Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[AlvinofDiaspar]

BMO:

Or you can look at it another way:

No tolls = selection of the cheapest option of dealing with the issue, which will likely translate into degraded service. Even maintaining the status quo (i.e. keeping the Gardiner up as is) will require significant additional resources in the long run, given the conditions of the expressway.

pman:

I should have been a bit more precise - by "rebuild" I meant selecting an option, and not dictating the form of the option itself.

AoD

 

[MetroMan]

Why don't they just tear it down and tunnel it under downtown? Then charge a toll to pay it off. This is what the Federal government is doing with the new Detroit bridge crossing. Allows the city to pay it off, and also reduces traffic on the gardiner, not to mention an ultimately better public domain above on the open land, as well as faster commutes for those people that DO pay to use the new buried gardiner. It could even act as a catalyst for accepting road tolls in the region. I bet 90% of people would be fine with paying a toll on the gardiner if it was buried and provided them a better service. While they're at it, they could even add segregated Bike lanes on the sides of the tunnel to provide an all-year cycling highway that wouldn't be tolled and would provide protection from the elements.

This has been discussed thoroughly on Urban Toronto for as long as Urban Toronto has been around (2001). I can tell you that knocking down the Gardiner and doing nothing else would have little effect on traffic gridlock and I bet you wouldn't believe me.

People see the amount of cars on the Gardiner and assume that it's well used but fail to realize that it's not being used for its intended purpose. The vast majority (upwards of 90%) of traffic on the Gardiner enters and exits downtown. Very little of it is through traffic. Since this is the case, we don't need a highway downtown to bypass the city. What would be the difference of getting on/off at Spadina instead of York? Very little.

It turns out that gridlock is in fact caused by the Gardiner. The on and off ramps are the bottlenecks and create lineups of cars waiting to get on and off. For example, at rush hour, you can see a lineup of cars waiting to get on the Spadina Westbound ramp that back up all the way to King st. This creates a problem not only on Spadina but on Bremner and King. The whole downtown gets bogged up.
In alternative, if you had a surface route -- in this case a widened Lakeshore -- you'd have entry and exit points at every city street on the grid. You wouldn't be forcing everybody into these few ramps. Instead, you'd be dispersing traffic organically into all the different streets that people need to get to.

Replacing the Gardiner with Lakeshore also has an enormous potential of revenue. The Gardiner's ramps takes up a lot of room. Now imagine selling all that property to developers? Imagine the entire route of Lakeshore blvd -- which is now a barren wasteland -- being lined with new construction? That's A LOT of land. I theorize that we could pay for this with land development alone. Hey, that's Rob Ford's favourite catchphrase: let private developers pay for it. This one actually adds up.

Tearing down the Gardiner and replacing it with a new Lakeshore makes so much sense and it's a big fat solution staring us in the face. It's amazing that it hasn't been done yet. Political capital is required because it's a difficult proposal to sell to Torontonians but maybe a bull in the china shop like Rob Ford is just the guy to make it happen. But first somebody has to explain it to him.

 

[BMO]

As a frequent driver on the Gardiner I would reserve my voting yes on those tolls until I got answers to:

1. How would that tunelled road give me a better service?

2. What are the viable alternatives to paying those tolls.

Benefits would probably derive from better designed on and off ramps, as well as peak charging pushing some of the people who use the gardiner just because it's there for smaller trips rather than longer trips. Ofcourse it's hard to quantify at this stage, but they could even make express/ collector lanes and do price incentives in the express lanes so that people paying more have less traffic. There's lots of ways, but yes it all comes down to what would be tabled in such a scenario. Merely burrying the existing structure as is without improved features wouldn't provide more benefits directly to drivers, but would provide benefits directly to the portions above-ground.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

BMO:

To be fair though, you are probably looking at relatively minimal gains. I think the bigger issue is the probability of serious declines in service quality without tolling (and/or other revenues sources).

AoD

 

[BMO]

This has been discussed thoroughly on Urban Toronto for as long as Urban Toronto has been around (2001). I can tell you that knocking down the Gardiner and doing nothing else would have little effect on traffic gridlock and I bet you wouldn't believe me.

People see the amount of cars on the Gardiner and assume that it's well used but fail to realize that it's not being used for its intended purpose. The vast majority (upwards of 90%) of traffic on the Gardiner enters and exits downtown. Very little of it is through traffic. Since this is the case, we don't need a highway downtown to bypass the city. What would be the difference of getting on/off at Spadina instead of York? Very little.

It turns out that gridlock is in fact caused by the Gardiner. The on and off ramps are the bottlenecks and create lineups of cars waiting to get on and off. For example, at rush hour, you can see a lineup of cars waiting to get on the Spadina Westbound ramp that back up all the way to King st. This creates a problem not only on Spadina but on Bremner and King. The whole downtown gets bogged up.
In alternative, if you had a surface route -- in this case a widened Lakeshore -- you'd have entry and exit points at every city street on the grid. You wouldn't be forcing everybody into these few ramps. Instead, you'd be dispersing traffic organically into all the different streets that people need to get to.

Replacing the Gardiner with Lakeshore also has an enormous potential of revenue. The Gardiner's ramps takes up a lot of room. Now imagine selling all that property to developers? Imagine the entire route of Lakeshore blvd -- which is now a barren wasteland -- being lined with new construction? That's A LOT of land. I theorize that we could pay for this with land development alone. Hey, that's Rob Ford's favourite catchphrase: let private developers pay for it. This one actually adds up.

Tearing down the Gardiner and replacing it with a new Lakeshore makes so much sense and it's a big fat solution staring us in the face. It's amazing that it hasn't been done yet. Political capital is required because it's a difficult proposal to sell to Torontonians but maybe a bull in the china shop like Rob Ford is just the guy to make it happen. But first somebody has to explain it to him.

regardless of whether that is true or not, coming from Outside of the city, I would still prefer an express route straight to the core. I usually take Richmond across in the morning instead of the Gardiner, but even so there's no denying it is much slower than taking the Gardiner during off-peak hours. In fact your theory would actually support the construction of an underground tolled highway, seeing as less people would probably want to pay the toll and use local roads instead, effectively greatly reducing those long queues on Spadina, etc waiting to get on the Gardiner, which I imagine have a lot to do with creating the grid-lock in the city.

EDIT* also this doesn't preclude development beside lakeshore or a widened Lakeshore blvd.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Except that the local roads have capacity limits as well - you can't simply expect them to accommodate additional traffic as is. It simply isn't that effective as a choice.

AoD

 

[BurlOak]

Why don't they just tear it down and tunnel it under downtown? Then charge a toll to pay it off. This is what the Federal government is doing with the new Detroit bridge crossing. Allows the city to pay it off, and also reduces traffic on the gardiner, not to mention an ultimately better public domain above on the open land, as well as faster commutes for those people that DO pay to use the new buried gardiner. It could even act as a catalyst for accepting road tolls in the region. I bet 90% of people would be fine with paying a toll on the gardiner if it was buried and provided them a better service. While they're at it, they could even add segregated Bike lanes on the sides of the tunnel to provide an all-year cycling highway that wouldn't be tolled and would provide protection from the elements.

The problem with a tunnel is what do you do with traffic during construction. At the Windsor-Detroit crossing, the tunnel (actually cut and minimal amount of cover) is on a completely new alignment which has virtually no effect on existing traffic during the construction.

 

[BMO]

Except that the local roads have capacity limits as well - you can't simply expect them to accommodate additional traffic as is. It simply isn't that effective as a choice.

AoD

wouldn't getting rid of the gardiner and just widening Lakeshore be the same thing? You also have to think of the strain this will put on other highways like the 401 and 427, some people coming from Eglinton or south Scarborough probably take the gardiner across to Oakvill etc, wouldn't this just be increasing their commute along with everyone elses who uses the 401 and 427 at the expense of reducing grid-lock in the core, where overall congestion isn't nearly as bad as those areas in question in the suburbs around the 401 and 427? I don't understand why anybody would have an issue with a tolled highway going underground? It'll be paid by the users over time and if if congestion stays the same on nit, atleast the city can raise the tolls and make money on it to pay for transit expansion.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Burloak:

There are precedents - a significant portion of the Central Artery in Boston is constructed underneath the existing, functional expressways. That said, it adds to the complexity and cost of construction.

AoD

 

[BMO]

The problem with a tunnel is what do you do with traffic during construction. At the Windsor-Detroit crossing, the tunnel (actually cut and minimal amount of cover) is on a completely new alignment which has virtually no effect on existing traffic during the construction.

I'll concede to this point. Mitigation with this type of project is one of the most important aspects, and I guess it depends on whether citizens are willing to compare the benefits and disbenefits of the project when completed and during construction, and whether pain during construction, including potential economic pitfalls it may create to some businesses, is worth it.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

BMO:

I am not saying that I have an issue with a tolled underground highway, I am just not terribly sure whether it would offer a huge increase in overall capacity. Regardless of what one does, it isn't about reducing gridlock in the core...the current gridlocked state of the core during rush isn't going to change much - the available capacity has already been utilized and will remain utilized in all scenarios.

FYI, through traffic makes up a relatively small portion of the overall traffic on the Gardiner - which basically operates as two expressways feeding into the core.

Personally, given the high cost of underground construction and the sheer amount of development surrounding the corridor limiting flexibility, I would favour upgrading and rebuilding the Gardiner and rationalizing the on/off ramps instead of building an underground tunnel.

AoD

 

[TOareaFan]

I'll concede to this point. Mitigation with this type of project is one of the most important aspects, and I guess it depends on whether citizens are willing to compare the benefits and disbenefits of the project when completed and during construction, and whether pain during construction, including potential economic pitfalls it may create to some businesses, is worth it.

Whether people will tolerate a, what, 7-10 year disruption might be influenced by their age......a 55 year old guy hearing "the next 10 years of commuting will be he'll but the following 100 years will be better" is not gonna see a lot of value in road improvements after he retires......a 25 year old might have a differing view.

My personal viewpoint is get all the GO lines to current Lakeshore service levels.....build the DRL......then do whatever disruptive construction/demolition/tolling you want.......and easily tell any whiny commuters to shut up and take the train!

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

TOareafan:

Except that it is pretty clear in this case that doing nothing isn't an option - it is a necessity from a safety perspective. Now one doesn't have to chose tunneling for a replacement, but it is pretty clear that disruption due to construction is going to be unavoidable. DRL or GO Improvement have nothing to do with that.

AoD

 

[Riverdale Rink Rat]

Tearing down the Gardiner and replacing it with a new Lakeshore makes so much sense and it's a big fat solution staring us in the face. It's amazing that it hasn't been done yet. Political capital is required because it's a difficult proposal to sell to Torontonians but maybe a bull in the china shop like Rob Ford is just the guy to make it happen. But first somebody has to explain it to him.

As with many sensible ideas in this town, WT and Miller actually planned on doing this with the Gardiner east. It's too bad that Miller was arrogant with his friends, so they hung him out to dry with the garbage strike, because inarguably he was our best Mayor in my years in Toronto. So now we have <sigh> Ford.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

RRR:

Actually I would say that he was betrayed by his "friends", who went on and reaped what they have sown while helping to bring on the current worship (thanks, but no thanks), but I digress.

AoD