Juan_Lennon416
Senior Member
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ssiguy2
Senior Member
Why in god's name would Queen's Park want to buy and take over the Gardiner and more to the point why should they?
It gets back to this notion that when Toronto can't maintain or expand it's own transportation they shouldn't look for solution but rather bicth at Queen's Park. It makes for great politics but has got Toronto no where in the last 40 years.
Also, what makes Toronto, again, think it is unique in Ontario? Everyother citizen in the province has to pay those fuel taxes?
London is in the exact same situation with it's Weinge Expressway having to be totally maintained by the City but they are not going to be crying to Queen's Park to get them to buy it off the city and take over mainteance costs.
This is the exact reason why Toronto transportation system are the same as they were 40 years ago. Toronto refuses to take responsibility for it's own obligations. Instead of the City making the tough decisions on tolls, taxes etc to build 21st century infrastructure the City just issues reports and then calmly turns it over to Queen's Park expecting them to foot the bill.
It gets back to this notion that when Toronto can't maintain or expand it's own transportation they shouldn't look for solution but rather bicth at Queen's Park. It makes for great politics but has got Toronto no where in the last 40 years.
Also, what makes Toronto, again, think it is unique in Ontario? Everyother citizen in the province has to pay those fuel taxes?
London is in the exact same situation with it's Weinge Expressway having to be totally maintained by the City but they are not going to be crying to Queen's Park to get them to buy it off the city and take over mainteance costs.
This is the exact reason why Toronto transportation system are the same as they were 40 years ago. Toronto refuses to take responsibility for it's own obligations. Instead of the City making the tough decisions on tolls, taxes etc to build 21st century infrastructure the City just issues reports and then calmly turns it over to Queen's Park expecting them to foot the bill.
drum118
Superstar
Regardless if this section remain up or come down, Waterfront Toronto is not hamper in the development of this area. A new Lake Shore will be built north of the current location, but will be a 4 lane road.
If the Gardiner comes down like it should for the eastern section, that traffic will move to the new Lake Shore. A small section will remain as piece of the past as well a observation platform.
Time is at hand to built a city for people, not for cars since this whole area is a once in a life time to built for the future, than the past.
The Ontario Government is not interested in taking over the DVP or the Gardiner as they know how expensive it will be to maintain it and they don't have the money to do it. You need a toll of $5 per trip to cover the maintain and replacement cost of these roads.
You got to love Harris for downloading these roads onto the city.
It will not 6 years to do the EA since a far amount of work has been done so far. You just restart the original EA from where it left off after being shut down.
BurlOak
Senior Member
Harris downloaded the portion of QEW from 427 to Humber River - which is entirely at-grade, with some overpass bridges. The elevated portion, which is the portion being discussed, has always belonged to Toronto. The DVP south of 401 has also always belonged to Toronto.
Toronto actually made it out easy when it came to expressway downloading compared to other cities. Harris dumped Highway 17 (now Highway 174) onto the City of Ottawa, even though they knew it needed repairs and widening.
Especially considering that the west end got the widening of the 417 into Kanata, Orleans is feeling more and more like they're getting shafted.
AKS
Senior Member
I don't think the province would even take it for free let a lone $1 each. They downloaded it to the city knowing how much it would cost to maintain it. We would have to force them to take it back if that even works.
As for Miller. The problem lies deeper than before his time. The Gardiner has been harshly treated for years by pouring tons of salt on it every winter. If they used soil or other materials that wouldn't eat into the Gardiner and destroy it from inside out, then the Gardiner would have stood a chance. Don't tell me it was Miller's fault that salt was used. It was way before his time.
BurlOak
Senior Member
Peepers
Banned
Of course the Liberals at Queen's Park would not be very anxious to assume responsibility for maintaining these highways but this is an issue where the prosperity of Toronto is at stake and as goes Toronto so goes the Province. Imagine if the absolutely insane proposal to turn the Gardiner and the DVP into toll roads were to be carried out. Most people would not be able afford to pay tolls similar to what are charged on the 407 to get in and out of the city. The result would be that secondary roads such as Lakeshore blvd. and Bayview would be under total gridlock most hours of the day. This is not like New York and other major cities where good public transit options exist. Our public transit system in and out of the core is maxed out. The result would be a severe loss of business to downtown Toronto. You would see the building boom downtown come to a complete halt (which would probably make some people like Adam Vaughan very happy). Tourism would take a huge hit. Job losses would be enormous. The cost to the city and the province would be in the many $Billions a year in loss revenue.
Shelling out $500 Million to fix the Gardiner would not be popular with the Liberals at Queen's park but look at is this way - they squandered TWICE this amount cancelling Power Plants in an effort to buy votes in Mississauga and Oakville in the last election ( a criminal act, in my opinion, for which McQuinty should be thrown in jail for the rest of his life). The Liberals have looted many more $Billions from the provincial coffers with scams such as Ornge and the Green Energy Act. Clever criminal enterprises, in my opinion, designed to line the pockets of Liberal insiders.
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AKS
Senior Member
You speak of $500 million to fix the Gardiner as an absolute amount. The amount will double, triple or more. First the engineers suggested fixing it in 25 yrs around 100 million or something. Somehow the time frame has to be sped up to 10 years and the price tag has ballooned to more than twice the amount. Imagine further down the road how much more it would cost. Projects tend to be over run budget and time. It's also questionable if the half billion can even keep the Gardiner up. Even if it did, the Gardiner would need a lot of money to be spent early to maintain it. After reading the blurbs about the report from newspapers that were reported by the engineers, the Gardiner is in a much worse shape than the city claims it to be. The half a billion is just the tip of the ice berg.
UD2
Active Member
by the same logic. What makes you think the currently accepted amount would be enough to tear it down? And what makes you think people are not underestimating the amount of traffic back-up that would be created?
The parties whom would benefit the most from taking down the highway are the developers and land owners who own property along its stretch. I think some of them may have gotten into the pockets of some of our politicians.
The parties whom would benefit the most from taking down the highway are the developers and land owners who own property along its stretch. I think some of them may have gotten into the pockets of some of our politicians.
Peepers
Banned
Even if the actual amount is double or triple (financed over many years) this is nothing compared to the many $BILLION that will be lost EACH YEAR due to gridlock.
Recently we have read about all the lobbying that is taking place behind the scenes at city hall by Casino proponents. I would bet this is nothing compared to the lobbying that is taking place by the proponents of selling off the Gardiner & DVP (for pennies on the dollar) so that they can turned into toll-roads. It looks like these proponents (e.g. investment banks and pension funds) have succeeded in getting Adumb Vaughan into their back pocket!
andrewpmk
Senior Member
The problem with privatizing the Gardiner/DVP would be similar to the 407, in that a private monopoly has a strong incentive to set the toll rates very high such that the highway is used far below its capacity, particularly during off peak hours, while parallel routes are congested. The 407 tends to be reasonably well used during rush hour (because people are willing to pay high tolls at rush hour to avoid congestion on other routes) but severely underused at other times of day, as the toll rates during off peak hours are only slightly less than the toll rates in rush hour. Meanwhile Highway 7 and Highway 401 suffer from chronic congestion at all times of day, 7 days a week. To prevent this, the toll rates on the Gardiner and DVP need to be regulated such that the road is fully used (e.g. used to 90% of its maximum capacity) at all times. In other words, tolls would vary by time of day, and during off peak hours would be lowered until the road is used to 90% of its capacity; at very low demand times of day, such as late nights, tolls would be reduced to zero. This would reduce the revenue that a toll road generates and thus the value of the road if privatized, but would reduce spillover onto parallel free roads which is a huge problem with the 407. The irony is that CPPIB (the pension fund that invests your Canada Pension Plan dollars) owns part of the 407, but they are solely concerned with maximizing profit, they do not care less about the severe negative effect that charging excessively high 407 tolls has on traffic congestion on the 401, Highway 7, Steeles, QEW, etc. and in turn the negative effect thereof on the GTA economy.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Why the hell should the people of Ontario be on the hook for Toronto's infrastructure needs. London had the Weinge Expressway downloaded onto the city but they bring up arguments like "As goes London so goes all of SW Ontario".
Toronto had it a LOT easier than other municipalities when it came to the downloading of roads than probably anyother municpality in the province. Imagine if you were in a county like Huron for example. Huge road networks were downloaded for them to maintain but they have to maintain these much larger downloads with only 75,000 people. Newsflash...........only 2.7 million of Ontario's 13.5 million live in the City of Toronto. Even the GTA has less than half the provinces population. Toronto is already getting $8 billion for rapid transit with no contribution expected............Ottawa, Kitchener, and London should be so lucky. London is about one-eighth the population of Toronto but it sure as hell didn't get a cool billion dollar cheque written for them for transit or anything else.
Toronto already recieves a far larger proportion of provincial money than it's population would warrant. Toronto has always been the favored child of Queen's Park largess so why the hell should the rest of the province bail them out? Toronto has more power and revenue options than any other city in the province thanks to the City of Toronto Act but just because they don't use it doesn't is their problem not everyone else who lives west of Kipling or north of Steeles. The other municiplailites of Ontario and especially the large ones would give their left nut to have the revenue options Toronto does.
Why should my sister outside London have to bail out wealthy Toronto because they can't manage their own finances, refuse to acknowledge their own responsibilities and obligations, and consistently vote in morons like Lastman and Ford?
Toronto had it a LOT easier than other municipalities when it came to the downloading of roads than probably anyother municpality in the province. Imagine if you were in a county like Huron for example. Huge road networks were downloaded for them to maintain but they have to maintain these much larger downloads with only 75,000 people. Newsflash...........only 2.7 million of Ontario's 13.5 million live in the City of Toronto. Even the GTA has less than half the provinces population. Toronto is already getting $8 billion for rapid transit with no contribution expected............Ottawa, Kitchener, and London should be so lucky. London is about one-eighth the population of Toronto but it sure as hell didn't get a cool billion dollar cheque written for them for transit or anything else.
Toronto already recieves a far larger proportion of provincial money than it's population would warrant. Toronto has always been the favored child of Queen's Park largess so why the hell should the rest of the province bail them out? Toronto has more power and revenue options than any other city in the province thanks to the City of Toronto Act but just because they don't use it doesn't is their problem not everyone else who lives west of Kipling or north of Steeles. The other municiplailites of Ontario and especially the large ones would give their left nut to have the revenue options Toronto does.
Why should my sister outside London have to bail out wealthy Toronto because they can't manage their own finances, refuse to acknowledge their own responsibilities and obligations, and consistently vote in morons like Lastman and Ford?
+1
Look at the breakdown of Ottawa's most recent funding for transit vs Toronto's Transit City:
Toronto: $8.15 billion
Federal: $0.3 billion ($114/citizen)
Provincial: $7.85 billion ($3002/citizen)
Municipal: $0 ($0/citizen)
Ottawa: $2.15 billion
Federal: $0.6 billion ($679/citizen)
Provincial: $0.6 billion ($679/citizen)
Municipal: $0.95 billion ($1075/citizen)
Yes, Ottawa got more federal funding, but I'm pretty sure that nearly everyone in Ottawa would trade that $600 million for the $2.65 billion that would have come Ottawa's way if it got the same Provincial deal as Toronto.
No matter how you shake it, Toronto got a pretty sweet deal compared to other cities in Ontario.
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pman
Senior Member
1. The Gardiner serves the needs of 905 drivers who want the right to drive to or through downtown for free. The argument for not tearing it down begins and ends with commuters from outside the city.
2. I'm not sure if Toronto "recieves [sic] a far larger proportion of provincial money than it's [sic] population would warrant," but ever since Harris introduced MVA it's clear we've contributed far more to Ontario in taxes than our population has warranted.
3. Though I have to agree with the characterization of Lastman and Ford, and by extension the Torontonians who voted for them.
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