Toronto Lower Don Lands Redevelopment | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

Here's a genuine question (not being snarky) why were NONE of the big massive red plastic gates that they installed a few years ago (and are huge eye sores) not in use today? None were closed. Just orange pylons across the road right were the open gates stood. If not for this event, what are they waiting for?
I think there was a question at the mayoral presser on not closing the DVP - I think an investigation is coming. I recall that the forecast called for rain but nowhere near this much - the warning came late.

Having said that I wonder how much on the ground monitoring there is for the DVP.

AoD
 
It's not to give time for some plants to adjust and grow?

This; and, by filling gradually and allowing current to slowly kick in, it provides an opportunity to assess any weakness or mistakes (one hopes for none), but you'd much rather see a slight amount of water where it ought not to be, or few small trees bent, than let in a deluge when stuff hasn't even had a chance to take root (which is part of what provides bank stability) is to invite finding out if you did anything wrong the hard way.
 
Here's a genuine question (not being snarky) why were NONE of the big massive red plastic gates that they installed a few years ago (and are huge eye sores) not in use today? None were closed. Just orange pylons across the road right were the open gates stood. If not for this event, what are they waiting for?
Well, it IS the City......
 
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Here's a genuine question (not being snarky) why were NONE of the big massive red plastic gates that they installed a few years ago (and are huge eye sores) not in use today? None were closed. Just orange pylons across the road right were the open gates stood. If not for this event, what are they waiting for?

That's a good question........let me ask some more............

1) We already have had Union subway station flood twice and the moat at least once in the last few years.......one of those goes back to Andy Byford's time at the TTC. The City is the owner of Union Station, did anybody think to remediate the risk of flooding in oh, the last 7 years? To be clear, in the best scenario, on a day like today there would have been some issues, but they did not need to be this severe/impactful.

2) In the Lower Don, which we know is prone to flooding, there are wooden hydro polls knocked over, with their bases submerged. Anyone think maybe we should have replaced these with either sturdier poles, on elevated bases, or buried the wire?

3) In respect of Lower Don Flooding........and you thought the bike trail project was delayed before..... cough..........

The TRCA and the City identified several key actions to reduce the risks more than 20 years ago......... such as acquiring the site at 777 Dundas East and turning it into a wetland/stormwater storage site.

Additional parcels were evaluated for work adjacent to the DVP as well.........777 was sold to a car dealership which built on the site because the TRCA had no funding to buy it; while the City sat on Parkland acquisition funds. The other projects, have largely not gone ahead either.

I should note that there are options that have been quietly examined through the years to mitigate flooding to the DVP and to the Bala sub. But no one has seriously pursued them because $$$

In the case of the DVP, the obvious choice is to raise the height, of it, even by just 1M; but doing so would mean replacing the Eastern, Queen, Dundas, and Gerrard bridges to raise them by the same, and then regrading the approaches, some of that being quite impactful.

An option not looked at, that I recall, is one of viaducting the DVP, from just south of Bloor to the Lake. By which I mean removing the embankment, and sitting in on piers, with room for water under the highway.

*amusingly @AlvinofDiaspar was posting on this very subject in the Broadview Eastern Flood Protection thread.

Which I will now need to note, will actually make flooding in the valley worse than it is now, by cutting off the escape of flood waters on to the East Harbour site.

There are less expensive/intrusive options, that we could have at least partially delivered by now, such as aggressively separating combined sewers in the Old City/Toronto/York into Storm and Sanitary sewers. I was very involved in that discussion during the City's Wet Weather Flow Masterplan process. The City opted for the 'cheaper' option being built today (by Coxwell By-Pass), the budget of which, in real terms is now larger than the projected cost was of separating the entire sewer system back then. Sigh.

*****

Foresight, not hindsight.

Make the right investments, in a timely way.
 
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^All valid points as usual! I do note that all of the measures focus on the Lower Don and while this makes sense I wonder if measures further upstream have been considered? For example there are several places where tributaries cross hydro corridors. Would a diversion canal be useful similar in theory to the Winnipeg Canal?
 
^All valid points as usual! I do note that all of the measures focus on the Lower Don and while this makes sense I wonder if measures further upstream have been considered? For example there are several places where tributaries cross hydro corridors. Would a diversion canal be useful similar in theory to the Winnipeg Canal?

All that water still need to go somewhere - and the Lower Don thanks to channelization is a bottleneck. I don’t imagine we have a lot of space to build a diversion.

I am thinking of raising the southern segment of the DVP as a viaduct and simultaneously digging underneath to widen the Don….

AoD
 
All that water still need to go somewhere - and the Lower Don thanks to channelization is a bottleneck. I don’t imagine we have a lot of space to build a diversion.

I am thinking of raising the southern segment of the DVP as a viaduct and simultaneously digging underneath to widen the Don….

AoD
Thanks! I was thinking of a ‘canal’ that would be empty and ready to receive high level water during an event like today then released at a later time. Like I said I really don’t know about these things but delaying water buildup might help.

Btw if they rebuilt the DVP they could bury the Eastern/Richmond interchange!
 
So what was the point of spending all the money on the red gates along Bayview that were meant to be closed when exactly this happened? All the pictures show all these gates open and just cop cars or pylons blocking the way.
 
So based on the above, the Don is ~3.3M or just a bit over 10ft above normal height.

That would correspond with an image from the Beauty of the Don FB group by Stephen J. Shpak from which I plucked this still of Taylor Creek below the Don Valley Parkway bridge. Note that there is normally a bike path under that bridge....

View attachment 580909
I ran through there at about 6:00 pm and the path was covered in mud, but passable.
1000020371.jpg
 
^All valid points as usual! I do note that all of the measures focus on the Lower Don and while this makes sense I wonder if measures further upstream have been considered? For example there are several places where tributaries cross hydro corridors. Would a diversion canal be useful similar in theory to the Winnipeg Canal?

Not viable. The essence of your idea is what's being delivered via the Coxwell By-pass, Inner Habour and Taylor-Massey Creek tunnels.

They will intercept storm water overflows before they reach the valley.

But that project will take countless billions and not finish before the mid 2030s at the earliest at this point, and I'd say more likely 2040s.

Hydro is not agreeing to any canals. Besides which, your canals would have open sewage running through them that's a public health disaster!

*****

Btw if they rebuilt the DVP they could bury the Eastern/Richmond interchange!

While, with an unlimited budget, anything is possible, the practical answer is 'no'.

It would not only be prohibitively expensive, it would be at risk of flooding, in a tunnel no less, and the land needed to make the curves for merging into the highway would be substantial, and the existing Eastern Avenue interchange is in the way and would have to be removed first.......so the connection would be lost for several years.
 
Counterpoint...

A flood like this happens maybe every 5 years or so (in the 25 years i've been down here) and it really doesn't cause any lasting property damage to anything except the cars that are willfully driven into the water. So... just let if flood every now and then. It's impassable for a few hours, who cares? I mean the DVP gets shut down for other things for up to 24 hours at a time. A few hours for a storm doesn't matter at all. And you spray it all down, get the mud off and you're good to go. So just leave it.
 
Counterpoint...

A flood like this happens maybe every 5 years or so (in the 25 years i've been down here) and it really doesn't cause any lasting property damage to anything except the cars that are willfully driven into the water. So... just let if flood every now and then. It's impassable for a few hours, who cares? I mean the DVP gets shut down for other things for up to 24 hours at a time. A few hours for a storm doesn't matter at all. And you spray it all down, get the mud off and you're good to go. So just leave it.

Except that these so called 100-year event are happening more and more often - and the trend with increasing temperature is upward. Like today we are dealing with basically all highways in the core and all heavy transit getting interrupted - that’s unacceptable.

AoD
 
Here's a genuine question (not being snarky) why were NONE of the big massive red plastic gates that they installed a few years ago (and are huge eye sores) not in use today? None were closed. Just orange pylons across the road right were the open gates stood. If not for this event, what are they waiting for?
Since they are locked open, my guess, and it is only that, is they couldn't find the key(s) or the person(s) who had said keys. No doubt, knowing government, it involves a process and a hierarchy.

Dumb question...

For any insurance folks in this thread, if you knowingly drive your car into a huge flooded road what type of claim will that be? This was not a flash flood where unsuspecting motorists were hit with a wall of water. These people just drove straight into the ponds. Kind of the equivalent of intentionally driving into a brick wall.
Damage to one's own vehicle is covered under the collision/comprehensive part of the policy. If you had 'all risks', you're probably covered (I say this not know all the small print). If you drove around said cone or ugly gate, the term 'SOL' comes to mind.

Thanks! I was thinking of a ‘canal’ that would be empty and ready to receive high level water during an event like today then released at a later time. Like I said I really don’t know about these things but delaying water buildup might help.

Btw if they rebuilt the DVP they could bury the Eastern/Richmond interchange!
You talking like some kind of embayment, where some kind of natural depression is used to divert and hold water until it can be controllably released back into the watercourse, or a control structure where water is held back in a natural or created headpond. Structures like the G. Ross Lord and Clairville (on the Humber) dams are examples of the latter. For the former, I think anything of a useful size would be impractical in an urban area. I remember reading about flood control embayments/retention ponds on the upper Mississippi that didn't work as intended during a flood season since local governments convinced authorities to fill them full of water and use them as recreational areas. In order for any type of retention or diversion system to work properly, it has to be essentially dry to start with.

For a canal, to actually divert water away from the natural watercourse, you have to either send the water someplace else or re-connect it downstream (like Winnipeg). I don't see the topography in Toronto to sent excess water 'someplace else' without a massive and disruptive engineering project, and re-uniting it downstream doesn't solve anything since that's where the problem is.

I bet that that a super-gondola stretching all along the waterfront would still be operating! 🤪😂🚠
A modified version of Dougie's waterfront Ferris wheel !!
 
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