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

[Northern Light]

A waste of money and time

This with all do apologies to a architect who seems to have done quite good work in the past......is a hare-brained scheme with no value whatsoever!

The cost to carry out such a project with all the new required supports would be enormous, I'm not sure what the number would be, but surely we're into the billions.

All that and no reduction in pollution, no new transportation improvements, further reductions in views of the Lake from the north and a park almost no one will use but you'd have to walk up the equivalent of an 6-storey building (or more) to get there.

I appreciate the idea take from the linear park along the old railway line in Manhattan......but the comparison doesn't work. That project is better compared with Toronto's beltline, a line either at grade or no more than 2-storeys above street level, and built and very low-incremental cost cause the rail bed and bridges are already there.

The Gardiner should, in due time, come down completely, in the short-term, I'll settle for the eastern stretch, and the rest can be just prettied up a little.

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

The Gardiner continues to crumble as it is without adding another deck to it!
I'd be much more in favor of beautifying the Gardiner's underpasses by adding bright, removable ceiling panels for sound buffering, maintenance purposes & to keep the pigeons out, brightly painting the walls of underpasses or commission local artists to paint interesting canvasses to make them feel safer and of course improve the lighting. If the underpasses, specifically downtown (it's the area I'm familiar with), were perceived as safer and more pleasant to walk through I feel that a great deal of the psychological barrier to Queens Quay would be broken down for many people.

 

[UD2]

The Gardiner should, in due time, come down completely, in the short-term, I'll settle for the eastern stretch, and the rest can be just prettied up a little.

Do you drive?

 

[Second_in_pie]

The Gardiner should, in due time, come down completely, in the short-term, I'll settle for the eastern stretch, and the rest can be just prettied up a little.

I'd give the eastern stretch of the Gardiner a good 20 years to pack it's bags. If car transit usage isn't down enough by then, then wait until it is. A good 20 years after taking down the Eastern part of the Gardiner, I say tear down the DVP everywhere below Bloor. The Western part of the Gardiner I have less of a problem with, and the raised portion could have something done to it (tunnelling anybody?) Hopefully, the need for the Gardiner will eventually diminish, and we'll eventually be able to tear the whole thing down.

 

[Solaris]

Image corresponding with this article from Toronto Star:

 

[Automation Gallery]

Thats all a fantasy.

 

[Whoaccio]

Its a neat enough idea. Would almost depend entirely on implementation. I am a bit skeptical such a verdant park as depicted in the render could be built without requiring fairly onerous engineering work to accommodate the necessary weight and irrigation requirements. If it just ends up like the ramparts at Nathan Phillips' Square, I'm not sure anybody would make the vertical hike to the top.

It might be a neat idea to make a kind of linear market, though. So, put retail along the central spine of the viaduct with pedestrian promenades along the edges. That should save on the infrastructure required to support a small forest. If it was designed well it could actually be a pretty cool attraction as well. I would like to sit on a patio above the Gardiner looking either to the lake or CBD. Lack of decent retail and commercial activity is the death knell of most waterfront projects.

EDIT: I would add that it is refreshing to see some actual creativity on this issue. As it is, I am sick of hearing dogmatic regurgitation of how the Gardiner is either the antichrist, destroyer of cities and eater of puppies or so impossible to rehabilitate that we ought not even consider it. We put a man on the moon for the love of god, it isn't impossible to do something with the Gardiner. I mean, I'm surprised this is lambasted as 'unrealistic' and far fetched, for a paltry price of 600m for 7km, while demolition of a well used route and replacing it with some million lane super boulevard (with a shrub median, lets not forget) for pretty much the same cost/km is actual municipal policy.

 

[catcher_of_cats]

I view this idea as pure lunacy.

 

[unimaginative2]

Do you drive?

I do, and regularly on the Gardiner. I still think it should come down. The good of the city is more important than saving me a few minutes. That being said, there'd be no point to doing it if all we're going to do is leave rubble-strewn lots, maybe a little grass, and condos in its place. I don't want the Gardiner torn down without a real and outstanding plan for what to do with the freed-up land.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Do you drive?

I do and I started getting off the highway at Richmond regularly about two years ago.

A sort of one-man nose-thumbing at the raised Gardiner. I like driving through the city. Going points west, I get back on the highway at Jameson.

The only times I prefer going straight down to the Gardiner are when there's a nice sky above the city so I can take pics...but then, I'm supposed to be driving, not busting out photographs.
++++++++++
I have nothing against this idea as an idea of what could be done with a raised highway bisecting downtown but I think it would take quite a bit of reconstruction of the highway as it is, not to mention the additional work of building over it. This might be feasible if the Gardiner wasn't kinda falling apart as it is.

And even if it were to become some kind of dead zone like the raised walkways at Nathan Phillips Sq, I'd still access it. It could become a sort of post-apocalyptic raised urban non-vehicular thoroughfare! Full of graff and grime, right through the central city. Oh love!

 

[smuncky]

i'd rather see the rail corridor decked over instead of having this.

and comparing this to the high line is ridiculous. the two projects have very little in common.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Rather than an elevated park, why not reduce vehicular traffic on the Gardiner by building a two lane elevated aqueduct - gently inclined in both directions - to accommodate a crosstown swan boat service, including whitewater off-ramp and on-ramp links to future Don and Humber River express swan boat systems, and park-and-ride connections at the east and west end termini?

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Rather than an elevated park, why not reduce vehicular traffic on the Gardiner by building a two lane elevated aqueduct - gently inclined in both directions - to accommodate a crosstown swan boat service, including whitewater off-ramp and on-ramp links to future Don and Humber River express swan boat systems, and park-and-ride connections at the east and west end termini?

now that's a plan!

 

[GraphicMatt]

There is no way in and out of this park. We could chopper in prisoners and watch them compete in bloodsports.

 

[lister]

As mentioned already, a park over the rail corridor is a better idea. How much weight can the Gardiner take with that on top especially in winter? How much $$$ needs to be spent to retrofit it to support that weight? I drive on the Gardiner 2-6 times a month. I'd rather the money be spent on burying it. Charge tolls to use it once the tunnel is operational to pay it off and maintain it. Just don't pull a Highway 407 and sell it off.