TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Personally, I think the Gardiner east of Yonge/Church is toast.
It is a horrid barrier to the Waterfront and it's traffic levels drop off dramatically coming from the QEW. One thing I think is out of the question no matter what they do is building a tunnel. Besides the massive costs, it would be nearly impossible west of Yonge because there is no available land at all...........it's a freeway surrounded by condos next to water and the busiest rail corridor in the country.
What I said ages ago I still believe is the best option for Toronto..........sell the whole damn highway for a song and let the private company charge whatever the hell they can get away with. The big caveat would be that they would have to completely tear down the Yonge/Church to DVP section, clean it up, and rehabilitate it to allow for greespace, apts etc.
The city would get rid of the ongoing Gardiner expense, not have to pay for refurbishment, and get the Yonge/Church to DVP section turned into a liveable urban enviornment free of charge. Toronto would actually make money as the land from the torn down Gardiner East sections could be sold to developers to help pay for the Portland/DonLands LRT and the city would get ongoing property tax revenue from the new condos that would go up and development fees.
If Yonge/Church is gone, you might as well tear down the entire elevated structure and reconfigure the streets in the area. Having it end at Yonge would create a huge bottleneck right in the centre of Downtown Toronto. My preferred solution is to replace it tear down the Gardiner east of Dufferin, replace it with a Lakeshore Avenue and do some major street reconfigurations to ensure proper traffic flow. I have no idea on how the streets should be configured though since all the east/west streets in the area have fairly heavy traffic. The expressway has created quite the conundrum, but it needs to come down.