Roads: Gardiner Expressway

[hawc]

I find it's the long on ramps and off ramps that make the Gardiner such a monstrosity. Cut down the number of ramps and shorten them (make them steeper/quicker) and I think it be much better. Of course, ultimately burry it would be great.

 

[rbt]

I find it's the long on ramps and off ramps that make the Gardiner such a monstrosity. Cut down the number of ramps and shorten them (make them steeper/quicker) and I think it be much better. Of course, ultimately burry it would be great.

A burried gardiner still has the ramps which would continue to cause the same issues they do today.

The open-cut for the Queens Quay tram portal isn't a particularaly friendly piece of street either.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I was thinking of doing a completely underwater gardiner, with the streets simply becoming on and off ramps as they went. the tunnels could just be prefabricated steel peices that are dropped to the seabed and then sealed to the others, and it might actuallly be cheaper this way as there would be no expensive tunneling. (i have an odd feeling it would be more expensive) this would allow the highway to be truly invisible, and noiseless as well.

 

[Fred.S]

I was thinking of doing a completely underwater gardiner, with the streets simply becoming on and off ramps as they went. the tunnels could just be prefabricated steel peices that are dropped to the seabed and then sealed to the others, and it might actuallly be cheaper this way as there would be no expensive tunneling. (i have an odd feeling it would be more expensive) this would allow the highway to be truly invisible, and noiseless as well.

That's actually sort of a neat and unique idea. Although I don't think the harbour is deep enough to just drop in a prefab tunnel. They would probably have to trench underwater first, but it seems like it could be cheaper.

I'd be worried about what that would do to Queen's Quay though. I think the car traffic and all the new busy intersections would sort of ruin it.

I think my favourite idea is still a viaduct over the rail corridor.

 

[TOareaFan]

If we can/could replace the Gardiner by simply throwing some metal tubes into the lake and there would be "no expensive tunneling" why could we not have done the pedestrian tunnel to Billy Bishop not have been done this way? Why does it have to be dug 10 storeys deep?

My guess is this tunnel under the lake would be very expensive.

 

[gweed123]

I was thinking of doing a completely underwater gardiner, with the streets simply becoming on and off ramps as they went. the tunnels could just be prefabricated steel peices that are dropped to the seabed and then sealed to the others, and it might actuallly be cheaper this way as there would be no expensive tunneling. (i have an odd feeling it would be more expensive) this would allow the highway to be truly invisible, and noiseless as well.

Kind of similar to what the Big Dig did with the I-90 tunnel to Logan under Boston Harbour. A strip was dredged in the harbour, and then giant prefab steel tubes were laid in precise order in the trench that was created.

The biggest hitch I can see in this is the number of exit and entrance ramps, which would make the construction significantly more complex than just a straight shot tunnel (which is complex enough).

I would suggest that it may be better to do a single exit from the underwater tunnel to downtown, and then have it branch off once it's under land, and easier to tunnel. The less complex the prefab buried pieces are, the better.

Another option I thought would be kind of neat is creating more waterfront land, with the tunnel underneath it. Basically build a new seawall about 30-50m further out into the harbour, drain it, and then build a tunnel box in there. Then take fill from a subway project (say the DRL), and create a new seamless waterfront park overtop of it.

Use the sale of the existing Gardiner lands to help finance the project. This way Toronto gets a spectacular new waterfront park (that doesn't feel like it's crammed in between condos and the harbour), a new underground highway that didn't involve any Big Dig-like maneuvers, and a barrier between the city and the waterfront gets removed and sold off.

 

[pman]

Or we could significantly increase GO service once the Union rebuild is complete, tear down the Gardiner between Bathurst and the DVP, save the $35 million a year repair bill (which is probably a gross underestimate unless you believe that municipal construction ever comes in remotely near budget) and create major revenues from land sales and property taxes on new development.

But if we absolutely positively have to accomodate suburban commuters who believe they have a Charter right to drive downtown on a 50's expressway, then we can at least levy tolls on them to compensate for ongoing maintenance costs borne by Toronto taxpayers, as well as the foregone tax revenue from all that space taken up by on and off ramps. It's a market solution so presumably Ford-country suburban drivers can't complain.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Believe it or not not every traveller has the option of public transit to reach downtown. This include commercial vehicles, travellers from areas outside of GO's reach such as from peterborough and lindsay, and intercity travellers requiring access to downtown. Transit is a great option to expand the capacity of downtown access, but you cant simply eliminate an entire form of transportation. People will always drive downtown, and the car is an essential form of transportation for the 21st century. I strongly believe that some form of high capacity urban freeway must be maintained to allow for smooth vehicular access to the downtown moving into the future. It would preferably be underground.

 

[Filip]

I can't believe some of you are actually advocating for the complete demolition of the Gardiner with no replacement. Do some of you have your heads in the sand when the Gardiner is closed for emergencies on weekdays? Do you know what kind of traffic apocalypse hits the downtown core? Not to mention Lake Shore becomes unnavigable for its entire stretch.

The Gardiner is here to stay, like it or not, and Toronto will spend big bucks to keep it standing because it can't afford to lose it.

 

[diminutive]

An alternative to any complete replacement or teardown of the Gardiner could be to remove all of it's offramps. Without those, the (quite large) amount of land under the Gardiner could be developed in any number of ways. Local traffic disruptions from the offramps would disappear while through-traffic would benefit from reduced congestion. An extension of Front Street to an off ramp around Strachan could accommodate drivers into the core originating from the West, while Richmond/Adelaide could handle drivers from the DVP.

I dunno, I'm sure there are issues with that idea, but the problems with the Gardiner to me as a pedestrian are almost entirely the result of its ramps and Lakeshore. The elevated structure itself is high enough up that it doesn't impact me much. And judging by the profusion of condos around the highway obviously a lot of people don't really care about the highway itself.

EDIT: I hope one day Toronto's overfascination with the Gardiner will abate. I've got no idea why this thing elicits so much anguish while the rail corridor is in every sense a bigger barrier to the waterfront. Around York the railyards are well over 500ft wide! that's a way huger barrier than the Gardiner!

 

[adeel]

i like the underground tunnel idea...seems to get the best of all worlds in...i say do that if the cost is reasonable

 

[gweed123]

The more I think about it, the more I come to realize that creating a new strip of land immediately in front of the current waterfront makes sense on a lot of levels.

1) Presumably less expensive than having to tunnel underneath an existing arterial road and existing elevated expressway (the Central Artery Expressway scenario in Boston).

2) Significantly less disruptive (for the reason mentioned above).

3) At the end of the day, Toronto gets acres of new valuable real estate from the removal of the Gardiner, AND the opportunity to create kind of a Grant Park type of deal right along the waterfront, something Toronto is sorely lacking.

The way I see it is you build a new concrete seawall further out into the harbour (30-40m), with the wall extending down maybe 20-30m. You then drain the basin that is created, dig it out, and create what is in essence a giant concrete tub along pretty much the entire central waterfront. You then build the tunnel and all the associated infrastructure in the tub, and then when construction is complete you fill in the rest of the tub with excavated fill from the DRL or another subway project underway.

This would allow the entire construction to take place in relative isolation, with the only significant impact being to harbour boat traffic and residents along the waterfront (who would be disturbed anyway if the tunnel was dug underneath the Gardiner).

To smooth traffic flow to and from the highway, I would maybe suggest turning Simcoe & York, and Bay & Yonge into alternating one-ways in order to minimize the number of on and off ramps, similar to how the surface streets feed off of the Queensway in Ottawa (all N-S arterials in downtown with the exception of Bank and Elgin are alternating one-ways, with uni-directional ramps onto the Queensway). The biggest reconfiguration required would be at Front and University, because SB traffic would need to be diverted primarily onto Wellington and then onto Simcoe, but that's doable.

All and all, I think this type of approach offers many of the benefits of the tunnel concept, without a lot of the negatives (mainly construction disruption).

Just an alternative to consider.

 

[000]

AND the opportunity to create kind of a Grant Park type of deal right along the waterfront, something Toronto is sorely lacking

I spilled my drink when I read this. I have a bad feeling your park is going to turn into condos, LOL!

 

[000]

What happens to all the marina's and ports on Queens Quay?? A tunnel along the existing Gardiner route OR the rail corridor makes a lot more sense IMO. Especially if they bore. Boring is obviously much less disruptive to traffic than cut & cover. If the city wants to bury the Gardiner AND the Lakeshore so they can sell the land after, they can put in parallel double-deck tunnels like these:

Cahlil Tunnel Sydney (Left), Fuxing Tunnel Shanghai (Middle), One of the Boston 'Big Dig' Tunnel offramps (Right)

Most bored tunnels are only 2 lanes wide, there was a 3 lane called Orlovski proposed for St. Petersburg last year but it got cancelled. Imagine two parallel tunnels with 4 lanes each direction. One tunnel is public (Lakeshore), the other is a private/toll road (Gardiner) for a less congested option with recurring revenue. These pair would be the largest diameter tunnels in the world. I have no idea what they would cost. For 8 kilometers maybe $50 billion with cost overruns? It sound easy to finance with future land sales and toll revenue. Maybe if they reserve one lane in each direction for rail the DRL can run through here too. They should definitely try to coordinate a Gardiner/Lakeshore burial with the DRL so we hit 3 birds with 1 stone.

 

[jamincan]

I honestly don't see what the big deal would be with having the 1km or so of the Gardiner between Spadina and Yonge or Sherbourne running at street level. By far, the vast majority of people are getting onto local streets here anyway, making the 6 through lanes somewhat pointless in this stretch. Commuters would have to deal with a few more stoplights, but on the whole, traffic would be far better managed in this scenario and they could probably get away with fewer lanes than the total they have now.