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Roads: Gardiner Expressway

scarberiankhatru said:
There's more to jobs than just manufacturing. Part-time jobs at stores and restaurants are needed too, unless 16 year old girls are expected to work full-time in a steel mill or a car plant ("better" jobs). Besides, maybe heavier jobs should over time be sent packing to peripheral spots on the highway...who wants a deafening and odorific printing plant in their backyard?

Will there be a new elementary school? There's jobs. New LRT line into the portlands? More jobs. There's bound to be multiple Starbucks, Second Cups, Subways, Rabbas, and dry cleaners...more work for postmen, for internet repairmen, for home stagers (all those flippable condos)...new lawyers will be needed to help new residents fight The Docks, the power plant, the treatment plant ("how dare they exist in my neighbourhood!")......any population increase means more local jobs.
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Well, so far, by your accounting, half the jobs will live off the taxpayers (teachers, TTC, postal workers) or work for $8 an hour (Starbucks), or live off the backs of others (lawyers.) Not a great accounting, in my books.

BTW: I have nothing against lawyers, as long as they are back in their coffins by sun up.
 
Anyone seen the proposed 401 extension into Windsor to the bridge? If they can't build it underground, Toronto needs to find a common ground between revitalization of the area while also preserving basic infrastructure, similar to what is being proposed in Windsor.
 
revamp the ramp

I agree if the city takes down that part of the Gardner the city needs to put in an alternative way not just a nice road for condo use and big box stores.
With the unfortunate propane explosion at Keele and Wilson the 401 was shut down and traffic was at a 45 minute to 1.5 hour delay just about everywhere in the city and this was with alternative ways to get around. Shutting down the gardner will not only cause backup traffic for more than 2 minutes but will have systemic issues everywhere in Toronto.
 
Everywhere in the city? I was looking at the traffic cams, and I was surprised how little congestion there was on the 401, let alone elsewhere. Can you give some examples?
 
nfitz said:
Everywhere in the city? I was looking at the traffic cams, and I was surprised how little congestion there was on the 401, let alone elsewhere. Can you give some examples?
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The 401 surpassed the Santa Monica Freeway about 4 years ago as the most heavily travelled expressway in North America. There is a very good reason for that: we have NO decent E-W arterial routes in the city.
Not Eglinton, not Lawrence, not St. Clair, not Bloor-Danforth - NONE. NADA.

Can you fathom that? Greater Los Angeles is about 12 million. The GTA is 5 million in a stretch, yet the 401 is more heavily travelled. Sad, very sad.

The Gardiner/Lakeshore and the 401 are all that we have. Two weeks ago, during the 'explosion' at Wilson/Keele, I had the misfortune of heading across Steeles - solid in both directions on a Sunday. Sunday.

The discussion of what to do with the Gardiner is way beyond commuters. It is not handling the day to day normal functions of truck and regular traffic.
 
Sad? Not really.

I have driven the Santa Monica and many of the LA freeways. Part of the reason why the 401 surpasses it is because it has a much higher capacity with the express/collector setup. It is built to higher standards as well.

You are right though, that there are good arterial alternatives, like Wilshire, Washington and Pico, but this reflects more that LA is a city of the automobile age, and these roads (which resemble the radials out of Detroit) were first built by clearing buildings in the older centre, and extending these boulevards out as early as the early 1920s.
 
It also handles, well, most of Canada's manufacturing. The Santa Monica Freeway doesn't quite have anything to compare to Ontario just-in-time inventory system. As far as I know, the 401 is the only highway in N. America built to handle commuters, industry, long-haul travelers and everything in between.
 
Whoaccio said:
It also handles, well, most of Canada's manufacturing. The Santa Monica Freeway doesn't quite have anything to compare to Ontario just-in-time inventory system. As far as I know, the 401 is the only highway in N. America built to handle commuters, industry, long-haul travelers and everything in between.
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So the rest of North America builds special highways? One just for commuters, one for long-haul only, one for industry?

Actually, the 401 was built to be a bypass (to Toronto). The problem is that the suburban areas have overrun the 401, then they build the 407 to be a bypass after the 401 clogged up.... but that is another story.
 
cacruden said:
So the rest of North America builds special highways? One just for commuters, one for long-haul only, one for industry?

Actually, the 401 was built to be a bypass (to Toronto). The problem is that the suburban areas have overrun the 401, then they build the 407 to be a bypass after the 401 clogged up.... but that is another story.
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No... but if you look at any map of the US Interstate network, you will see that there are grossly more highways than our 400 network. An interstate running through a mainly industrial area will serve mainly industrial uses. Likewise, urban freeways tend to serve commuter trips. The 401 though is expected to be everything to everyone though. I think it is actually a smart thing to do, we clustered pretty much everything important around one highway, so we don't have to have them criss cross every which way.

In some ways, I think the 401 is more like the planned "supercorridors" they are looking at building in the US than the IS highways.
 
cacruden said:
So the rest of North America builds special highways? One just for commuters, one for long-haul only, one for industry?

Actually, the 401 was built to be a bypass (to Toronto). The problem is that the suburban areas have overrun the 401, then they build the 407 to be a bypass after the 401 clogged up.... but that is another story.
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There are a few very good points here. The 401 is forced to handle commuters, cross-town traffic and even local traffic because Wilson, Lawrence and Sheppard are only 4 lanes (for the most part). The same problem with the Gardiner. I live nearly at Bloor but am forced to drive south to the Gardiner then back up to Bloor again; whereas, if Bloor had been designed properly it could handle arterial traffic.

As far as I know, 'just in time' delivery has gone international. The L.A area handles much more truck traffic than Toronto, especially the container traffic from the shipyards, but they aren't restricted to just one highway out of the L.A. basin.

As I have harped before, most other cities anticipated the rise of the automobile and planned for it throughout the 30s and 40s. Toronto clearly did not. Perhaps the mandarins of old Toronto never thought the day would come when someone would want to drive from Weston into the city or from Uxbridge to U of T. Most cities are merely several nuclei of smaller clusters that have grown together. I don't know why city hall didn't forsee this 75 years ago. Then again, they finally did wake up in the late '40s and tried to rectify the damage with the subway and ring highways that were planned but many which were aborted.
 
Dichotomy said:
I live nearly at Bloor but am forced to drive south to the Gardiner then back up to Bloor again; whereas, if Bloor had been designed properly it could handle arterial traffic.
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I know. If only there we some sort of... I don't know... train that could go underneath all of that traffic on Bloor. Ha! who am I kidding, that's something out of a science-fiction novel!
 
As of right now, there is no real adequate freeway network within the GTA. In less than 30 years time, when the region's population is expected to increase by about 3 million people, will our current road and freeway system be able to handle this increased volume? Most definately not. Current conditions on our freeways are evidence of this.

There seems to be a resounding fear of implementing freeways in this great city of ours, and IMHO, it is unwarrented. In addition to the lack of road infrastructure, the GTA's public transportation systems are atrocious when compared to numerous great cities worldwide. If the citizens of the area cannot drive themselves to their destination without gridlocked conditions, nor can they use efficient public transportation apart from a U with a line through it (TTC Subway), then how do the various levels of government expect us to get around? Teleportation?

Although efforts are currently being made to upgrade the GTA's public transport network, the politicians seem to have lost track of the idea that not everyone takes public transportation. There is currently a high proportion of the population that would clearly prefer driving to their destination(s), instead of abiding by the scheduling of public transportation. If Toronto wishes to become a true globally-renowned city, and an even greater economic powerhouse, an adequate freeway system should be a start. Enough of this "let's rely on a guargantuan freeway as the backbone of our economy" nonesense.

The area desperately needs a system which moves people and goods as quickly, and as efficiently as possible. Demolishing the Gardiner will only cause further disunity in an already disunified regional freeway system.
 
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