Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

The ramp speed wouldn't be any different than what exists if the ramp touches down close to Eastern, if anything it could be shallower with realignment.

As for the stormwater facility, that is an un-designed project at this time. I don't see how building the land-side of a storm-water facility (it's actually a sediment trap facility) under a realigned Gardiner could be less plausible than "utilize existing DVP ramps" as shown in Slide 39, when their overlay clearly shows that half of those existing ramp supports would be in the middle of the expanded river mouth (ie. would have to be rebuilt in the riverbed). The Lower Donlands Framework Plan (here) shows more detail of what they are claiming would interfere...it just doesn't sound right.

Jcam/Vegeta's solution has to go under the rail bridge, then hang a much tighter turn, or go over the rail bridge sky high and then come back down to the Gardiner. I suspect that, due to cost considerations, the team who did the survey rejected an 'over the rail bridge' solution out of hand. That might be wrong, but it's not nefarious. And, I'd say, it's not wrong.

And to say the floodway is 'undesigned' is reaching. That's all they've been doing from the start of this project, designing the floodwater protection in such a way as to allow for development.

 

[salsa]

Jcam/Vegeta's solution has to go under the rail bridge, then hang a much tighter turn, or go over the rail bridge sky high and then come back down to the Gardiner. I suspect that, due to cost considerations, the team who did the survey rejected an 'over the rail bridge' solution out of hand. That might be wrong, but it's not nefarious. And, I'd say, it's not wrong.

And to say the floodway is 'undesigned' is reaching. That's all they've been doing from the start of this project, designing the floodwater protection in such a way as to allow for development.

Anything is possible, but expect to pay a lot more for it. The price tag is bad enough as is, and yet the hybrid alternative as currently proposed only entails "re-decking of existing Gardiner structure and retention of existing DVP ramps", because there was "no real benefit to removing and rebuilding a new ramp in the same location". In other words, the highway and it's DVP ramps are not even gonna be torn down. It will be exactly the same as it exists today. This whole proposal is basically a glorified version of the "maintain" alternative tweaked for the benefit of private developers.

The current travel time is less than 90 seconds. The proposal suggests an additional 2-3 minutes with the tear down option. It sounds improbable at best, that a 2km trip through a densely populated area will take only 4 minutes to travel through at the height of rush hour. Any delays on the Gardiner WB before Yonge will cause back-ups on the DVP southbound. Wouldn't stop lights guarantee a back up of traffic?

As you said, it will be a densely populated area. If you're gonna compare it to current travel times, then you have to add an extra 5 minutes for all alternatives because "2031 Base Case travel times are approximately five minutes higher than current travel times due to growth in background traffic volumes". Once you've done that, then you add another 2-3 minutes for the remove option (compared to the hybrid alternative).

View attachment 44247

 

[vegeta_skyline]

Did you read page 25 and 26 of the presentation? That route can't be done because there is a city stormwater facility and the ramp design speed wouldn't be safe.

Hard to make out the exact aliment they were looking at considering the half-a**ed image they provided with the presentation for that option but its looks far tighter then necessary.

Keep in mind the red lines are exactly the same, the curvature of that alinement is no worse then the existing one. As for the stormwater facility, its not the second coming of the CN tower. Its an underground facility located at the base of Cherry st. You'd probably need a longer span in that particular location sure, but we're not talking about anything extraordinary. An existing pillar for the Gardiner expressway is less then 40m away located in the center of Cherry st. Even if it had to span 100m in the opposite direction that's 140m or the same length as the Burlington skyway's box girder bridge. And not that it would get anywhere near this long; but spans of over 300m are possible for that relatively inexpensive type of bridge.

Jcam/Vegeta's solution has to go under the rail bridge, then hang a much tighter turn, or go over the rail bridge sky high and then come back down to the Gardiner.

Where are you getting this sky high bridge idea from? The minimal vertical clearance required for the rail corridor is 23’-9¾”ft or 7.265m. Currently the rail corridor is about 6m above the DVP; 4.4m roadway clearance and another 1.6m for the bridge span and track bed.

Plus an extra meter or two for bridge depth and that means the highway would have to climb about 15m/49ft over a distance of 300m.

I don't know the actual figures but the height of the current ramp looks to be around 15m/50ft above ground at its maximum

and thereafter it descends to its lowest level - low enough to go under the rail corridor within a mere 250m. The grade of the alinement I suggested would seem to be less then the existing one.

 

[44 North]

These are some pretty serious accusations you're making. Do you have any proof that City staff fabricated the projections?

I didn’t say "fabricated", but rather "fudged" - and by that I mean numbers may’ve been played around with to get a desired result. Or that assumptions concerning growth in NYCC and STC weren’t based on facts and evidence, but rather wild presumptions. It’s not as if planners at the time were unaware that growth along lines or around stations could be guaranteed – there was ample evidence along Bloor, Danforth, Yonge, etc. As well, experts at the time like David Gunn did counter the City’s stance on Sheppard being a priority, so support for the line and its priority wasn’t exactly a slam dunk.

As for actual "proof" that the City purposely inflated Sheppard’s projections – that might be hard to do. But according to Steve Munro, the demand modeling used "gerrymandered" bus routes to essentially force riders onto Sheppard – thus increasing its ridership. IMO that’s definitely one way of purposefully inflating projections to get a desired result.

One item caught my eye in the section of "Public’s travel patterns and behaviour". Not only were the employment and mode share values used to model demand considerably above what actually happened, assumptions were made about the way the Sheppard subway would get its passengers. Regional and local bus services would be gerrymandered to force riders onto the Sheppard line (at least in the model), but riders actually preferred to go to Finch Station where there was a chance of getting a comfortable spot on a train.

http://stevemunro.ca/2012/02/22/the-secret-sheppard-subway-report/

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I didn’t say "fabricated", but rather "fudged" - and by that I mean numbers may’ve been played around with to get a desired result. Or that assumptions concerning growth in NYCC and STC weren’t based on facts and evidence, but rather wild presumptions. It’s not as if planners at the time were unaware that growth along lines or around stations could be guaranteed – there was ample evidence along Bloor, Danforth, Yonge, etc. As well, experts at the time like David Gunn did counter the City’s stance on Sheppard being a priority, so support for the line and its priority wasn’t exactly a slam dunk.

As for actual "proof" that the City purposely inflated Sheppard’s projections – that might be hard to do. But according to Steve Munro, the demand modeling used "gerrymandered" bus routes to essentially force riders onto Sheppard – thus increasing its ridership. IMO that’s definitely one way of purposefully inflating projections to get a desired result.



http://stevemunro.ca/2012/02/22/the-secret-sheppard-subway-report/

We'll have to see how the bus routes were gerrymandered. It may have made sense from a cost:benefit perspective to force riders onto 4 Sheppard Line, rather than taking them all the way to Finch, since bus routes are very expensive to operate.

Keep in mind that the TTC gerrymandering routes isn't anything new. Steve Munro himself has said that the TTC heavily "gerrymanders" (his words, not mine) Scarborough bus routes to terminate at Scarborough Centre station, rather than at Kennedy. Without these "gerrymandered" routes, the usage on 3 Scarborough Line would presumably be significantly lower than the 8000ish pphpd it is right now.

By the way, I'll also take issue with the use of the word "gerrymander". It implies that something deceptive is going on. In the case of the SRT and Sheppard Line gerrymandering, they could very well be the best places to terminate bus routes.

 

[TOareaFan]

Zero.

Like all "lost productivity studies" these numbers laughably ignore the fact that these people will still produce as much as they always have and the 3 minutes will come from their non-productive times.

Ok....then we should 100% discount/ignore these same figures when they are used to justify the billions being spent on transit projects? Or are they only useless when considering road expenditures?

and...as if on demand:

Anne Marie Aikins retweeted
Steven Del Duca ‏@StevenDelDuca 5m5 minutes ago
We're investing $billions into #GOTransit so we stop losing $billions to gridlock.

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news...marttrack-a-little-further-down-the-line.html … #onpoli

 

[Neil]

...or move the rail corridor and bit to the south and raise it a few meters as it crosses the Don. Then the DVP could cross the Don with a couple low bridges and stay at grade as it goes under the rail corridor. The current rail bridge over the Don and DVP looks like it needs some TLC anyway.

 

[CapitalSeven]

That bridge was lengthened and rebuilt about 8 years ago. I don't think they are going to spend 30 million to move it 120 feet so they can chop up the Go Train yard they built for 15 million also 8 years ago so they can build an overpass 3.5 times as long and expensive as the one in their draft plan.

It's a nice plan though, in a fisabiff way.

(Fine, If Space Aliens Build It For Free)

 

[Neil]

That bridge was lengthened and rebuilt about 8 years ago. I don't think they are going to spend 30 million to move it 120 feet so they can chop up the Go Train yard they built for 15 million also 8 years ago so they can build an overpass 3.5 times as long and expensive as the one in their draft plan.

It's a nice plan though, in a fisabiff way.

(Fine, If Space Aliens Build It For Free)

2 long road bridges vs 2 short road bridges and 2 short rail bridges. Either way, there will be bridges built.
In an RER world what role will a downtown train yard play? Guaranteed once this area becomes developed Metrolinx will look to monetize this real estate. There's cheaper spots in the hinterland to park trains. So dang, they spent 15 mill on something that didn't last a 100 years. And if space aliens are the lowest bidder, I wouldn't be choosy.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm not a fan of all this new alternative alignment stuff done in MS Paint. There's probably many things that were looked at and alignments eliminated by the project team for various reasons we're not privy to. To think these possibilities were not considered is a huge assumption.

 

[wopchop]

Indeed. The hybrid option that was presented makes the assumption that a lot of infrastructure, other than the deck, will be reused. All of these other options that people are drawing up will require that 1) that the entire ramp from cherry to the DVP be destroyed 2) construction remobilizes to another corridor, and 3) new complete ramps are built from cherry to the DVP along a new alignment. For an option that was already estimated at $414 million in capital costs, you have just significantly increased that number.

 

[aquateam]

For all our griping about the costs, I think we should be thankful that we're not in the same situation as Montreal.

They're spending almost 4 billion dollars to repair a highway interchange. It's interesting how little debate or commentary a massive expenditure like that on highway infrastructure gets compared to any public transit spending. At least we're having a debate about the (eastern) Gardiner and what to do with it.

 

[salsa]

I've used Montreal freeways a number of times, and the amount of graffiti and disrepair has reached epidemic proportions. They are literally crumbling and falling apart. Why is that happening?

 

[arcum]

(Future property tax revenues from freed up lands)

I can't believe this wasn't added to the pros for Remove.

That's now how property taxes work though. New areas to tax properties would only result in everyone else's bill going down, not the total pot going up.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

I've used Montreal freeways a number of times, and the amount of graffiti and disrepair has reached epidemic proportions. They are literally crumbling and falling apart. Why is that happening?

Quite literally, because of the Montreal mafia's construction hold on infrastructure. The accusation is that they deliberately used sub-standard cement, paid off the inspectors, and pocketed the extra profits. The (last? guy before that?) Mayor went down in flames due to the scandal and the Mayor of Laval as well when one of the north of the river overpasses quite literally fell down.