SixPoints
Active Member
Rocco Rossi says as mayor he would build a traffic tunnel from the south end of the Allen expressway right into the downtown core.
Rossi called his scheme to extend the Allen from its current end, at Eglinton Ave. W., into the core “the boldest move of the mayor campaign.” One downtown councillor quickly branded it “an insane idea” that would require the destruction of parts of downtown and cost tens of billions of dollars.
Rossi vowed Monday that, if elected Oct. 25, he’ll have construction on the “Toronto tunnel” started by the end of his four-year term.
“Under my plan, we will tunnel the Eglinton subway crosstown and we will tunnel the Allen expressway downtown,” he said in a release.
Rossi said the megaproject would jump-start Toronto’s economic growth, reduce gridlock and encourage businesses to return to the downtown core.
“Companies and workers would rather establish in the 905 than fight their way into downtown Toronto every day,” said Rossi. “I want our kids to have a chance to live and work at good jobs in the city of Toronto.”
His audacious plan — to be financed, he said, through a public-private partnership — essentially finishes, underground, a project that was cancelled in the 1970s.
Plans to continue the Allen above-ground as the Spadina Expressway all the way to Spadina and Harbord St. sparked a huge battle in the late 1960s, culminating with cancellation of the project by then-premier Bill Davis in June 1971.
Rossi’s plan assumes that burying the expressway’s new incarnation would largely negate the old complaints that a new thoroughfare would destroy homes and neighbourhoods and cause pollution and noise.
Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) called Rossi’s tunnel one of the strangest, most absurd ideas he has heard.
The tunnel would have to be built under the existing subway tunnel, while entry and exit points would require building traffic cloverleafs and therefore the demolition of parts of downtown, he said.
“You would have to bomb the downtown core and find another $30 billion or $40 billion to build it,” said Vaughan, whose late father, Colin Vaughan, successfully campaigned against the Spadina Expressway.
David Rider
Urban Affairs Bureau Chief
Source: thestar.com
Rossi called his scheme to extend the Allen from its current end, at Eglinton Ave. W., into the core “the boldest move of the mayor campaign.” One downtown councillor quickly branded it “an insane idea” that would require the destruction of parts of downtown and cost tens of billions of dollars.
Rossi vowed Monday that, if elected Oct. 25, he’ll have construction on the “Toronto tunnel” started by the end of his four-year term.
“Under my plan, we will tunnel the Eglinton subway crosstown and we will tunnel the Allen expressway downtown,” he said in a release.
Rossi said the megaproject would jump-start Toronto’s economic growth, reduce gridlock and encourage businesses to return to the downtown core.
“Companies and workers would rather establish in the 905 than fight their way into downtown Toronto every day,” said Rossi. “I want our kids to have a chance to live and work at good jobs in the city of Toronto.”
His audacious plan — to be financed, he said, through a public-private partnership — essentially finishes, underground, a project that was cancelled in the 1970s.
Plans to continue the Allen above-ground as the Spadina Expressway all the way to Spadina and Harbord St. sparked a huge battle in the late 1960s, culminating with cancellation of the project by then-premier Bill Davis in June 1971.
Rossi’s plan assumes that burying the expressway’s new incarnation would largely negate the old complaints that a new thoroughfare would destroy homes and neighbourhoods and cause pollution and noise.
Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) called Rossi’s tunnel one of the strangest, most absurd ideas he has heard.
The tunnel would have to be built under the existing subway tunnel, while entry and exit points would require building traffic cloverleafs and therefore the demolition of parts of downtown, he said.
“You would have to bomb the downtown core and find another $30 billion or $40 billion to build it,” said Vaughan, whose late father, Colin Vaughan, successfully campaigned against the Spadina Expressway.
David Rider
Urban Affairs Bureau Chief
Source: thestar.com
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