Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[11th]

I think a lot of people see the removal of any highway as a "war on the car" and are therefore against the removal in principle even though they never use that piece of road.

The fact is most people arriving or leaving the downtown core use Richmond/Adelaide or Spadina/York. The majority of people using the section of the Gardiner between Yonge and the DVP are going between southern Etobicoke and southern Scarborough (or High Park and the Beaches). It's convenient for them, but its not something 99.9% of drivers in Toronto would ever miss. Removing it certainly wouldn't cause traffic chaos in the city as the alarmists would have us believe. It might cause a bit more traffic on the 401, but it would probably reduce traffic on the remaining Gardiner and DVP.

The 401 is the bigger issue than the Gardiner and DVP in terms of traffic. It must truly be a great idea to dump more traffic on it.
We've killed the Scarborough expressway, handed the 407 over for a lifetime lease, and now we speak of dismantling a piece of the remaining ring route. The traffic (not just single-occupancy automobiles) has to go somewhere, and where does it go? 401.
At the end, everyone is selfish on this issue whether they are for removal, hybrid, or maintain.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Here's a couple of random quotes to show how misinformed this whole debate is getting to be.

#1. Remove is not "fiscally conservative" (i.e. cheaper). The city is just torquing the data to make it seem that way, by including an unprecedented 100 years of O&M costs in the maintain option. OBVIOUSLY it is cheaper to keep the highway than tear it down.

#2 It is not a few people who use it daily, and their benefits are not small. By the City's data it is 110,000 people a day on Gardiner East. Even if removal costs them only 3 minutes a day (which we all know is too small), and they value their time at only $20/hour (too small), and they don't delay anybody else when they have to switch to surface roads, and we count these benefits for only 30 years (not the crazy 100 years that remove advocates are using), then what do we get?

This: The time lost if we remove the Gardiner is worth at least $1.2 billion to those drivers. Probably much more.This is far more than the cost of maintaining the expressway.



Please stop using these bad data to pretend tearing down a working piece of infrastructure is the low cost "responsible" thing to do.

This i the real story I think,. Remove advocates don't care about the numbers. They just hate cars.

And before you start going after me with ad hominem attacks: I live downtown, I commute by bike, my car often sits in its parking spot for a week or more before I get into it. I'm just trying to talk sense here.

Here's your (very) qualified apology K10. I went down a rabbit hole trying to find the origin of the 110-120,000/day figure for Gardiner East. I had thought that you had taken the 5,200 peak AM hour inbound figure, multiplied by 24, and rounded down. But that is not the case -- this number seems to be everywhere without a particular source. If you can point me to the source, I'd be grateful. So, I went back to the original document:

http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toro.../Files/pdf/Gardiner EA Presentation FINAL.pdf

Here they state AM peak hour is 1200 eastbound and 4500 westbound, for a total of 5700. Even if you multiply that by 24, you still only get 136,800 trips per day. 110-120,000 trips per day assumes that the Gardiner east carries 80-87% of peak AM hour traffic 24 hours a day. Since, as we've seen from numerous photos over the last few weeks, this is absurd, I cannot reconcile the peak hour demand figure and the 110-120,000/day figure. But, it is the number the media seem to have picked up on (those who support the hybrid), so I cannot fault you for using it. My apologies.

However, you then went on to state 'OBVIOUSLY it is cheaper than to keep the highway than tear it down', which is utter balderdash. Whether you believe the 100 year figure or the NPV figure or just the capital costs, only in a scenario where they maintain the current Gardiner but not do any maintenance ever again can you make that statement. (see the link pp45-6.)

So... making figures up? No. Torquing figures to support your conclusion? Absolutely.

ETA: And, by the by, the 'Maintain' option is not actually on the table any more, as it does not open up the soap plant site, so even in torquing figures, you used an option that will not be voted upon at Council to say it would cost less to keep an elevated highway.

 

[georgevicbell]

Timelapse of Friday @ Jarvis:

[video=youtube;DU8-pFqr5m4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU8-pFqr5m4[/video]

More to come next week...

 

[WislaHD]

The Gardiner at Jarvis looks comically underused.

Anyone still doubting that an 8-lane boulevard would be able to handle the traffic?

 

[andrewpmk]

Here's your (very) qualified apology K10. I went down a rabbit hole trying to find the origin of the 110-120,000/day figure for Gardiner East. I had thought that you had taken the 5,200 peak AM hour inbound figure, multiplied by 24, and rounded down. But that is not the case -- this number seems to be everywhere without a particular source. If you can point me to the source, I'd be grateful. So, I went back to the original document:

http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toro.../Files/pdf/Gardiner EA Presentation FINAL.pdf

Here they state AM peak hour is 1200 eastbound and 4500 westbound, for a total of 5700. Even if you multiply that by 24, you still only get 136,800 trips per day. 110-120,000 trips per day assumes that the Gardiner east carries 80-87% of peak AM hour traffic 24 hours a day. Since, as we've seen from numerous photos over the last few weeks, this is absurd, I cannot reconcile the peak hour demand figure and the 110-120,000/day figure. But, it is the number the media seem to have picked up on (those who support the hybrid), so I cannot fault you for using it. My apologies.

However, you then went on to state 'OBVIOUSLY it is cheaper than to keep the highway than tear it down', which is utter balderdash. Whether you believe the 100 year figure or the NPV figure or just the capital costs, only in a scenario where they maintain the current Gardiner but not do any maintenance ever again can you make that statement. (see the link pp45-6.)

So... making figures up? No. Torquing figures to support your conclusion? Absolutely.

ETA: And, by the by, the 'Maintain' option is not actually on the table any more, as it does not open up the soap plant site, so even in torquing figures, you used an option that will not be voted upon at Council to say it would cost less to keep an elevated highway.

Look at the Wikipedia article for Gardiner Expressway. It is 55,420 eastbound and 54,144 westbound between Parliament and DVP, for a total of 109564. So that's a little over 50000 people per day (twice a day) who will get stuck in traffic if council is dumb enough to tear down the Gardiner, not including people using all the other parallel routes (Lake Shore, Richmond/Adelaide, 401, etc). who will get stuck in traffic. This is quite large compared to the number of people who work downtown, probably about 10% of the number of people who work downtown.

The traffic volumes are actually lower between Yonge and Jarvis than between Parliament and DVP. So much for the eastern section of the Gardiner being "underused". Unfortunately the link to this data on Wikipedia is dead.

I think that if council is dumb enough to tear down the Gardiner then the first day the Gardiner is closed for demolition the traffic would be complete chaos (like 30 minute delays on Lake Shore between Jarvis and DVP). Remember that the proposal is to replace 4 lanes each way of Gardiner and 3 lanes each way of Lake Shore with 4 lanes each way of Lake Shore (so reducing road capacity by 43%). But during construction there would only be 3 lanes of Lake Shore each way (reducing road capacity by 57%). The traffic would probably be so bad that council would hold an emergency vote to undo the Gardiner demolition or the province would intervene or something. I cannot believe that reducing the capacity of the Lakeshore/Gardiner combination by 43% would do anything other than grind traffic all over Toronto to a halt. Traffic does not simply "disappear" like the induced demand people claim, only a small percentage of people stop driving in reality, but a lot of the traffic switches to parallel routes or drives at a different time of day. Remember that transit is severely overcrowded so people cannot simply switch to transit. Watch what happens when an accident closes the Gardiner/DVP, the Gardiner/DVP is closed for the annual charity bike ride or for annual construction, when Lakeshore is closed for yet another special event, when the Gardiner was reduced to 2 lanes each way for construction earlier this year, etc. We will see this again when the DVP is narrowed to 2 lanes each way for Pan Am Games lanes.

In summer 2013 the DVP was closed due to flooding in morning rush hour one day between Bloor and Gardiner. South of Dundas the DVP has lower traffic volumes than the east end of the Gardiner (see Wikipedia) and is the least busy section of the DVP. Nevertheless this caused chaos all over the city and every north south road parallel to the DVP was completely jammed during morning rush hour.

I hope that Tory gets council to replace Keesmaat because she is incompetent. She has such extreme ideas that she cannot be taken seriously.

 

[Tuscani01]

The Gardiner at Jarvis looks comically underused.

Anyone still doubting that an 8-lane boulevard would be able to handle the traffic?

The only concern I have is that the ramps to/from Lakeshore look backed up several times in that video, meaning that while the Gardiner does not look busy, Lakeshore underneath likely is. The Westbound off-ramp is also not shown, and from my experience using it daily, it regularly backs up onto the Gardiner due to the bumper to bumper traffic below on Lakeshore.

Another point to note is that this video was shot on a Friday. In my experience, Friday's are usually lighter on the roads since people tend to leave work earlier and some even take the day off. This staggers the amount of traffic, leading to much less congestion on the Gardiner than usual.

Final point is that the time lapse video gives the appearance of free flowing traffic, however, that is pretty deceiving since you can't grasp how fast the vehicles are actually travelling. Traffic slows down at Parliament Street, and slows to a crawl at Sherbourne on your typical day, something that isn't reflected at all in the video above, which appears to show no slow down until Jarvis.

Does adding the extra traffic to Lakeshore improve the experience on the ground? Im still not completely sold on the idea that it would.

My preference for the removal option is solely based on the financial aspect of the decision.

 

[Electrify]

Look at the Wikipedia article for Gardiner Expressway. It is 55,420 eastbound and 54,144 westbound between Parliament and DVP, for a total of 109564. So that's a little over 50000 people per day (twice a day) who will get stuck in traffic if council is dumb enough to tear down the Gardiner, not including people using all the other parallel routes (Lake Shore, Richmond/Adelaide, 401, etc). who will get stuck in traffic. This is quite large compared to the number of people who work downtown, probably about 10% of the number of people who work downtown.

The traffic volumes are actually lower between Yonge and Jarvis than between Parliament and DVP. So much for the eastern section of the Gardiner being "underused". Unfortunately the link to this data on Wikipedia is dead.

I think that if council is dumb enough to tear down the Gardiner then the first day the Gardiner is closed for demolition the traffic would be complete chaos (like 30 minute delays on Lake Shore between Jarvis and DVP). Remember that the proposal is to replace 4 lanes each way of Gardiner and 3 lanes each way of Lake Shore with 4 lanes each way of Lake Shore (so reducing road capacity by 43%). But during construction there would only be 3 lanes of Lake Shore each way (reducing road capacity by 57%). The traffic would probably be so bad that council would hold an emergency vote to undo the Gardiner demolition or the province would intervene or something. I cannot believe that reducing the capacity of the Lakeshore/Gardiner combination by 43% would do anything other than grind traffic all over Toronto to a halt. Traffic does not simply "disappear" like the induced demand people claim, only a small percentage of people stop driving in reality, but a lot of the traffic switches to parallel routes or drives at a different time of day. Remember that transit is severely overcrowded so people cannot simply switch to transit. Watch what happens when an accident closes the Gardiner/DVP, the Gardiner/DVP is closed for the annual charity bike ride or for annual construction, when Lakeshore is closed for yet another special event, when the Gardiner was reduced to 2 lanes each way for construction earlier this year, etc. We will see this again when the DVP is narrowed to 2 lanes each way for Pan Am Games lanes.

In summer 2013 the DVP was closed due to flooding in morning rush hour one day between Bloor and Gardiner. South of Dundas the DVP has lower traffic volumes than the east end of the Gardiner (see Wikipedia) and is the least busy section of the DVP. Nevertheless this caused chaos all over the city and every north south road parallel to the DVP was completely jammed during morning rush hour.

I hope that Tory gets council to replace Keesmaat because she is incompetent. She has such extreme ideas that she cannot be taken seriously.

I think the Gardiner would make a very interesting case study regarding induced demand. By this theory, the Gardiner SHOULD be congested at almost all times of the day. But it isn't. There was some theories mentioned earlier up thread, but still. Using the Yonge/Bay/York exit is a far more direct way to reach lower downtown than Richmond. Of course right now Union construction may divert many drivers to Richmond, but even before said construction began this exit was used far less than expected.

As for Keesmaat, I do like her, but I will admit she can be a bit idealistic. For example, I was at the CAPS conference a few years back where she was a speaker, and she was showing how poor the land use was at a Home Depot box store. Now I am all for transit oriented development, mixed uses, density, etc., but let's be real here: Not everything can thrive in such environments, and a Home Depot is such an example. Does she really think that contractors are going to take 2x4 planks of wood on the bus?

 

[georgevicbell]

Keesmaat is not the only Toronto planner that thinks this is the way to do things...even previous planners - Paul Bedford, who used to do the job...and others...removing a highway is not an extreme idea - it is what is being studied - and it's been done in many other cities...the context of this highway is that it was meant for something else (the scarborough highway) which was never built...so it's overbuilt...and 60 years have not brought development to a point where it's needed...

 

[georgevicbell]

The only concern I have is that the ramps to/from Lakeshore look backed up several times in that video, meaning that while the Gardiner does not look busy, Lakeshore underneath likely is. The Westbound off-ramp is also not shown, and from my experience using it daily, it regularly backs up onto the Gardiner due to the bumper to bumper traffic below on Lakeshore.

Another point to note is that this video was shot on a Friday. In my experience, Friday's are usually lighter on the roads since people tend to leave work earlier and some even take the day off. This staggers the amount of traffic, leading to much less congestion on the Gardiner than usual.

Final point is that the time lapse video gives the appearance of free flowing traffic, however, that is pretty deceiving since you can't grasp how fast the vehicles are actually travelling. Traffic slows down at Parliament Street, and slows to a crawl at Sherbourne on your typical day, something that isn't reflected at all in the video above, which appears to show no slow down until Jarvis.

Does adding the extra traffic to Lakeshore improve the experience on the ground? Im still not completely sold on the idea that it would.

My preference for the removal option is solely based on the financial aspect of the decision.

I'm gonna be making them all week (starting on Monday)...unfortunately the cameras are only updated every 3 minutes, and I can't control where they look (they move around as needed by transit control)...I'm hoping to get some of the other cameras done as well...I'm not sure if there are any looking at the lakeshore...

What would be really good is if they released the raw data so the community could look at it (they release averages and "maximums") which don't really tell you much (maybe there were accidents or jays games)...there should really be a public site with traffic counts at major intersections/ramps city wide updated every 10 minutes, with historical data going back a year...this would allow for better informed public discussion...and maybe allow for public analysis.

My view on the exits is that they actually will never get better in a freeway situation - you can't dump more than 2 lanes onto yonge/jarvis...but with a boulevard you might get better with the ability to dump some at church and parliament - and more people taking richmond...

People travelling west->north will get a right turn so there shouldn't be much delay, and people coming south->west should also get a convenient turn....it's the other two directions that will be effected (and currently you have to make that turn at a light on lakeshore anyways) - and the ramps are one lane...so in someways if you can do a two lane left turn onto the boulevard it might be faster....

 

[howl]

Look at the Wikipedia article for Gardiner Expressway. It is 55,420 eastbound and 54,144 westbound between Parliament and DVP, for a total of 109564.

Just a heads up. You won't win any arguments using Wikipedia as a source. Wikipedia can be changed by just about anyone and unless someone catches an error and makes a complaint errors are liable to stay incorrect. The source for those numbers leads to a dead link so there is no reason for anyone to believe those number are correct. You'll have to find the source document to back up your arguement.

 

[BurlOak]

Just a heads up. You won't win any arguments using Wikipedia as a source. Wikipedia can be changed by just about anyone and unless someone catches an error and makes a complaint errors are liable to stay incorrect. The source for those numbers leads to a dead link so there is no reason for anyone to believe those number are correct. You'll have to find the source document to back up your arguement.

Here a link from Waterfront Toronto - are they credible?

Within the study area, the Gardiner generally contains three eastbound and three westbound through lanes with a vehicular capacity of about 1,800 vehicles per lane per hour, for a total of 5,400 vehicles per hour in each direction. The average daily traffic volume is about 110,000 vehicles per day, equally split in each direction. Lake Shore Boulevard also has three lanes in each direction with a vehicular capacity of about 800 vehicles per lane per hour, for a total of 2,400 vehicles per hour in each direction. Volumes on Lake Shore Boulevard average approximately 18,000 vehicles per day, with approximately 6,000 in the eastbound direction and 12,000 in the westbound direction. The total volume in the Gardiner-Lake Shore corridor, east of Jarvis Street, averages approximately 128,000 vehicles (61,000 vehicles eastbound and 67,000 vehicles westbound).

If you are curious, you can check out the figure on page 18 which the amount of peak traffic that exists. Hint, it remains above 5,000 (both directions) vehcicles per hour for about half the day.

 

[k10ery]

Here's your (very) qualified apology K10. I went down a rabbit hole trying to find the origin of the 110-120,000/day figure for Gardiner East. I had thought that you had taken the 5,200 peak AM hour inbound figure, multiplied by 24, and rounded down. But that is not the case -- this number seems to be everywhere without a particular source. If you can point me to the source, I'd be grateful. So, I went back to the original document:

http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toro.../Files/pdf/Gardiner EA Presentation FINAL.pdf

Here they state AM peak hour is 1200 eastbound and 4500 westbound, for a total of 5700. Even if you multiply that by 24, you still only get 136,800 trips per day. 110-120,000 trips per day assumes that the Gardiner east carries 80-87% of peak AM hour traffic 24 hours a day. Since, as we've seen from numerous photos over the last few weeks, this is absurd, I cannot reconcile the peak hour demand figure and the 110-120,000/day figure. But, it is the number the media seem to have picked up on (those who support the hybrid), so I cannot fault you for using it. My apologies.

Qualified apology fully accepted. We're not going to agree on everything but we can take each other seriously.

The 110,000 figure was in the staff report to Council that I linked above, dated February? 2015. It was authored by John Livey, same as the presentation panels everyone else was looking at with the 5400 peak hour figure. So I think we should regard them both correct and consistent. As I said before, planners tell us the Gardiner is heavily used throughout the day now, not just at rush hour.

It's too bad that Toronto doesn't release its raw AADT data, like the province does.

If everybody is finished debating whether the 110,000 figure is true, would any of the pro-remove people address my point? With that many users, even 3 to 5 minutes delay is simply too costly for the city. Keeping the Gardiner makes social and economic sense.

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

If everybody is finished debating whether the 110,000 figure is true, would any of the pro-remove people address my point? With that many users, even 3 to 5 minutes delay is simply too costly for the city. Keeping the Gardiner makes social and economic sense.

This is an example of taking a number too seriously. There is zero current economic impact to an estimated 3-5mn delay 30 years from now (not counting delays due to construction, in either scenario). The tangible economic benefit of freeing up of development land will overwhelm the intangible and complicated positive and negative effects of tearing down the Gardiner.

 

[cplchanb]

Regardless
A large city needs ring roads or high capacity roads to get from end to end efficiently. We have the 400 series highways to cover north to south, but if the Gardiner is removed the east to west link is gone (401 is too far north). An 8 lane Boulevard is not considered a ring road. It's the city's fault that they designed the Gardiner as it is, but then again a city by a large body of water is pretty difficult to design around since you can't create a true ring road around the city. However, with no other alternative routings save tunneling underground and also a substandard transit, there really is no way around it. A "world class" city needs infrastructure and efficient ways around the city in all directions for both drivers and commuters. We barely provide that at best. It's much more than just saving 3-5 minutes. Also remember it's not just car traffic, it's truck traffic too. Are you as a potential streetside shopkeeper prepared for an influx of semis and commercial vehicles driving through and ruining your potential customer traffic? How long will it take for them to start complaining about diesel fumes and noise? Then again I am curious on how they came up with that 3-5 minute number. So ok you lose development potential in parts under the Gardiner. Too bad. The soap factory lands are a good compromise. You large city can't be all pretty. Look at Hong Kong and Tokyo. Sure they have beautiful areas but they also have ugly commercial lands and eyesore elevated roads. It's just for us we have both those areas in the same place. Imo if I had to pick either one though, I would choose the maintenance of the traffic flow commercial and private via a distinct and uninterrupted ring road link over aesthetics and land development

 

[howl]

Regardless
A large city needs ring roads or high capacity roads to get from end to end efficiently. We have the 400 series highways to cover north to south, but if the Gardiner is removed the east to west link is gone (401 is too far north). An 8 lane Boulevard is not considered a ring road. It's the city's fault that they designed the Gardiner as it is, but then again a city by a large body of water is pretty difficult to design around since you can't create a true ring road around the city. However, with no other alternative routings save tunneling underground and also a substandard transit, there really is no way around it. A "world class" city needs infrastructure and efficient ways around the city in all directions for both drivers and commuters. We barely provide that at best. It's much more than just saving 3-5 minutes. Also remember it's not just car traffic, it's truck traffic too. Are you as a potential streetside shopkeeper prepared for an influx of semis and commercial vehicles driving through and ruining your potential customer traffic? How long will it take for them to start complaining about diesel fumes and noise? Then again I am curious on how they came up with that 3-5 minute number. So ok you lose development potential in parts under the Gardiner. Too bad. The soap factory lands are a good compromise. You large city can't be all pretty. Look at Hong Kong and Tokyo. Sure they have beautiful areas but they also have ugly commercial lands and eyesore elevated roads. It's just for us we have both those areas in the same place. Imo if I had to pick either one though, I would choose the maintenance of the traffic flow commercial and private via a distinct and uninterrupted ring road link over aesthetics and land development

I don't think anyone is disputing that Toronto needs appropriate transportation solutions. The argument is the existing raised Gardiner may not be the most appropriate transportation solution for the 21st century. So instead of spending hundreds of million of dollars fixing and maintaining it for another fifty years we should take the opportunity to find a more appropriate long-term solution, just like many other "world-class" cities are doing.