http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/644680
Gardiner: Ugly or essential?
Vanessa Lu
John Spears
CITY HALL BUREAU
The fate of the Gardiner Expressway again hangs in the balance.
Yesterday Toronto's executive committee voted to go ahead with the terms of an environmental assessment – expected to take at least two more years and cost close to $8 million – to study every possible option with the elevated highway, including: do nothing, fix it, or remove it. The assessment should be completed in late 2011.
Mayor David Miller, who made it clear he wants to see the elevated expressway removed between Jarvis and the Don Valley Parkway, emphasized that yesterday's vote merely endorses a study that council already okayed in principle last summer. It now goes to city council for final approval in July.
The mere mention of tearing down the Gardiner, of course, brings out passionate and oppositional views: Some want to remove the eyesore now to help spur waterfront revitalization; commuters complain about potential traffic nightmares; and urbanists rip out their hair in frustration that all anyone ever seems to do about the Gardiner is talk about it.
James Alcock, who years ago opposed the destruction of the old Gardiner stump east of the DVP, called that "a huge mistake."
"And if they take it down west of the DVP it's going to be even worse," he said.
"Traffic's far worse than if they'd left it up," said Alcock, who drives downtown from Scarborough. "You should try making a left turn onto Carlaw or onto Leslie. It's terrible, the lineups are awful."
But Masudur Laskar, 45, an accountant who lives one block north of the Gardiner at Lower Jarvis and the Esplanade, said there would be definite advantages to ripping the Gardiner down.
"If they could make a park and plant lots of trees, it would be great. I could take my son there," Laskar said. "It should be something natural; if they demolish the Gardiner we could have a lake view."
Miller, who was in South Korea two weeks ago to chair a climate-change conference, pointed to Seoul's experience with removing a double-decker expressway there. The feared traffic jams never materialized.
"I'm personally confident, after seeing what other cities are doing, the opportunity on our waterfront is enormous," he said, urging councillors to be brave.
Paul Bedford, Toronto's former chief planner, also pointed to Seoul's experience as an example of courageous urban planning. He said Toronto should continue dismantling the Gardiner, and move forward.
"Talk about being timid here, you know ... when the rest of the civilized world is taking down entire expressways," Bedford said.
The assessment will include more public input and consider the impact on traffic, including along the Richmond and Adelaide off-ramps from the DVP.
The price tag is still to be determined but early estimates put it at as much as $300 million over four years.
"There is an immense opportunity now, and we have to make this decision now, to revitalize our waterfront," Miller said, noting that the original waterfront plans called for removing the elevated expressway entirely.
"The opportunity is there today, and it won't be in the future because the Gardiner will be surrounded by buildings."
Plans for the area affected include the West Donlands development, a mixed-use community that features affordable housing.
"If our initial projections are wrong about the traffic, then perhaps the city council which will be elected in 2010 will consider things differently than this one did," Miller said. "It will be in their hands."
Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong argued that the opinions of the 120,000 drivers who use that section east of Jarvis every day will not be counted.
"My constituents are opposed to tearing down the Gardiner Expressway," said Minnan-Wong, who represents the Don Mills area. "If you ask just the people who live near that community, you're going to get one answer. If you're dismissive of all the motorists who have to use the road every single day, you are doing a disservice to them and disservice to the city."
Eric Miller, director of the Cities Centre at the University of Toronto, said the focus had stayed too long on the Gardiner. Waterfront revitalization, he said, could occur without spending money to bury it, a road to replace it might also prove a barrier, and there are other barriers in the way, especially the train tracks in and out of Union Station.
"When we're scrambling to find billions of dollars for transit," he said, "to spend millions of dollars to remove the Gardiner and at best replace the auto capacity, when we haven't put the transit in place, I just can't get worked up about that."
*****
Miller, who was in South Korea two weeks ago to chair a climate-change conference, pointed to Seoul's experience with removing a double-decker expressway there. The feared traffic jams never materialized.
"I'm personally confident, after seeing what other cities are doing, the opportunity on our waterfront is enormous," he said, urging councillors to be brave.
Paul Bedford, Toronto's former chief planner, also pointed to Seoul's experience as an example of courageous urban planning. He said Toronto should continue dismantling the Gardiner, and move forward.
Interesting that the man who pushed Seoul's Cheonggyecheong project, mayor Lee Myung-Bak, is now the President of South Korea. He's taking a hardline stance against North Korea, and has been accused of driving ex-president Roh Moo-hyun to his recent suicide. Maybe that's the courage we need to take down the Gardiner!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Myung-bak
I was not aware there was other options, other than tearing that section down.
