Toronto Lower Simcoe Ramp | ?m | ?s | City of Toronto

hawc said:
This is such a weird little corridor now. Huge buildings on either side. A busy surface road and what? A few trees and a widened sidewalk? I'm glad the ramp is down, but it's weird trying to imagine what it will become.
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I know, I agree. I'm glad it's gone, and we need to wait and see. But I have to admit--it looks a bit barren and empty. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised the way SoCo (oh yes I did) has been built out. But yeah.
 
20170612_202421.jpg
And so it begins... The new section is up
 

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huh so they kept the support design but did not opt to keep the same color of steel ? Interesting..
 
On the issue of the Gardiner and paint.

If we must endure the Gardiner, what people's preferred aesthetic be? Painted or Not?

If painted, then what colour?

I always thought French Blue would be nice........Teal would be too garish I think.

Also should the parapet wall guardrails have the same colour as the underlying steel deck?

Should the light standards under/over match?

Or would contrasting colours work better?

My instinct would be to go w/sleek railings and light poles similar to the original design by w/modern tech in them, but pop them w/some kinda colour to break up the grey on grey monotony.

Personally, I'd rather be rid of the Gardiner....but if it must stay, it should look less soul-less.
 
DSC said:
The steel they removed was painted green, the steel they are putting up looks to be unpainted. It may yet be painted.
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Considering that it cost 3 times as much to paint on site than at the shop, I don't think it will be painted.

Back in the day, all steel had to be painted to protect from corrosion.

Now, or since 1968, they use Atmospheric Corrosion Resistant (ACR) steel, known originally by the proprietary name "Corten Steel". This has about 1% Chromium (and some nickel). The theory is that the steel forms a rust layer of tighter grain structure on the surface (patina) that is supposed to prevent the rust from penetrating deeper. This should give a uniform brown appearance. However, it appears that in the presence of very high humidity, or high pollution, this patina does not form properly and rusting continues. You can see this on some bridges that are very low to the water, or in high traffic area where trucks idle underneath (highway 11 Barrie to Gravenhurst and 402 Sarnia are good examples of bad patina).
 
BurlOak said:
Considering that it cost 3 times as much to paint on site than at the shop, I don't think it will be painted.

Back in the day, all steel had to be painted to protect from corrosion.

Now, or since 1968, they use Atmospheric Corrosion Resistant (ACR) steel, known originally by the proprietary name "Corten Steel". This has about 1% Chromium (and some nickel). The theory is that the steel forms a rust layer of tighter grain structure on the surface (patina) that is supposed to prevent the rust from penetrating deeper. This should give a uniform brown appearance. However, it appears that in the presence of very high humidity, or high pollution, this patina does not form properly and rusting continues. You can see this on some bridges that are very low to the water, or in high traffic area where trucks idle underneath (highway 11 Barrie to Gravenhurst and 402 Sarnia are good examples of bad patina).
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Except that the Gardiner was originally put up before 1968. Unless they replaced the steel since.
 
BurlOak said:
Considering that it cost 3 times as much to paint on site than at the shop, I don't think it will be painted.

Back in the day, all steel had to be painted to protect from corrosion.

Now, or since 1968, they use Atmospheric Corrosion Resistant (ACR) steel, known originally by the proprietary name "Corten Steel". This has about 1% Chromium (and some nickel). The theory is that the steel forms a rust layer of tighter grain structure on the surface (patina) that is supposed to prevent the rust from penetrating deeper. This should give a uniform brown appearance. However, it appears that in the presence of very high humidity, or high pollution, this patina does not form properly and rusting continues. You can see this on some bridges that are very low to the water, or in high traffic area where trucks idle underneath (highway 11 Barrie to Gravenhurst and 402 Sarnia are good examples of bad patina).
Click to expand...

There is another serious downside to using weathering steels such as Corten, however.

It has been found that it can't be used in cases where the steel sees a lot of multi-axis bending movements. Pullman Standard attempted to use it on a number of railcars in the 1930s and 1940s and found that it actually fared worse than their regular high-carbon structural steel that they used in the railcars at the time.

Not that bridges are normally susceptible to the kinds of motion that a railcar is, of course....

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
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