Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[Hydrogen]

And this is my particular favorite line of flawed logic: let's not widen the DVP or Gardiner BECAUSE TOO MANY PEOPLE WILL USE IT.

Can you just hear yourself say that? That's like Wal-Mart saying, "Let's not build a store in this location because it will be busy."

Is that what passes for logic in city circles these days?

Dichotomy, the Gardiner and the DVP are not entities unto themselves, are they? The traffic on those routes will inevitably flow off onto city arteries. Next, you will be demanding that these be widened as well. It's only logical, no?

Besides, what is the relationship between widening the Gardiner and the placement of a Walmart? The logic of the comparison is not evident.

Please note Chuck's quote:

Dichotomy, it's a proven fact - a fact that is even taught in university level traffic engineering courses - that traffic volumes rapidly increase out of thin air to form new congestion whenever road capacity is increased.

Many major cities have removed highways without falling into traffic chaos. Drivers, being autonomous agents, figure out alternate routes.

 

[smuncky]

Next, you will be demanding that these be widened as well. It's only logical, no?

he's already done that in other posts.

 

[TKTKTK]

I'm not really sure the Gardiner -- especially the eastern portion they've labeled for tear-down -- serves much use for people who live in the city. I had to get from Sherbourne to Roncesvaille the other day in mid-morning (after rush hour) and I just took the Lakeshore (I tried to take the Queen streetcar; it didn't work). I did the same on my return at about 5:30. It's not a pleasant drive, because the Lakeshore is ugly, but I didn't feel like it took an inappropriate amount of time.

I used to do a similar route. You should take the Gardiner next time, especially if its after rush hour. All the lights on Lake Shore are three-staged. It can take forever. Clipping up onto the Gardiner can easily trim 6 minutes from your trip, gives you a quick peek over the city and before you know it you're at Jameson

 

[Dichotomy]

but for how long? a couple of years before it gets too congested again and then what? expand it 1 lane more?

Why is that always the refrain we hear? When the DVP was jammed, I would use Glen Rd! I wonder how the chattering classes in Rosedale liked that?
These highways were built 50 years ago. Toronto has doubled in size and we have done NOTHING. This has gone way beyond commuters, which seems to be a dirty word around here. On any given Sunday, both highways are virtually at a standstill.
As I have repeatedly stated, if Toronto had any alternate STREETS, then this widening wouldn't be necessary, but we don't and now obviously can't widen the likes of O'Connor, Queen St., Bloor St., or Kingston Rd, to name a few examples of streets that should have been made 6 lanes 50 or 60 years ago - like the rest of the world recognized.
This isn't about infinite widening of highways, this is about fixing obvious bottlenecks. The Jamieson on ramp is a horrible ramp and should be fixed or closed - that would be an easy solution. The DVP jams from Eglinton 24 hours a day (northbound) and southbound is a mess from Don Mills. More easy fixes.

 

[Dichotomy]

Dichotomy, the Gardiner and the DVP are not entities unto themselves, are they? The traffic on those routes will inevitably flow off onto city arteries. Next, you will be demanding that these be widened as well. It's only logical, no?

Besides, what is the relationship between widening the Gardiner and the placement of a Walmart? The logic of the comparison is not evident.

Please note Chuck's quote:



Many major cities have removed highways without falling into traffic chaos. Drivers, being autonomous agents, figure out alternate routes.

Sorry, I just don't buy that argument. And the logic between Wal-Mart and NOT widening highways is very clear: the city refuses to do what the majority of people want because the roadway will be too successful? A billion dollars on a subway no one uses but they won't spend $10 million to 'study' widening the DVP (as one hapless councilor proposed two or three years ago.) That is the fractured logic between our elected officials and the way a business would operate: in fact, if city operated more like a business we wouldn't be in this terrible mess!

If you read my posts, I have stated for the record that this city is very badly laid out: all streets basically end at High Park or do wierd things (Dundas St, Davenport to name 2) that make navigating downtown awful.
Of course I understand we can't widen Queen, Yonge or any of these streets NOW, since council 70 or so years ago were clearly narrow in their thinking. Why is it that most other cities understood the automobile would one day be important and actually PLANNED for the future? Vancouver, the center of the tree hugging Universe, has 6 lane roads out of the core - why is that not obvious to people? This city's aversion to planning ahead has made a huge mess of the center core of the city. North, south, east, west - it does not matter which way you travel - it is a gawdawful disaster.
There are NO alternate routes.

So, adding SOME capacity to the expressways may get some of the traffic off the streets, which was their original purpose in the first place. (We seem to have forgotten that.)
It is not a perfect solution, but when the DVP is at a standstill on Xmas Day as I come home from Pickering (my sister's), there is something clearly amiss.

Or would people suppose I head back from Pickering, arms full of presents, on the G0-train?

 

[Dichotomy]

he's already done that in other posts.

Where have I suggested widening other roads? Read again.

I have stated they SHOULD have been widened 70 or so years ago when we had the chance. If you take the entire stretch of Bloor-Danforth, there are only one or two places where one side of the road or the other was not torn down and replaced since the '20s - by that time most cities recognized the horse & buggy were on their way out and cars were a force to reckon with.

Even now, as we throw up 50 story condo after another, the city has not ONCE peeped about setting back the curb to at least allow for the endless UPS vans to sit and taxis. Not once! One of the worst intersections in the city is Church/Bloor because taxis and delivery trucks choke Bloor all day, every day. That pink marble building is less than 25 years old! Why did the city not demand a set back for those vehicles? The spine of the center core of the city and it is essentially ONE lane at Church.
Owen Sound has a wider downtown!

 

[Hydrogen]

Sorry, I just don't buy that argument.

That statement simply does not support widening either the DVP or Gardiner. It would appear that logic is not what you are after, but rather you want a solution that satisfies your own personal commuting needs.

And the logic between Wal-Mart and NOT widening highways is very clear: the city refuses to do what the majority of people want because the roadway will be too successful?

No, there is no logic in the comparison. A parking lot is not a highway, and you don't have any evidence that a majority of the population want the DVP or the Gardiner widened.

If you read my posts, I have stated for the record that this city is very badly laid out: all streets basically end at High Park or do wierd things (Dundas St, Davenport to name 2) that make navigating downtown awful.

Honestly, its hard to see how few odd streets can stand as evidence that the entire city road grid is faulty. I've never found navigating downtown an awful experience. It can be slow moving, but how does that make it different from any other major city? No one is going to be tearing up established streets, businesses and homes in order to provide comfort to drivers who feel as if ten extra minutes is owed to them for going through town by car.

I assume by subway you mean the incomplete Sheppard subway line. I'd imagine that if it were finished, ridership would go up significantly. If more subway lines are built more people will take the subway because it increases the convenience of that system.

 

[junctionist]

Look no further to Mississauga, which has wider arterial roads than Toronto despite being a smaller municipality with a smaller population. Yet at rush hour these wider roads are nonetheless congested. Any measure that improves the driving experience by adding capacity or efficiency encourages greater vehicular use of the road.

 

[Dichotomy]

PUHLEASE, stop cherry picking. I am NOT talking about commuters. I drive along Dundas St. between Erin Mills and Islington all the time - that is a far better drive than Islington to Yonge could EVER be. Try either route on a Sunday afternoon. Do NOT compare Mississauga to Toronto. The 6 lane roads seem to evaporate at the old Metro boundaries.
No amount of additional highway space is ever going to satisfy rush hour. Any clown knows that. But the GTA has so far outstripped its road capacity that you can't get from there to here on a Thursday evening! Try Bloor or Eglinton at 8 pm and see what I mean.

I already stated, for the record I could give a flying f$#k about Gardiner being taken down at Jarvis - because I get OFF at Jarvis. I rarely use the rest of it because I ALREADY LIVE DOWNTOWN. I am looking at a map of the entire city and looking at the gaping holes that were left by the idiots that laid this city out when it was a town of 100,000 Church going souls. Unlike some people on this board, I am thinking for the entire city, not just a few retired school teachers on Queen's Quay, or property developers who bought in the Donlands and are waiting for the city to dump cash on them.

Every other city on the planet (except perhaps cities like London and Paris, which pre-date the auto by about a 1,000 years) has had the foresight to build 6 and 8 lane arterial roads in and around their city. Our feeble-brained city planners of the early 20th century did not forsee anything bigger than a sleepy little town where everything closed at 5:00 and nobody was allowed to do anything on Sunday. Doesn't that pretty much sum up Toronto until the '60s?

Geez, if you can't figure out what an analogy is, perhaps you should look it up in the dictionary: the Wal-Mart comparison has nothing to do with parking lots (did I mention parking lot -no, I believe your paranoia about big box stores can't get beyond the fear of a parking lot) but was only meant to illiustrate that business will build BECAUSE something will be successful not because they don't WANT it to be. If the city won't built extra road capacity because they are AFRAID it will be used, then that is pathetic.

Our gird pattern if faulty because the grid consists of single lane roads. SINGLE LANE. Try O'Connor, Kingston Rd., College, Dupont - any of the main downtown streets at ANY time. SINGLE LANE. Even Vancouver's grid does not have speed bumps and one way streets through east Vancouver - a pleasant shock I received on a recent trip there.

If (IF) Queen St., Bloor, Dundas, Kingston Rd., Yonge St., Bay St., - hell ANY streets, in the center core were 3 lanes in each direction (like every other city in the planet) then and only then, could we discuss ripping down our expressways. Since none of the downtown streets are (except University and Jarvis), then the opportunity is clearly lost. Therefore, we are stuck with our 2 feeble expressways and should look to expanding them, wherever possible, so that our precious tofu can make its way to Kensington and St. Lawrence Markets by Saturday morning, because there is no way in HELL we can accomodate the commuters - we already know that.

 

[Redroom Studios]

well said, why cant others admit those truths?

 

[urbanboom]

I agree with you, the planners were stupid.

But what do be do now? The time to create wide roads is long gone.
Since driving is hell in the city (and there is very little we can do about that), I suggest that we focus on the street scape and transit.

 

[GraphicMatt]

PUHLEASE, stop cherry picking. I am NOT talking about commuters.

Outside of commuting and shipping/receiving, why should we care, as a city, about someone's ability to get around quickly in their car? Our goal should be (and has been) to NOT design a city where people jump in their car to go pick up milk or visit their friend who lives 5km away.

Every other city on the planet (except perhaps cities like London and Paris, which pre-date the auto by about a 1,000 years)

And we sure wouldn't want to be like London or Paris!

Geez, if you can't figure out what an analogy is, perhaps you should look it up in the dictionary: the Wal-Mart comparison has nothing to do with parking lots (did I mention parking lot -no, I believe your paranoia about big box stores can't get beyond the fear of a parking lot) but was only meant to illiustrate that business will build BECAUSE something will be successful not because they don't WANT it to be. If the city won't built extra road capacity because they are AFRAID it will be used, then that is pathetic.

A Walmart is successful because it makes a lot of cash for share holders. Roads are never really 'successful' in the same sense.

If (IF) Queen St., Bloor, Dundas, Kingston Rd., Yonge St., Bay St., - hell ANY streets, in the center core were 3 lanes in each direction (like every other city in the planet) then and only then, could we discuss ripping down our expressways. Since none of the downtown streets are (except University and Jarvis), then the opportunity is clearly lost.

Jarvis is kind of a damning example, isn't it? That road's width has pretty well killed the neighbourhood. Which is tragic, considering some of the awesome buildings along it.

In fact, I believe the current plan on the books is to narrow it by adding a median.

Therefore, we are stuck with our 2 feeble expressways and should look to expanding them, wherever possible, so that our precious tofu can make its way to Kensington and St. Lawrence Markets by Saturday morning, because there is no way in HELL we can accomodate the commuters - we already know that.

Are retailers and vendors in the city currently having issues receiving goods because of our road infrastructure? That's a legitimate question -- I'm really not sure. I haven't heard anything.

 

[Chuck]

Jarvis is kind of a damning example, isn't it? That road's width has pretty well killed the neighbourhood. Which is tragic, considering some of the awesome buildings along it.

Isn't Jarvis about the same width - possibly even narrower - than the Avenues in New York City? Within reason, road width doesn't kill a neighbourhood, but land use does. There's nothing along Jarvis that makes me want to go there, and as a result I stay away.

This isn't about infinite widening of highways, this is about fixing obvious bottlenecks.

This is actually something that I agree with. A perfect example of a useless bottleneck is northbound Avenue Road, which for a distance of 100 feet narrows to two lanes just north of Bloor. An extra lane could be added just by redrawing the road paint.

Two other bottlenecks that could easily be fixed exist along Eglinton and St. Clair where they meet Bathurst. Adding a dedicated right turn lane would double the capacity of these intersections.

 

[toraerach]

PUHLEASE, stop cherry picking. I am NOT talking about commuters. Every other city on the planet (except perhaps cities like London and Paris, which pre-date the auto by about a 1,000 years) has had the foresight to build 6 and 8 lane arterial roads in and around their city. Our feeble-brained city planners of the early 20th century did not forsee anything bigger than a sleepy little town where everything closed at 5:00 and nobody was allowed to do anything on Sunday. Doesn't that pretty much sum up Toronto until the '60s?

I think people back then kind of assumed that by we'd all have flying cars by now.

The problem isn't that there aren't enough roads, it's that that there are too many cars. The best way to ease congestion is to get cars off the road. Someday the gas will run out and the conventional automobile will become obsolete - if we plan for it now while ignoring transit development etc, we will be just as shortsighted as the planners who didn't see the car coming.

 

[toraerach]

Are retailers and vendors in the city currently having issues receiving goods because of our road infrastructure? That's a legitimate question -- I'm really not sure. I haven't heard anything.

I believe Metrolinx is studying this.

It would be awesome (though expensive) to create something like this downtown.