Roads: Gardiner Expressway catch-all, incl. Hybrid Design (2015-onwards)

[DSC]

Not sure if this has been posted, it's about to start. The concrete structure of this on-ramp looks to be in pretty poor shape.

 

[dougtoronto]

Pardon my lack of civil engineering knowledge, but would it have been too cost prohibitive to tunnel for both the Ontario Line and a new hypothetical underground Gardiner rebuild? In my head it would make sense to combine the tunnelling costs of the OL with the costs of the Gardiner rebuild and just go ahead and build a massive multimodal tunnel downtown. But hey, what do I know.

 

[drum118]

Pardon my lack of civil engineering knowledge, but would it have been too cost prohibitive to tunnel for both the Ontario Line and a new hypothetical underground Gardiner rebuild? In my head it would make sense to combine the tunnelling costs of the OL with the costs of the Gardiner rebuild and just go ahead and build a massive multimodal tunnel downtown. But hey, what do I know.

One only has to look to Boston and Seattle to see what it cost them to put their elevated Hwy underground, how long it took and the problems with it after the fact..

Putting the Gardiner underground has been looked at as well over the rail corridor and have gone no where

Waterfront Toronto has wanted to put the eastern section on the surface since 2002 by replacing it as a BLVD and got push back on it as it would add 5 extra minute travel time for drivers. By doing so, it would open up more land for development.

 

[Bojaxs]

The province needs to fund higher, alternative GO service in order to ratchet back on the gridlock.

LSW needs to go to 15 minute all-day service every day, and they need to squeeze in another couple of peak period trains too.

Milton needs to be maxed out based on current infra. which would be about 3 more trains each way, and K-W needs to be pushed to its limits, particularly in the Union-Bramalea segment.

****

To tackle the central/eastern segments, they likewise need to get to 15 minute service, all-day, every day on the LSE and bring back express services......

Which yes, again, I'm going to point out the mess here was caused by failing to insist on burying the Ontario Line through Leslieville.

Likewise, they need to get Stouffville off-peak up to 30M 2-way, all-day.

You can't just accelerate work when that work is still going to be measured in terms of six or more years total. You need alternatives.

I've talked about this before. The issue with LSW is the lack of parking between Clarkson and Union. People still opt to drive on the Gardiner cause they can't find a parking spot at the GO stations.

Metrolinx should temporarily expand parking at Mimico while the Gardiner is under construction.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The Gardiner removal ship has sailed and with the upload to the province I don't see any movement for a long time. Better focus on what's doable in this context.

AoD

 

[junctionist]

The Gardiner removal ship has sailed and with the upload to the province I don't see any movement for a long time. Better focus on what's doable in this context.

AoD

They're probably not going to put a brand new elevated expressway underground (which is what's under construction now). On the other hand, as the maintenance costs increase and the regional transit system gets built out, I could see provincial bureaucrats deeming it to no longer be a necessary piece of infrastructure. The province won't want to deal with the maintenance costs after awhile.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

They're probably not going to put a brand new elevated expressway underground (which is what's under construction now). On the other hand, as the maintenance costs increase and the regional transit system gets built out, I could see provincial bureaucrats deeming it to no longer be a necessary piece of infrastructure. The province won't want to deal with the maintenance costs after awhile.

While downloading assets to municipalities isn't unknown, I don't see it happening after they have uploaded this particular piece - given the importance of this particular set of expressways; and really, the overall maintenance cost is - while substantial - more or less a rounding error in the provincial budget.

AoD

 

[zang]

Pardon my lack of civil engineering knowledge, but would it have been too cost prohibitive to tunnel for both the Ontario Line and a new hypothetical underground Gardiner rebuild? In my head it would make sense to combine the tunnelling costs of the OL with the costs of the Gardiner rebuild and just go ahead and build a massive multimodal tunnel downtown. But hey, what do I know.

Tunnel boring machines (TBMs) are very often completely bespoke, and always set to a certain tunnel width. Some single machines now simultaneouslylay tunnel walls while digging. It’s important to have the structural support follow the creation of the tunnel as soon as possible, when not digging through pure rock.

I do remember reading that large boring machines are almost always near their end of life when they do long stretches; and it was one of the reasons why we couldn’t just use the Vaughan Extension machines for Eglinton.

Were they in decent shape, you could I suppose, use the machines to “core out” the tunnels then dig out the rest. However It seems like there’d be a whole lot of needless and potentially unsafe structural work in the interim. That’s especially with it being the lakeshore where there’s likely to be much softer earth than at Eglinton. Everything south of about St. Clair is pretty “recent” geologically speaking as that was the old edge of the lake. There’s a lot of old lake bed under downtown Toronto.

For a several lane highway, even if it were structural and geologically feasible to build, would be done so much faster using a TBM built for that specific purpose.

 

[junctionist]

While downloading assets to municipalities isn't unknown, I don't see it happening after they have uploaded this particular piece - given the importance of this particular set of expressways; and really, the overall maintenance cost is - while substantial - more or less a rounding error in the provincial budget.

AoD

My point was that some enlightened provincial bureaucrats might deem the whole thing unnecessary at some point in the future and choose to demolish it. It has happened in many cities already, though usually in places with better developed transit and/or less traffic.

 

[north-of-anything]

My point was that some enlightened provincial bureaucrats might deem the whole thing unnecessary at some point in the future and choose to demolish it. It has happened in many cities already, though usually in places with better developed transit and/or less traffic.

Better developed transit, less traffic, and/or other parallel expressways that weren't jammed to the gills. The last one is often the case in other cities - Detroit's I-375 is less than 2 km away from the M-10, and Syracuse, New York's I-81 can easily be rerouted since a large amount of its drivers aren't even going downtown.

 

[drum118]

July 25
@kotsy, If you look real close at the girders over the GO Station, you will see why those 6 supports are not being rebuilt like the others. They are all supporting 2 girders for the eastbound lanes and not only that, 2 are single piers like the ones being rebuilt, but the other 4 are holding up all the lanes. Shot it today and depending on what I get done tonight, maybe able post them late tonight or tomorrow night.

As a note, I found out what being built to the west and I wasn't even close to what I though it was. They are building a long 20' high wall mural and forgot the name for it. What I thought was TTC ROW turn out to be concrete sidewalk. They are now working on the area to the east of it.

I see there close the walkway that was open last weekend and most likely will be again for the Ex as it was close off today.

 

[kotsy]

They are building a long 20' high wall mural.

Amazing!!

 

[drum118]

July 26
Way lot more up on my site

Waiting concrete deck

The other 2 piers that could not be removed as they are supporting 2 beams

All the steel beams that were there on the weekend are now gone

Can see why 4 piers could not be remove to be rebuilt as they are holding the existing Gardiner lanes up/

 

[kotsy]

As of today, 11 segments of road deck have been installed, reaching to the GO entrance.

 

[kotsy]

The road deck installation has now advanced past the GO entrance and over the West end of the streetcar loop. It also appears they're keeping the final 4 bent caps at the East end intact like the ones around the GO entrance.

It might be awhile, even until after the CNE, before we see more road deck installed, as the crane has been removed from the site. Based on what I've seen so far, they've left it on site even when taking a few week days off from road deck installation.