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

[TOareaFan]

They have everything to do with the Gardiner. The bridges all went over the Gardiner, and if there was not Gardiner expressway, and simply a boulevard at surface level with lights and roundabouts, there would be no bridges to spend $million rehabilitating.

Perhaps...but (and this is where my confusion comes in, sorry) don't all of the Gardiner "plans" involve maintaining the road to, at least, that stretch of road? So whether we tear it down, dig it underground, rebuild it...whatever...we would still have that section so doing maintenance on the roads that meet/cross/disect it at that point would always be there. (again, I may be mistaken but all I ever hear is people talking about redoing the "elevated" sections...which this is not....in fact, the road network in that area may be simpler if the Gardiner were elevated at that point).

 

[Electrify]

It is more the principle of the matter than anything else. It would be like increasing taxes on smokers while refusing health care for them. Obviously not an identical comparison, but you get the idea. If you are going to implement a $60 tax on drivers, they should be seeing improvements in road infrastructure, not its removal.

 

[nfitz]

Perhaps...but (and this is where my confusion comes in, sorry) don't all of the Gardiner "plans" involve maintaining the road to, at least, that stretch of road?

That's not my point though. My point was simply that under Miller, Toronto did spend some serious $ on the Gardiner - contrary to Electrify's claim.

 

[ssiguy2]

Whether they tear down the DVP/Spadina section, sell the whole damn highway, toll it for everyone or just 905ers or any combination of those, I fear Toronto will do what it always does when confronted with transportation decisions................wait for a new report.

The worse possible solution for the Gardiner is for the city to send any options for yet further study and then a several year enviornmental review and by the time they are all said and done the city will have to start the massive repairs on the Gardiner whether they want to or not. For Toronto 6 years isn't a construction timetable but rather the length of time that is required just to figure out what they should do at some point in the future. I fear that Toronto will proceed on "Toronto-time" and 2018 will be here and gone and the opportunity to finally do something constructive with the Gardiner and revenue for a DRL will be lost and the $500 million will simply come out of the ussual city budget.

I know that sounds absurd but not when you consider that the Gardiner has been an eyesore and point of contention for 40 years and the City still has no definitive plan on what should be done with it. Toronto has had 4 decades of potential road tolls on both the DVP and Gardiner and we the DRL would have been completed 20 years ago but to do so would have required political fortitude which has been shockingly absent from City Hall for decades. It's a frigtening prospect but unfortunately when looking at Toronto's stellar history of transportation planning it also looks like the one Torontonians will probably end up getting.

 

[AKS]

This doesn't mean we should rush in to fix the Gardiner. If the Sheppard subway was crumbling, I say let it and use the money to extend the LRT to Yonge. But we shouldn't simply let it crumble either. We need to take a serious look at not just its local impact, but regional as well. Can our public transit system handle the influx of people who used the Gardiner to get into downtown? Can the local road system handle to loss of this highway? How will cross city trips be affected, not just along Lake Shore but the 401 and 407 as well? Etc.

Before you assume that I am 100% pro-Gardiner, I did think of one advantage of taking it down between at least Jarvis and the DVP. Currently in good traffic (it could happen) from York Region it can still faster to drive into the city than take the GO train. With this stretch of the Gardiner gone, not only could it equalize the time difference, but could allow for stops south of the 401 without hurting its attractiveness against the car.

It's not about being pro or not pro Gardiner. I'm weary about fixing it too. Fixing it would require rebuilding the whole highway. From one of the news articles I read, the engineers were reporting the Gardiner is withering from the inside out. The highway is thinning. It's not thick enough for standard. When they dug deeper they said a portion of it could be scooped up by hand. Now that's scary. Also, it seems the structure isn't as stable as the city claims. They said just the concrete facade is falling, but it's deeper than that. I got the impression the metal structure is rotting inside (probably due to the salt we've been using for years to get rid of the snow). Engineers claim we have 6 yrs to fix this. But so far, they're just fixing the facade to stop falling concrete. At the speed the city works, 6 years isn't enough time. Even if you build a DRL, it would take more than 6 years and there's no money allocated yet. They're still at the idea stage.

As for the "what if we tear down the Gardiner" result. There's no doubt there's going to be traffic jams. But after a few years, people will adapt and find new routes to get to places. Humans have the ability to adapt. If there's a jam people will learn to avoid the area and take alternate routes or options. However, I think there will be a loss of productivity because other routes will take longer to travel and require more time. The Gardiner's advantage is providing fast and direct access across the city. If you take local streets, there's lots of traffic lights and speed limits.

 

[UD2]

I don't know. If the left proceeds with taking down/selling the Gardiner. I'm going to have to vote Rob Ford or Rob Ford replacement.

The cost of taking down the highway cost more than maintaining it. So why spend more so we can have less? We can easily toll the Gardiner and then leverage the future earnings to take out a loan to use for the construction of public transit.

I'm a driver and I would gladly pay 60 dollars more per year for my car if it'll keep Toronto's road infrastructure intact. Yes I don't like 905er adding to our congestion, but our economy depends on the region so I'll bite that bullet.

Toll the damn highway, bring back the 60 extra dollars for my plate fee, and keep our infrastructure.

 

[dunkalunk]

My preferred Gardiner stop-gap solution would be the following:

1) Tear down the Gardiner between Jarvis and the DVP per the currently halted study and convert to 8 lane boulevard.
2) Continue to maintain the remaining Gardiner to last another 15 years
3) Toll the remaining sections of the Gardiner (to the 427) and the DVP (possibly also Black Creek Drive and Allen Road) to raise funds for an ultimate solution and recoup maintenance cost (tolls could be kept in place to help pay for transit expansion)
4) IMMEDIATELY begin study on what to do with the remaining elevated section from Exhibition to Jarvis (tunnel, bridge, boulevard, terminate, whatever.)

 

[balenciaga]

Whether they tear down the DVP/Spadina section, sell the whole damn highway, toll it for everyone or just 905ers or any combination of those, I fear Toronto will do what it always does when confronted with transportation decisions................wait for a new report.

The worse possible solution for the Gardiner is for the city to send any options for yet further study and then a several year enviornmental review and by the time they are all said and done the city will have to start the massive repairs on the Gardiner whether they want to or not. For Toronto 6 years isn't a construction timetable but rather the length of time that is required just to figure out what they should do at some point in the future. I fear that Toronto will proceed on "Toronto-time" and 2018 will be here and gone and the opportunity to finally do something constructive with the Gardiner and revenue for a DRL will be lost and the $500 million will simply come out of the ussual city budget.

You are quite right. For Toronto, producing a "report" to figure about what to do with an issue now usually takes 5-10 years. And by then things probably have changed. The city is more diligent than anyone in producing million $ reports and studies most of which eventually go nowhere.

The EA study on removing the Jarvis bike lane cost nearly $1M, right? What is it to study, didn't they do one before installing the lane only 2 years ago??

 

[balenciaga]

As for the "what if we tear down the Gardiner" result. There's no doubt there's going to be traffic jams. But after a few years, people will adapt and find new routes to get to places. Humans have the ability to adapt. If there's a jam people will learn to avoid the area and take alternate routes or options. However, I think there will be a loss of productivity because other routes will take longer to travel and require more time. The Gardiner's advantage is providing fast and direct access across the city. If you take local streets, there's lots of traffic lights and speed limits.

People always have this "what should I do in the next 2-3 years" kind of thinking and use this to justify whether a decision is good or bad.
The truth is, often things have to go worse before getting better. It applies to Gardiner. The fact that there will be traffic problems is NOT an excuse not to deal with the issue NOW. Do we care more about spending 15 minutes more commuting, or what is best for the city in the next 20-50 years? Apparenly most people care about the former and can't imagine life with the Gardiner. Let me assure you, you won't die and life will go on if the damn thing did come down. People adapt to new changes.

I don't think there will be a perfect solution. If we decide to get rid of it, there will be temporary traffic problem (by no means disastrous). We don't need a perfect alternative before deciding Gardinershold gone, as many seem to suggest. We should just suck it up because that's for the best of the city and its future.

I am not holding my breath that our councilors will make a bold decision. They will ALWASY choose the easiest, cheapest and least risky option, irrespective of what the long term consequence is. Who cares about 20 or 30 years down the road. As long as the next 5 years can be managed, lets do more patchwork here and there! People are shortsighted only caring about their own near term benefit. Therefore our politicians are equally shortsighted and gutless never daring to make the right decision. This is the problem with our democratic system.

 

[ssiguy2]

This is probably the ONLY thing I like about the Ford-style of politics.............people like Ford tend to ignore NIMBYs and endless reports and just go ahead and build. The problem with that in Toronto is that Ford is a moron and has absolutely no concept of urban planning or financial management. This was similar to Ralph Klein when he was mayor of Calgary. The NIMBYs in Sunnyside on the other side of the river from downtown didn't want the LRT to go thru their area to get to U.Calgary. Klein, on the other hand, not so politely told them where to go and how to get there and the very busy NW Line was built.

This is what is needed in Toronto and not just with the Gardiner.

The problem with the idea of the City keeping the highway and tolling it itself is that the it will take years for the city to see any NET income from the roadway. The reality is that no matter what happens part of the DVP to Spadina section is going to be torn down. Like it or not I think that is obvious at this point, it's just too hated and intrusive and that will become even more apparent as the Waterfron/Portlands develops.

Tearing down the Gardiner is going to cost a king's ransome and god knows Toronto's $500 million to repair the Gardiner will become $1 billion in no time. That is a hell of a lot of money to recoup and still leaves Toronto on the hook for cleaning up the destroyed elevated sections, yearly repairs, and Toronto's bloated bureaucracy to run the tolls. Those things require both time and money.....something that Toronto doesn't have.

If they try to sell the Gardiner the reality is that they won't get much for it if tearing down some or all of the DVP to Spadina section goes ahead.

For these reasons I still think my first proposal is not only the best and the only realistic one. Toronto should just sell it for a song and if that doesn't get any results then just give it away. Let a private company run the damn highway and toll it as much as they please. Part of the arangement would be that they have to bring the Gardiner back to safety standards and maintain it and they bear all the costs of tearing down and cleaning up the DVP to roughly Spadina section. Toronto would not only get a financial load of it's sholders in the short term but also the long as any ongoing repairs and maintenance would be born by the private company. Instead of being a drain on public finances the city would actually start receiving new revenue from the taxes of new housing that would go along the torn down part of the Gardiner.

For the DRL, they could toll the DVP with 100% of the revenue going towards it.

The added bonus of giving the Gardiner to someone else is that the taxpayers won't be on the hook for "escalated costs" which Toronto excels at and also there would be a very firm timetable on fixing the Gardiner sections and tearing down and cleaning up the Waterfront areas.

 

[sixrings]

I thought the 8 Billion dollar sale would pay for the DRL.

 

[kEiThZ]

But the price tag is going to be enormous. I'm sure tunneling can be done but being right beside condos, the current Gardiner, and the rail corridor is going to be a nightmare. This tunnel would cost a fortune, take forever to build, but what's even worse is that it will bleed the city dry.

The cost of the toll would have to be huge to recover that kind of investment and the interest on it. It's not the same as tolling a bridge like Boston's Big Dig or Vancouver's Port Mann as all one would have to do is get off the QEW and take the Lakeshore/King/Queen and save the bucks. Tolls over bridges can work because people have no alternative, they have to get over the water but this is not the case with the Gardiner.

Another thing...........where exactly are they going to put this tunnel? How in god's name are they going to tunnel under Lakeshore and they certainly can't tunnel under the Gardiner itself, the rail corridor is off limits and CityPlace has taken up all spare space that was once available. If Toronto actually had a long term plan in place years ago before CityPlace and the surrounding area it would be much easier and cheaper to tunnel than it will be now. Alas that's transportation planning which Toronto just hasn't quite figured out.

I'd say they should put the tunnel under the rail corridor. Plenty of room. A more linear alignment. And probably much cheaper to build than anywhere else.

The rail corridor will never be moved or tunneled. It's time to acknowledge that. Either bury both together or acknowledge reality and put the Gardiner under it.

 

[kEiThZ]

Why all the talk about selling the Gardiner?

Build any tunnel as Public-Private partnership. Let a private consortium build and manage the tunnel and the Gardiner teardown. Let the issue infrastructure bonds. Let the provincial government act as guarantor on those bonds so that the interest rate will be low.

With this kind of setup, the thing could cost $50 billion and you'd still get private sector interest.

 

[Peepers]

What I wonder about is what happened to the money that should have been spent over the years in maintaining the Gardiner in a safe condition? We know that David Miller spent $MILLIONS on studies to tear down the Gardiner. Where did Miller get the money to fund his studies? From the maintenance fund? Another question I have is where does the money come from to carry out maintenance on the Gardiner? Does the city get any money from the $Billions in fuel-tax collected by the province? It seems to me the city should , in fact I don't even know why the city owns this highway or the DVP for that matter. Why aren't they owned by the Province? I don't see the difference between these highways and the 401, 427, or QE.

Maybe the solution would be for the city to sell the Gardiner and DVP to the province for $1 each and let the province maintain these highways using the $Billions that they collect from the fuel tax.

 

[rbt]

What I wonder about is what happened to the money that should have been spent over the years in maintaining the Gardiner in a safe condition? We know that David Miller spent $MILLIONS on studies to tear down the Gardiner. Where did Miller get the money to fund his studies?

That was Waterfront Toronto which was performing the studies.