[innsertnamehere]

I take Richmond if my destination is north of King and west of University. North of Dundas I take the Bayview-Bloor exit and either head up Rosedale Valley Rd or go down Bayview to Gerrard.

Only time I take the Gardiner is if I'm heading south of King, which I normally am not when driving. my GO bus uses it a lot though.

 

[Towered]

At the very least it needs to be tunnelled. It would be crazy to just outright remove it and not provide an alternative.

The DRL and increased GO service.

 

[dunkalunk]

I've been working on a Gardiner Expressway teardown option in which a cable-stayed viaduct is constructed above the rail corridor to Spadina Ave. Wellington and Front would be converted to opposing one-way streets.

This concept can be viewed in more detail on Maps Engine.

Travelling Eastbound
-Through traffic would be instructed to follow Lake Shore Blvd and exit at the Jamieson interchange. Here, the Gardiner would be reduced from 3 lanes to 2 to travel on the viaduct.
-Exit ramp at Strachan Rd/Fort York Blvd.
-Viaduct passes over the Bathurst Street Bridge.
-Exit ramp at Dan Leckie Way for access to CityPlace, Rogers Centre, CN Tower, and ACC. This exit would also be used to access Bathurst Street
-The Gardiner passes under the Puente de Luz
-Termination at Front/Spadina.

-Traffic through the core would be funnelled onto Spadina to Adelaide and other distributor roads. Right turns onto Spadina would be restricted due to the angle of the ramp
-Between Front and Blue Jays Way, Front would have 6 lane cross-section with 1 westbound and 3 eastbound lanes with left turn lanes and a parking lane on the north side. The road envelope has more than enough room for this. Front would then continue as a 3 lane one-way road with parking lanes to the intersection of Front/York where Front would be reduced to 2 lanes with parking lanes in front of Union Station. Remaining traffic would be directed onto University and York.​

Travelling Westbound

-Wellington would keep its existing 4-lane cross section to Blue Jays Way. 2 lanes of Wellington would descend below ground at Clarence Square and continue to the rail corridor to access the Gardiner.
-Entrance ramp to the Gardiner at Spadina/Front. Front would be converted to a one-way westbound at Spadina to simplify traffic operation at this intersection.​

-The Gardiner would then continue on be 2 westbound lanes travelling beneath the Puente de Luz and over the Bathurst Street Bridge
-Directional entrance ramp from Bathurst Street over the rail corridor, continuing as a cable-stayed viaduct
-Entrance ramp from Fort York Boulevard. From here, the Gardiner would then continue on its existing elevated structure.

This arrangement would require the Bathurst GO Yard to be decomissioned. It would still be possible to keep the Gardiner as an elevated cable-stayed structure over the yard, but at a significant cost increase. GO could get rid of the yard if it is to modify its operations to have more through-running routes, of if it were to relocate its yard to the West Don Lands.

Replacing the function of the Gardiner within the rail corridor has the significant benefit of freeing up much of the land currently occupied by the highway for development and eliminating the messy complex of ramps between Spadina and Yonge. By relocating the traffic flow in a remove scenario, it would no longer be necessary to widen Lake Shore Boulevard past 8 lanes. It won't be possible to widen Lakeshore where it bottlenecks at Bathurst. Compared to a tunnel option, it would be far less expensive and disruptive during construction. Tunnelling also makes selling off land formerly occupied by the Gardiner far more complicated. Given the choice between $5 Billion to tunnel the Gardiner along its current alignment or $2 Billion to elevate and run at-grade in the rail corridor, I'd rather spend money on building a Viaduct.

I see this as being feasible in about 20 years given the following conditions:
-DRL is constructed from Dundas West to Don Mills/Eglinton.
-A streetcar right-of-way is built on Fort York/Bremner Blvd connecting Exhibition to Union.
-GO changes its operating model to run frequent regional rail service, optimally using electrified rail corridors.

 

[nfitz]

When I had a car, on the rare occasion where I would drive downtown, I usually got off at the Yonge/Bay/York exit. The only reason why I would get off at Richmond is if my destination was in the central-east part of downtown (ie: Eaton's Centre). Even the GO buses which travel the DVP into the city use these ramps rather than Richmond and Adelaide.

Uh, hang on. With the GO bus terminal south of Front Street, the only access to it is northbound Bay. You can't get to the GO terminal with a bus from the DVP unless you come off Lakeshore or the Gardiner.

When the old GO Terminal was on Elizabeth Street ... the GO buses on the DVP didn't go onto the Gardiner to get there.

The Eaton's Centre - right on west of Yonge Street, is the central-east portion of downtown?

And did you do this in rush hour?

 

[innsertnamehere]

I take the GO bus daily off of the DVP, it uses the gardiner. Exits at Yonge and goes on lakeshore to bay, turns up bay. Coming out, it either loops down to queens quay and back around to bay to take the bay on ramp, or loops around queens quay to get to the Jarvis on ramp.

 

[dunkalunk]

I take the GO bus daily off of the DVP, it uses the gardiner. Exits at Yonge and goes on lakeshore to bay, turns up bay. Coming out, it either loops down to queens quay and back around to bay to take the bay on ramp, or loops around queens quay to get to the Jarvis on ramp.

It would be possible to get there via Front-Wellington-Yonge. There's a one-way road running westwards to the north of the existing GO bus terminal. Buses would turn right from Yonge into the GO parking lot and then make a U-Turn before exiting onto Bay to access the platforms. The turning radius should be enough to accommodate a GO bus. This is of course far from ideal, but it's possible.

The long-term solution would be to build an integrated terminal across the street from the ACC. By the way, are there actual plans to relate the terminal here or is it just something I read on the forum?

 

[Conrad Black]

There has been serious thought put into an integrated bus terminal near Union.

 

[Grimace]

It will be interesting to see how councilors not just in North York and Scarborough react to this, but also those in Durham, Markham, Richmond Hill, Aurora, Newmarket and beyond as well. Heck, you might even get some blowback from Vaughan, as I could see some drivers take the 407 to the 404 to get downtown, as to avoid the poorly built 400 to 401 west junction.

If the removal is done along with improving public transportation along the DVP corridor, I'll happily push down the lever to set off the dynamite. The reality is though that transportation routes into and through downtown are beyond capacity, and removing the Gardiner will only stress what little infrastructure we have even further.

Any driver that decided to take the 401 instead of deal with 4 traffic lights on an otherwise uncongested Eastern Gardiner would be making a silly choice.

What is the basis for you saying that transportation routes into downtown are beyond capacity coming from the east? I'm not familiar with the DVP generally at rush hour, but I assume it is congested. However, the routes within the city from DVP are fine. It is currently 8:30 am on a Monday, Richmond is entirely manageable, Eastern/Front is not very busy, the westbound Gardiner between DVP and Yonge exit is smooth sailing (as is eastern Gardiner on same stretch), there's less than 10 cars per minute getting off at Jarvis.

Yonge/Bay/York are all a mess, both because of construction and volume, but the Eastern Gardiner doesn't have anything to do with that.

 

[Grimace]

Uh, hang on. With the GO bus terminal south of Front Street, the only access to it is northbound Bay. You can't get to the GO terminal with a bus from the DVP unless you come off Lakeshore or the Gardiner.

When the old GO Terminal was on Elizabeth Street ... the GO buses on the DVP didn't go onto the Gardiner to get there.

The Eaton's Centre - right on west of Yonge Street, is the central-east portion of downtown?

And did you do this in rush hour?

Probably before the Front Street construction. It would be insane to do that now because of the mess on Front. GO buses are in different category because the terminal is right off the highway and they don't need to pass Front, as you say.

One advantage of the remove option may be encouraging more people to take Richmond or Eastern/Front, so as to reduce the amount of traffic from the DVP that adds to the overall congestion of the Yonge/Bay/York area.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

I've been working on a Gardiner Expressway teardown option in which a cable-stayed viaduct is constructed above the rail corridor to Spadina Ave. Wellington and Front would be converted to opposing one-way streets.

This concept can be viewed in more detail on Maps Engine.

Travelling Eastbound
-Through traffic would be instructed to follow Lake Shore Blvd and exit at the Jamieson interchange. Here, the Gardiner would be reduced from 3 lanes to 2 to travel on the viaduct.
-Exit ramp at Strachan Rd/Fort York Blvd.
-Viaduct passes over the Bathurst Street Bridge.
-Exit ramp at Dan Leckie Way for access to CityPlace, Rogers Centre, CN Tower, and ACC. This exit would also be used to access Bathurst Street
-The Gardiner passes under the Puente del Luz
-Termination at Front/Spadina.

-Traffic through the core would be funnelled onto Spadina to Adelaide and other distributor roads. Right turns onto Spadina would be restricted due to the angle of the ramp
-Between Front and Blue Jays Way, Front would have 6 lane cross-section with 1 westbound and 3 eastbound lanes with left turn lanes and a parking lane on the north side. The road envelope has more than enough room for this. Front would then continue as a 3 lane one-way road with parking lanes to the intersection of Front/York where Front would be reduced to 2 lanes with parking lanes in front of Union Station. Remaining traffic would be directed onto University and York.​

Travelling Westbound

-Wellington would keep its existing 4-lane cross section to Blue Jays Way. 2 lanes of Wellington would descend below ground at Clarence Square and continue to the rail corridor to access the Gardiner.
-Entrance ramp to the Gardiner at Spadina/Front. Front would be converted to a one-way westbound at Spadina to simplify traffic operation at this intersection.​

-The Gardiner would then continue on be 2 westbound lanes travelling beneath the Puente del Luz and over the Bathurst Street Bridge
-Directional entrance ramp from Bathurst Street over the rail corridor, continuing as a cable-stayed viaduct
-Entrance ramp from Fort York Boulevard. From here, the Gardiner would then continue on its existing elevated structure.

This arrangement would require the Bathurst GO Yard to be decomissioned. It would still be possible to keep the Gardiner as an elevated cable-stayed structure over the yard, but at a significant cost increase. GO could get rid of the yard if it is to modify its operations to have more through-running routes, of if it were to relocate its yard to the West Don Lands.

Replacing the function of the Gardiner within the rail corridor has the significant benefit of freeing up much of the land currently occupied by the highway for development and eliminating the messy complex of ramps between Spadina and Yonge. By relocating the traffic flow in a remove scenario, it would no longer be necessary to widen Lake Shore Boulevard past 8 lanes. It won't be possible to widen Lakeshore where it bottlenecks at Bathurst. Compared to a tunnel option, it would be far less expensive and disruptive during construction. Tunnelling also makes selling off land formerly occupied by the Gardiner far more complicated. Given the choice between $5 Billion to tunnel the Gardiner along its current alignment or $2 Billion to elevate and run at-grade in the rail corridor, I'd rather spend money on building a Viaduct.

I see this as being feasible in about 20 years given the following conditions:
-DRL is constructed from Dundas West to Don Mills/Eglinton.
-A streetcar right-of-way is built on Fort York/Bremner Blvd connecting Exhibition to Union.
-GO changes its operating model to run frequent regional rail service, optimally using electrified rail corridors.

Among a number of issues I seriously doubt the ability to have a viaduct pass under the Punte de Luz without creating a significant impact on rail operations below.

 

[Mulder]

Among a number of issues I seriously doubt the ability to have a viaduct pass under the Punte de Luz without creating a significant impact on rail operations below.

I think the estimate is way off. Maybe it doesn't include removal of the old structure. But why would you build a new elevated highway when you have one already?
Most of all this will push tons of traffic issues onto local streets where there was none before & where there just isn't capacity.

 

[gweed123]

I've been working on a Gardiner Expressway teardown option in which a cable-stayed viaduct is constructed above the rail corridor to Spadina Ave. Wellington and Front would be converted to opposing one-way streets.

Definitely a good "budget" option for replacing the Gardiner.

 

[gweed123]

Map version of the plan that I described a few days ago.

 

[dunkalunk]

Among a number of issues I seriously doubt the ability to have a viaduct pass under the Punte de Luz without creating a significant impact on rail operations below.

This:

This arrangement would require the Bathurst GO Yard to be decommissioned.

For perspective, I'm curious what other issues you see with the alignment.

 

[Tuscani01]

Among a number of issues I seriously doubt the ability to have a viaduct pass under the Punte de Luz without creating a significant impact on rail operations below.

Not to mention that no one in CityPlace would support this. It would essentially turn CityPlace into a giant off-ramp. We're already sick of Spadina serving as an off/on-ramp... no need to bring it even further into the neighbourhood.

That alignment would do nothing for CityPlace residents, considering over 70% of residents walk/bike/take transit to work. We already have to sacrifice pedestrian infrastructure with the Gardiner where it is now (No East-West crosswalks south side of Front, south side of Bremner, and no North South crosswalk across West end of Lakeshore), I can't even imagine how much worse things would be if the Gardiner were running right through CityPlace.