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Roads: Gardiner Expressway

Yes, the original hybrid alignment was a tight curve then under the railway, but no, the MS Paint line on Streetview 'proof' missed a couple things, as it went through Metrolinx territory and a proposed water treatment plant.

What is the size of this treatment plant? I would think you could easily span over top of it.
 
Burying it is not a possibility. If one wants to keep the highway grade-separated, elevated is naturally the next best thing to burying.

So in other words, it's not a flip flop. His initial support was still for a grade-separated route. And since we now know it's not possible to do it that way, he'll support something that's very similar.

With only the East part in play, undregournd does not work. You have to go over the Don River, then go underground, and then climb again to meet the original Gardiner elevatation at Jarvis.

The only way underground can be considered is if the entire Gardiner is considered from the Ex to the DVP.
 
Tory said he is not going to try to persuade other counsellors on their positions............exactly how many counsellors are there on the city and does Tory have a veto?
 
I did some googling. Here is what I came up with - a 2012 Conference Paper. http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...3365b1f226b6db8084a+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

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Measuring that the Gardiner is about 32m wide in this area, it appears that the entire water treatment facility is about 50 across. Lets say we need a 60m span to get across it. If an alignment closer to the railway is chosen, the existing Gardiner would probably be removed just west (about 100m) of Cherry - at the expansion joint.

The current Gardiner in this area has spans of about 20m. This was built in the 1950's. At the time, the steel strength was 230 MPa, while now it is 350 MPa (or 485 MPa is High Performance Steel is used - although not common in Canada). Also, when built, prestressed concrete was in its infancy so there was not confidence to have large spans. If built now, the cheapest alternative would probably be 2400mm deep NU (Nebraska University - a more efficient concrete shape for higher strength concrete than the previous AASHTO or CPCI girders) Girders with a span of about 50m. To get a get longer span, a +/-20m segment could be put above the pier, with a 40m drop in span, with the girders post-tensioned. Alternatively, steel girders can easily be built with end spans of 60 to 80m and interior spans up to 120m. Finally, the existing Gardiner in this area has expansion joints at about 100m spacing, whereas now with modular joints, they span easily be 500m apart - if not more.

Another image form that paper shows the height of the treatment facility. It is about 7.5m above the ground elevation. I am not sure, but it looks like the bridge deck is about 10 to 12m above the lakeshore - so if the concrete bridge of 2400mm depth, or the steel girder of 2000mm is used, there would be adequate clearance to pass above it.

So the conclusion is that if this sketch is anything close to being accurate, there would be no problem at all in spanning the facility.
 

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Tory said he is not going to try to persuade other counsellors on their positions............exactly how many counsellors are there on the city and does Tory have a veto?

no veto. 44 councillors.

that said, its looking like the vote will move in his favour quite easily.
 
If it wasn't for the railway line they could put the Gardiner on the ground or in a trench, and bridge all the cross streets over it, for many sections.
 
I did some googling. Here is what I came up with - a 2012 Conference Paper.

Ah, interesting. Thanks for the work you did on that. It's cool knowing how far along we've come for building these things. Narrower piers, but with a wider spacing...makes me kinda wish rebuild was back on the table. And I wasn't aware an underground treatment silo was planned here. But keep in mind there will be more to the area than that. A good chunk of the City's property will be used for mgmt/staging for the regular clean up of toxic sludge sediment, as well as all the tires, logs, shopping carts etc that they pull out of the river.

Don-sediment-mgmt-area.jpg


Another thing that was interesting from A.B's Globe article was the 3C developer brought up. If I'm not mistaken, he and other area developers/stakeholders supported the idea of an elevated RT line through the area (i.e Doug's "monorail"). I'd be interested to know if they are still pursuing this idea, or if others believe another elevated transportation structure will 'ruin' or 'divide' the waterfront.
 

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Any plans to change the elevation of the railway line? I hear they need to remeditate some of the track in the Don Valley eventually to resist flooding -- someday. Not sure if it includes this track or not.

That could impact the plan, making it harder or easier...
 
I've often thought I've been slowly going senile over the years but I now know the Gardiner has officially thrown me over the edge.

When I looked at the Star today they had the 3 options and again the hybrid option shows the realignment of the eastern section north to the railway tracks. I thought that was not an option? Some recent photos show the hybrid still at the Waterfront so which is it?

I don't know how they expect Torontonians {and city counsellors for that matter} to make an informed decision when they don't know what exactly the plan is.

BTW, although I support a complete teardown, in fairness the dollar figures that show the hybrid being the most expensive are a tad disingenuous because they do not show the money the City would save by having First Guld pay for 100% of the cost of a Smart Track station which is a pretty big chunk of money.
 
If I understand it, the current hybrid plan is to fully retain the existing alignment for the full length from Jarvis to DVP. The piers will remain, and either the deck replaced or the deck and girders. The only differences in alignment are in the ramps.
It really does sound like the "retain" option, but they changed its name to hybrid to gain extra acceptance.
 

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