

PLus you say that it would be bad optics because everyones talking about war on cars vs war on cyclists vs war on pedestrians... Taking down the ALLEN would be great optics for two of your three options.. Pedestrians would get a walkable neighbourhood and Im sure they could accomodate cyclists.

Even if you removed the road portion you'd still have the subway portion, which is just as difficult to develop over. The ony hope (barring total removal of the road and subway and complete redevelopment) is to deck over the roadway/subway and turn it into parkland.

 

[Chuck]

This will NEVER happen. If the areas residents were able to stop the highway from going downtown before then surely now that there houses are 1mill-2mil each there is no way they are going to give it up. Also they shouldnt be asked too. We dont need more highways and more sprawl.. I think most of us have come to the conclusion that this is poor planning. We shouldnt aspire to be like LA in a traffic nightmare rather we should aspire to something more along the lines of NYC which is sustainable and allows for good transit. If they would have built the whole highway in the begginning I wouldnt have had a major problem with it. But now it seems silly to destroy a neighbourhood to encourage driving when the rest of the world is working on becoming denser and more efficient. Renovating lawrence height with mix used accomplishes this.. Redeveloping Eglinton accomplishes this... And taking down the ALLEN accomplishes this.. We should be excited about this not fearing that our beloved vehicle will have one less road to drive on and as a result trying to find rediculous schemes to expand a broken network.

Unfortunately this viewpoint is not realistic in the year 2010 because like it or not, cars play an important role in the meeting the transportation needs of this city. It is true that the transit system desperately needs to be expanded, and it is even more true that transit expansion should be this region's number one priority. However, bottlenecks exist in the road network that simply must be relieved in order for the city to remain competitive. Even if transit ridership doubles - which is for many reasons impossible - there would still be enough cars in this growing city to require at least some investment in the road network. Although extending the Allen southward is not a great idea, nor is removing or narrowing any GTA road or highway until spare capacity is provided elsewhere.

You mentioned New York. Remember that New York has over a dozen main avenues running up and down the island that are between 5-7 lanes wide, and carry a massive volume of cars each. Although New York has the most comprehensive transit system in North America, it must still accommodate cars. So too must Toronto.

 

[sixrings]

I don't mind highways that make sense but we all know this road dead ends... its not like it works efficently...

 

[golodhendil]

You cant cover the highway and develop it..

Even if you removed the road portion you'd still have the subway portion, which is just as difficult to develop over. The ony hope (barring total removal of the road and subway and complete redevelopment) is to deck over the roadway/subway and turn it into parkland.

To quote myself from another thread:

The Prudential Center complex in Boston is built on top of a stretch of the Mass Turnpike:

and the plan is to eventually deck over much of the highway through the city:

Other current plans to deck over the Pike:
A couple of parcels close to the Pru

Fenway Center

 

[W. K. Lis]

If the Spadina Expressway, now Allen Road, was extended down to downtown, more and more parking spaces would have been required. Less buildings, less employment, less residences would have been the result.

Link to this article on parking at overheadwire.


Hartford, CT pre Interstate Highway:


Hartford, CT post Interstate Highway:

 

[sixrings]

these pictures of buildings being so close to a Highway doesnt make me think that this is what we should do for the allen... ONE I am sure these buildings dont create a pedestrian walking cycling environment... 2 If you were to do this arround the allen you would have to rip down some pretty expensive houses or some pre existing apartments to accomplish this... 3 I AM almost 100% sure that this highway in boston actually works.. Just like we see buildings close to the Gardner (which works better then the allen, MUCH BETTER) however I cant believe they would build arround a road that leads into a T section... 4 we could motivate developers to build on the allen if we sold them the land but its going to be extremely if not impossible to try to motivate developers to buy million dollar houses to bulldoze... THIS MIGHT WORK North of Lawrence in Lawrence heights because the government owns the land but the land south of Lawrence is Private...

 

[golodhendil]

these pictures of buildings being so close to a Highway doesnt make me think that this is what we should do for the allen... ONE I am sure these buildings dont create a pedestrian walking cycling environment... 2 If you were to do this arround the allen you would have to rip down some pretty expensive houses or some pre existing apartments to accomplish this... 3 I AM almost 100% sure that this highway in boston actually works.. Just like we see buildings close to the Gardner (which works better then the allen, MUCH BETTER) however I cant believe they would build arround a road that leads into a T section... 4 we could motivate developers to build on the allen if we sold them the land but its going to be extremely if not impossible to try to motivate developers to buy million dollar houses to bulldoze... THIS MIGHT WORK North of Lawrence in Lawrence heights because the government owns the land but the land south of Lawrence is Private...

Note that all those buildings aren't built around the Pike, they are built on top of the highway by decking it over. They were shown mainly to refute the misconception repeated a few times already that "you can't cover a highway and build on top of it." And since you are building over the highway, it doesn't necessarily involve tearing down anything around it, as long as the corridor is wide enough (which, for most of its length, the Allen is). The Masspike itself was built by ripping up existing neighbourhoods and cutting a scar through the city, much like how Spadina Expressway would have been built, so the new developments merely patch up this scar; all the buildings that you see "so close" to the highway in the foreground of the first picture were there long before the highway, and so are largely irrelevant to our discussion. The highway passes through some of the most walkable and vibrant districts and shopping areas in Boston, so the new developments are mostly a continuation of the existing walkability/cyclability, much more so than the previously windswept flyovers that pedestrians and cyclists have to traverse. In light of all this, I fail to see how the fact that the Allen ends in a T section affects whether decking and building over it will work; the bigger problem is how to integrate any new "walkable" developments over the highway with the existing backyards and subdivisions around the highway.

Again, I am simply pointing out that it is possible to develp over highways, I am not necessarily endorsing doing it for the Allen. If anything, I would much prefer to see the rail lands decked over and developed.

 

[sixrings]

ok I understand.. It may be possible but I cant see why the developers would choose to spend this type of money to build ON top of something... And I wouldnt encourage using our tax dollars to create a cover so that developers could build over it... Not when its shouldnt be there to begin with.. Why go through the hastle of trying to intergrate something difficult when realistically it makes more sense and its simpler just to remove the avenue.. I appreciate you simply showing facts and not necessarly endorsing such ideas. The problem i have is that when these things come up (kinda like the silly garden over top of the gardner images) car advocates jump on it and say yea this is the best of both worlds. Really I think its simply a comprimise and nobody wins.. Again thats my opinion..

 

[Platform 27]

The Prudential Center complex in Boston is built on top of a stretch of the Mass Turnpike:
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and the plan is to eventually deck over much of the highway through the city:
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Other current plans to deck over the Pike:
A couple of parcels close to the Pru
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Fenway Center
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I'm admittedly not super familiar with Boston, but per Wiki the Pru Center and the turnpike were built simultaneously. I imagine that made hiding the turnpike underneath somewhat easier.

If you're simply "decking over" a freeway with an overpass-grade "roof", there's no way anything built on top can be particularly heavy. From a simply structural perspective, if you want to plop anything mid- or high-rise on top of the Allen, you're going to want pretty substantial pilings punching down "through" the road/subway right-of-way and into the bedrock underneath. I wouldn't say that would be impossible to do in the case of the Allen trench, but I would caution that it's not exactly a cheap reservoir of underutilized land waiting for an entrepreneurial sort to bring to life.

Unless the folks at MIT have quietly whipped up antigravity technology, I'm assuming those midrise developments will have entail significant underground supports extending below the Turnpike. Given the geography involved in Boston, the air rights are lucrative enough locations for infill that the economics are probably a fair bit more favourable than they would be up at Lawrence and Dufferin.

 

[golodhendil]

I'm admittedly not super familiar with Boston, but per Wiki the Pru Center and the turnpike were built simultaneously. I imagine that made hiding the turnpike underneath somewhat easier.

If you're simply "decking over" a freeway with an overpass-grade "roof", there's no way anything built on top can be particularly heavy. From a simply structural perspective, if you want to plop anything mid- or high-rise on top of the Allen, you're going to want pretty substantial pilings punching down "through" the road/subway right-of-way and into the bedrock underneath. I wouldn't say that would be impossible to do in the case of the Allen trench, but I would caution that it's not exactly a cheap reservoir of underutilized land waiting for an entrepreneurial sort to bring to life.

Unless the folks at MIT have quietly whipped up antigravity technology, I'm assuming those midrise developments will have entail significant underground supports extending below the Turnpike. Given the geography involved in Boston, the air rights are lucrative enough locations for infill that the economics are probably a fair bit more favourable than they would be up at Lawrence and Dufferin.

Yes, you are correct that the main building (Prudential Tower) was built at the same time as the Pike, but several other towers were built in that complex afterwards, as well as nearby parcels like Copley Place and Hynes Convention Center, and all those other projects in the works that I've shown.

And yes you are also right that the decks have piles that go into the bedrock. No they aren't cheap, but not "impossible" as stated, which was my point. And again, I am not suggesting that it necessarily makes sense to do this with the Allen; the western rail lands will probably be a more meaningful place to do it.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Yes, you are correct that the main building (Prudential Tower) was built at the same time as the Pike, but several other towers were built in that complex afterwards, as well as nearby parcels like Copley Place and Hynes Convention Center, and all those other projects in the works that I've shown.

And yes you are also right that the decks have piles that go into the bedrock. No they aren't cheap, but not "impossible" as stated, which was my point. And again, I am not suggesting that it necessarily makes sense to do this with the Allen; the western rail lands will probably be a more meaningful place to do it.

But building at the same time and building after the fact are two completely different engineering problems. What we're talking about is building a community which hovers over an existing roadway/subway. Not likely to happen

 

[golodhendil]

But building at the same time and building after the fact are two completely different engineering problems. What we're talking about is building a community which hovers over an existing roadway/subway. Not likely to happen

... the main building (Prudential Tower) was built at the same time as the Pike, but several other towers were built in that complex afterwards, as well as nearby parcels like Copley Place and Hynes Convention Center, and all those other projects in the works that I've shown.

I.e., only one tower (or more correctly, decks over one or two of the parcels) was built at the same time. Other parcels have since been decked over and more will be in the next few years/decades, so plenty of communities are/will hover over existing roadways/railways.

Edit: For those interested, here is a report from 2000 on the history, economics and vision of developing the air rights over the Pike.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Spadina Expressway (Allen Road) in 1963: