Roads: Keep the Gardiner, fix it, or get rid of it? (2005-2014)

[CapitalSeven]

If there is going to be a tunnel, I think the most feasible option at this point would be to put it in an immersed tube just off the harbourfront, but even of then, a tunnel would be too expensive to justify the traffic volumes using it in my opinion.

My preferred option would be to build all of the transit options, build large parking structures at Exhibition and the bottom of the DVP hooked up to rapid Transit/GO, and to terminate the Gardiner at Front Street/Bathurst, and charge tolls for use of Toronto's municipal highways or implement a downtown parking levy.

I think those parking structure ideas were dreamed up in the 90s but never happened. What are the chances that Toronto, having roundly and soundly rejected Doug Ford's fantasy land, is going to think that giant parking garages are a good use of waterfront property?

Surely if they are going to put on tolls, it would include the whole Gardiner-DVP system down from at least the 401 and out as far as Long Branch.

 

[dunkalunk]

I think those parking structure ideas were dreamed up in the 90s but never happened. What are the chances that Toronto, having roundly and soundly rejected Doug Ford's fantasy land, is going to think that giant parking garages are a good use of waterfront property?

Surely if they are going to put on tolls, it would include the whole Gardiner-DVP system down from at least the 401 and out as far as Long Branch.

Putting up parking structures here and here would be a better use of land than what currently exists and would not have a very large impact to the waterfront at all. It should be possible to integrate a transit station into each of the parking structures (Waterfront LRT/Queens Quay Streetcar in the West, DRL in the East) to make it more convenient to park your vehicle on the outskirts of downtown.

And I am agreed that the entire Gardiner-DVP system should be tolled, although I'd also add Allen Road and Black Creek Drive perhaps with some upgrading and expansion thrown in.

 

[BurlOak]

Does the existence of condos really preclude the possibility of a tunnel? I ask if any real engineering types would know.

I remember seeing that the foundations for the Gardiner are prestressed concrete piles that go down about 6 to 7m. I do not what is under the condos, but I would assume it is close to that.

I would guess that a new tunnel would have to be at least one or two diameters below the bottom of footings so that the tunnel does not interfere with the building. A two lane tunnel would have to be over 10m diameter. so the top of this tunnel would have to about 20m below ground! It is possible to strengthen or modify the building foundations prior to the tunneling in order to keep the tunnel less buried, but this would add to the cost and probably only be practical if it is one or two buildings in the way - not a whole line of them.

 

[CapitalSeven]

It seems to me much more likely that they would dig cut and cover under the roadway and deck it over. That would be disruptive, but the soil conditions and water table are very dodgy in that area, and if you dug deep enough to avoid footings and piles, the ramps would be impossibly long.

 

[MetroMan]

Word has come out that parts of the Gardiner will become unstable and will have to be closed in 6 years if not repaired. These repairs are extensive and will cost around half a billion dollars. Why are we still considering band aid solutions? The environmental assessment to tear down the section East of Jarvis which so happens to be the most critical and most expensive yet least used part of the Gardiner.

The Gardiner Expressway: A lump of coal in Toronto’s stocking

The proverbial lump of coal in Toronto’s stocking this year? As much as a half-billion-dollar repair bill for the crumbling Gardiner Expressway.

As part of their 2013 budget debate, council is considering ratcheting up their annual maintenance spending on the lakeside highway from $10 million to more than $50 million a year over the next 10 years. Under the new proposal, about 17 cents of every dollar spent on transportation projects over the next decade will go toward rehabbing the highway.

Meanwhile, the other 5,600 kilometres of roadway in Toronto are actually projected to deteriorate as efforts are focused on the 18-kilometre Gardiner. The capital plan shows the repair for major roads across Toronto increasing by a factor of three between now and 2022. And those roads are important — for all the attention it gets, a 2009 study revealed that only eight per cent of inbound morning commuters used the Gardiner to get downtown.

The numbers don’t lie. This highway’s a money pit.

Debates about the future of the Gardiner always give way to trumped-up hysteria about the “war on the car.†But costs have gotten so out of control that this is no longer a debate about urbanism or mobility. It’s about money. Full stop.

Fans of the expressway status quo will point to the lack of alternatives. And they’ve got a point. It’s not as if current service levels on GO Transit or the TTC can accommodate many more bodies at rush hour. And unless the plan is to break out the bulldozers Sim City-style, we’re not going to be able to expand other roads, even if we wanted to.

So what’s the answer? Two things.

First, the city should return to a 2009 study on tearing down or modifying the section of the highway east of Jarvis Street — a study that mysteriously stalled after Mayor Rob Ford took office. This stretch, which was engineered with extra capacity for expansion that never happened, accounts for more than $200 million of the total repair forecast. To even consider spending money rehabbing this section with the study incomplete is downright irresponsible.

Second, let’s look to road tolls as a means of paying for repairs on any parts of the highway we can’t afford to lose. Not only will this leave room in the city’s capital plan for more important projects, it’ll also make things more equitable.

Since even before Premier Mike Harris downloaded more highway costs to the municipality in the ’90s, 905-ers haven’t been paying their fair share — it’s high time for everyone who uses the highway to pay up.

At the very least, the solution can’t be to just move forward blindly.

Toronto’s got to take its foot off the gas and consider where this road is taking us.

Matt Elliott

 

[sixrings]

the thing needs to come down and all the money which would have been spent tunneling it or keeping it up needs to be put to a DRL ASAP.

 

[DSCToronto]

I think we need to remember that the Gardiner runs through very different areas of the city - downtown it is hemmed-in by buildings, east of Jarvis it runs over vacant land. It also has at least two quite different kinds of construction. Downtown it is a concrete deck on concrete pillars. East of Jarvis and, I think, west of Spadina it is a steel girder bridge topped with concrete and supported on concrete columns. East of Jarvis it would probably be feasible to build a new Gardiner far closer to the rail berm (or over it) and keep the existing road functioning until the new one was finished. Downtown it is hard to see how one could deal with existing traffic if all of the current road was under construction. Waterfront Toronto once proposed that the Gardiner east of Jarvis should be moved further north (towards the rail berm) to free up desirable land north of the Keating Channel and I hope that before any major repairs are started the City will look carefully at all the options - these may be different for each section.

 

[CDL.TO]

Impressive interactive article at Global Toronto:

http://www.globaltoronto.com/Pages/story.aspx?id=6442770287#graphic

 

[ssiguy2]

the thing needs to come down and all the money which would have been spent tunneling it or keeping it up needs to be put to a DRL ASAP.

The problem is that even tearing it down is going to cost a king's ransom which is money Toronto doesn't have. Even if Toronto can find the money to tear down the section from roughly Spadina/Yonge to the DVP it still has to repair the larger Yong/Spadina to QEW section. Also, the DRL will never happen unless Toronto pays for it itself. Queen's Park is completely broke and Ottawa won't give any money especially since Toronto hasn't even spent the $300 it was given by the fed 3 years ago.

GO transit is already at capacity and with electrification of the system in GO's 25 year plan, the ability for them to do it with even 15 seems out of the question. In short, Toronto is screwed.

The fact that Toronto is broke and has neither the money to repair the Gardiner nor tear it down nor build a DRL is probably the BEST thing that could happen to the people of Toronto because it forces City Hall's hand. City Hall has completely ignored the impending problem with the Gardiner by simply issuing report after report for domestic political consumption. This huge bill and 6 year time frame forces the city to act and act quickly.

City Hall's constant delaying of hardcore revenue raising for roads and transit has come to an end and the road everyone hates may turn out to be the best thing to happen to Toronto transportation in long time. The Gardiner has backed the City into a corner and delays and new reports are no longer an option. It will force the TTC, City Hall to not report but actually start building a DRL, will force incread GO service which will require electrification, may force GO to actually make the UP Link into a transit service for the people along the corridor instead of a loud, polluting, and smelly annouance, and will open up the Waterfront from Yonge/Spadina to the DVP.

Of course, even with gas taxes and tolls the money may not be enough which again is good news as that will force the TTC/GO to look at alternative resources for infrastructure namely PPP. PPP for the Gardiner to tear down the Eastern section and run and toll the Western and PPP to convert the useless UP Link into a transit service for transit users.

The horrid Gardiner that Toronto urban planner loves to hate may turn out to be the savior of the Toronto Waterfront and transit users that Torontonians have been waiting for.

 

[BurlOak]

Maybe the best thing would be to upload the entire highway to Hudak. Maybe he regrets that policy, but that would be best for Toronto.

 

[junctionist]

We really need to decide what to do with it now that it's in such bad shape. Maybe it will become a byelection issue. It would be great to bury it for the sake of the waterfront, and if we could deck over it and the rail corridor between the Ex and Roncesvalles, that would be amazing. We could have parkland from King Street to the waterfront, and Parkdale would no longer be disconnected from the lake. We could keep a small part of the elevated part standing in downtown and build a true High Line-style park, which would be more attractive than just Lake Shore and the back sides of condos. If we're serious about burying the Gardiner and building the DRL, the money will come. When you're the largest city in Canada and growing, no one would be surprised that you have a lot of infrastructure to build. The DRL and Gardiner reconstruction could be bundled as a megaproject.

 

[CapitalSeven]

Killing the EA (possibly improperly) in 2010 on replacing the remaining eastern section proves to be another monumental failure of leadership by Frod. In the two year since the city has essentially been lying about the road's stability. Cancel and lie. Where have we seen that before?

Frod is out of office and out of town. Everyone would be better off were he never to return to either.

 

[Rainforest]

Killing the EA (possibly improperly) in 2010 on replacing the remaining eastern section proves to be another monumental failure of leadership by Frod. In the two year since the city has essentially been lying about the road's stability. Cancel and lie. Where have we seen that before?

Frod is out of office and out of town. Everyone would be better off were he never to return to either.

Although I wish Ford permanently out of mayor's office ASAP, to be fair I have to note that in this case, we can't be sure that he lied deliberately. It is possible that he was misled by the staff, in which case he is simply incompetent.

 

[Electrify]

Our love-hate relationship with the Gardiner Expressway

Alyshah Hasham
Staff Reporter

The reputation of the Gardiner Expressway has crumbled over the years along with its concrete, a perpetually gridlocked eyesore cutting through the city.

But it has been and remains an invaluable river of gold flowing through the heart of Toronto.

“One of the reasons we have such a successful economic base in Toronto’s downtown, unlike other American cities which have seen a significant decline in the vitality of their downtown, is because of this freeway, along with the transportation system comprising GO trains and subways,” says Murtaza Haider, an associate dean at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management.

“It’s quintessential,” he adds. “It’s like plumbing — it’s not good-looking but you need it.”

The Gardiner ferries commuters into and out of the city, handling more than 120,000 vehicles a day. When the city is without it, chaos ensues.

Increasingly the Gardiner is picking up the slack in available transit options for the many commuters who leave the downtown core for work, says University of Toronto transportation engineering professor Eric Miller.

Haider argues that eliminating the Gardiner — an oft-discussed topic that has led to proposals for a tunnel or a broad surface avenue — would not make traffic disappear.

It would actually make opportunities disappear, unless it could be replaced with the enormous undertaking of building a better road and improved transit.

Until then, “we’re between a rock and a hard place,” says Miller. “Unless we have a viable plan to get rid of it and not lose the capacity into the downtown, it’s a non-starter. And we need the capacity to the downtown … without it, the downtown would decline. It would not be an attractive place to live and work.”

And don’t overlook the fact that the Gardiner helped build this city.

“It’s an essential part of the spirit and mythology of the place,” says Les Klein, the founding principal at Quadrangle Architects, who designed a plan for incorporating a park with the highway in 2009.

The Gardiner has value beyond the essential transportation function it still serves, he argues.

“We seem to forget, because for 30 years it’s been maligned and ignored, how much of a symbol of the city having arrived the Gardiner was in the ’60s … and it’s really quite lovely if we ignore all the hype that’s been thrown at it. There are some places where it’s quite majestic.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/art...ate-relationship-with-the-gardiner-expressway

Can't speak for Haider, but Eric Miller is known to support progressive transportation policies and is not a pro-car zealot by any stretch. The fact that even he sees the importance of the Gardiner should be a wake up call for those who believe it can be removed without negative consequence.

I was thinking about this scenario today: Imagine if the subway tunnel on the Bloor line was crumbling between St. George and Yonge stations. While this stretch of subway sees lower ridership because most people transfer on to the University and Yonge lines going into downtown, it is important from a network standpoint in supporting cross-city commutes. Should we just let this piece of transportation infrastructure crumble to save on costs, or is the sum of its parts greater than the whole and it is worth saving?

 

[Electrify]

Your worse case scenario will never happen.

As you already mentioned, Tokyo needs special personnel to push people into the subway during rush hour. That didn't make Tokyo Detroit, didn it? Toronto is nowhere near that crowded. People complain they can't get into the subway during rush hour, but that's mostly because they expect too much personal space. There has never been once I was not able to get in the subway car during rush hour. No matter how many people there are, I always manage to get in. Just shove hard. Yes, my stomach sometimes ends up pushing against someone's butt, so what. it is a big city, you wanna plenty of space for you to stretch your legs, get your own car or the taxi.

Additionally Toronto passengers have the obnoxious habit of standing near the subway door when there is often plenty of space inside between the seats. It is rather annoying and inconsiderate, making the subway look more crowded than it really is, and it happens all the time.

Passengers will not quit their job just because the subway is too crowded. They will simply adjust their schedule by leaving earlier. Major banks, law and consulting/financial firms will never move to the suburbs because that equals suicide.

Property value will NOT drop due to this either. Downtown is where most amenities are, and people will always find it appealing. They will want to live downtown more if traffic becomes worse it at all.

Not everyone has the same acceptance to crowding as you do. In fact, most people don't, and this includes people who are not claustrophobic. Also, Japan and Canada are different cultures, and how they deal with crowding in Tokyo is apples to oranges to how it is dealt with in North American Cities.

In most places where major roadways have been taken down in the US, it was successful because they had alternative transportation options which were under utilized, and/or their downtowns were struggling in the first place so it wasn't a major loss. Neither of those applies to Toronto, and considering the quality of our commutes, I believe it is possible that Toronto could be the first case where the removal of a downtown highway actually WEAKENS the city rather than strengthens it.