[Towered]

I'll echo what most of you are saying here - get the local LRT lines built, electrify the GO Lakeshore line, and build the DRL as a full subway (both east and west wings of it), and then instead of going the half-assed route as the city is suggesting, tear down the entire elevated portion of the Gardiner, deck over the section that goes through Parkdale, and replace the part of it along the western beaches between the Humber and Roncy with a bridge to the Humber Bay Shore area. That would vastly improve the city and undo the grave errors of mid-20th century auto-centric planning.

 

[salmonz]

Taking down the highway has been brought up many times in the past with no action. This is a classic example of Toronto burning money when it doesn't need to.

Maybe Toronto needs to connect the Gardiner to the 401 running it along Lakeshore through Scarborough. Maybe turn Eglinton into a highway as well and finish the Spadina Expressway. These are solutions. Let's not regress.

People don't take transit for a reason. Not everyone wants to live in Miller-town and not everyone can afford a $600,000 home or work outside the city. Maybe building more highways is the answer. It'll get people moving and provide jobs for the economy. The problem with GTA is that everyone from the world is moving in a wide area, and businesses focusing on being downtown Toronto. Maybe those who take the Gardiner are going to Scarborough and not so much "downtown".

 

[AKS]

Taking down the highway has been brought up many times in the past with no action. This is a classic example of Toronto burning money when it doesn't need to.

Maybe Toronto needs to connect the Gardiner to the 401 running it along Lakeshore through Scarborough. Maybe turn Eglinton into a highway as well and finish the Spadina Expressway. These are solutions. Let's not regress.

People don't take transit for a reason. Not everyone wants to live in Miller-town and not everyone can afford a $600,000 home or work outside the city. Maybe building more highways is the answer. It'll get people moving and provide jobs for the economy. The problem with GTA is that everyone from the world is moving in a wide area, and businesses focusing on being downtown Toronto. Maybe those who take the Gardiner are going to Scarborough and not so much "downtown".

There's several reasons for removing the gardiner. Building more highways isn't the best idea. I don't like Toronto transit myself but driving cars creates pollution and traffic congestion, especially if people aren't car pooling. Also diverting people from cars to transit will help subsidize transit costs. If the public transit here is as good as Asia, then I think more people wouldn't mind taking transit.

Anyhow, Canada is trying to decrease pollution and increase green energy and environment (green roofs). More highways, creating more sprawl encourages people to drive cars, especially with the infrastructure we have. It's not really a good solution.

 

[salmonz]

There's several reasons for removing the gardiner. Building more highways isn't the best idea. I don't like Toronto transit myself but driving cars creates pollution and traffic congestion, especially if people aren't car pooling. Also diverting people from cars to transit will help subsidize transit costs. If the public transit here is as good as Asia, then I think more people wouldn't mind taking transit.

Anyhow, Canada is trying to decrease pollution and increase green energy and environment (green roofs). More highways, creating more sprawl encourages people to drive cars, especially with the infrastructure we have. It's not really a good solution.

Tearing the down the Gardiner won't help decrease pollution and increase green energy. The same amount of cars will still be there, but running for longer taking the side streets. Highways are meant to reduce driving time not increase them (i.e. 407). Tearing down the Gardiner will increase pollution and will not promote car pooling or decrease pollution.

You can take away someone's free will to drive on their own. For instance, I am a single income family earner. Am I supposed to take my wife and kids to work? I think we need to re-think how we all live. Perhaps if we didn't all think Toronto is the center of the universe and started to sprawl outwards where we could bike or walk to work. This won't happen when you have massive office buildings in a central place. This won't happen when you have transit going 40km/hr.

Lastly, driving a car doesn't neccessary mean your contributing to pollution. It's the type of car you drive.

 

[AKS]

You may still choose to drive. But it discourages driving. If it takes you longer to get to a location to drive than it is to take public transit. Chances are people will take public transit. People prefer to drive cuz transit in Toronto is so bad. Their goal is to encourage people to leave their cars at home if they plan to go downtown. Hence all the transportation infrastructure they are planning. I have yet to see cities sprawl their business. They're usually kept together so it will be easier for them to do business with each other and convenient for people to get to. All countries have a "hub" or several "hubs". There maybe some offices here and there in other locations but the major ones are in the downtown or "hot" locations.

Even if they did sprawl some of the offices. Doesn't mean everyone lives near work. People who live downtown might travel uptown for work. People living on the east of Toronto travel west to work. People living west may travel east, etc. Unless you plan on not being relocated or your company not relocating and you buy a place near work. Chances are you'll have to travel.

About cars not polluting. Unless you're driving hydrogen or electric, chances are you're polluting. How many are driving those around?

 

[urbanboom]

Tearing the down the Gardiner won't help decrease pollution and increase green energy. The same amount of cars will still be there, but running for longer taking the side streets. Highways are meant to reduce driving time not increase them (i.e. 407). Tearing down the Gardiner will increase pollution and will not promote car pooling or decrease pollution.

You can take away someone's free will to drive on their own. For instance, I am a single income family earner. Am I supposed to take my wife and kids to work? I think we need to re-think how we all live. Perhaps if we didn't all think Toronto is the center of the universe and started to sprawl outwards where we could bike or walk to work. This won't happen when you have massive office buildings in a central place. This won't happen when you have transit going 40km/hr.

Lastly, driving a car doesn't neccessary mean your contributing to pollution. It's the type of car you drive.

One of two things will happen: people will move to their jobs or jobs will move to their people. But what you have to realize is that not everyone want your kind of suburban lifestyle. Not everyone wants to drive for an hour and a half on a crowded expressway. For many years, this caused the city's own decline as it tried to accomdate the suburbs by building huge freeways. You have to boil it all down to a single fact: urban highways cause urban decay. Now as a taxpayer of Toronto, why should I use my money to support a municipal highway to cause decay and pollution in my city?

What Toronto risks by supporting this old way of thinking is becoming a boring decayed city. Cities that choose that city building model like Detroit, Atlanta and Houston are not vibrant urban areas. (But I'm sure you could drive every easily in them! ).

 

[MisterF]

Because planners like to use rather optimistic estimates. That 2 minutes ain't for peak times when it really matters anyway.

Planners don't do traffic studies. Engineers do.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Maybe Toronto needs to connect the Gardiner to the 401 running it along Lakeshore through Scarborough. Maybe turn Eglinton into a highway as well and finish the Spadina Expressway. These are solutions. Let's not regress.

Oh wow. You DO exist. People like you are real. I am going to need some time to process this.

(You do realize your plan would likely displace thousands of people from their homes, right?)

Also:

ou may still choose to drive. But it discourages driving. If it takes you longer to get to a location to drive than it is to take public transit. Chances are people will take public transit. People prefer to drive cuz transit in Toronto is so bad.

Our transit system has tons of room for improvement, but let's not hate it on it too much. Compared to most North American cities, we're incredibly lucky.

 

[nfitz]

Also, nobody is really getting screwed by the Gardiner takedown: It's reported it will only add 2 minutes to travel times.

What about those walking. It's pretty easy to walk underneath the Gardiner ... but crossing a 10-lane road? Presumably 11 to 12-lanes at intersections, if there are turning lanes. At Leslie, you already have to take 2 cycles to cross the road now, to the Canadian Tire - and it's only 7 lanes there.

And at the same time, nothing is done to remove the big barrier between the town, and the Lake. The railway tracks.

 

[TOareaFan]

What about those walking. It's pretty easy to walk underneath the Gardiner ... but crossing a 10-lane road? Presumably 11 to 12-lanes at intersections, if there are turning lanes. At Leslie, you already have to take 2 cycles to cross the road now, to the Canadian Tire - and it's only 7 lanes there.

And at the same time, nothing is done to remove the big barrier between the town, and the Lake. The railway tracks.

Spot on....what really is the barrier is not the road or the rail but a sufficient enough wakable and attractive roads/streets/walkways that go under them to the lake. In the Union station area this is being dealt with through development on York (it always went under the tracks but it is far more attractive and appealing knowing there is something on the other side) and the poking through of Simcoe.

Before this, the east west distance gaps between the routes under the tracks/road were too far.

 

[realtycoon]

The whole "not until we have better transit" argument is something that comes up as a response to a lot of more radical proposals: tearing down the Gardiner, congestion charges, narrowing roads, adding tolls, removing parking, etc. And while there's a kind of rationality to that, it doesn't seem to hold much water.

Traffic isn't inelastic. If you take away conditions that allow for high traffic, a chunk of it will just go away.

Plus, sure, it'd be great if the city could build transit projects preemptively, in anticipation of increased demand from road closures or whatever, but this will never ever happen.

Wow.. This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard...

I'm sorry, but not everyone wants to live in 500sf condos or $600,000, 100yr old homes in the city.. But they still need to come to work in the city. Either the traffic will get worse, or business will move out to where their workers are (Mississauga, Markham, Richmond Hill etc)

What kind of rational is it to knock down the Gardiner with no viable replacements..

Build the viable replacements (High Speed rail lines, subways etc) and then watch the traffic decline.. If you don't believe me, go to Europe, where major cities have transit that works.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Wow.. This is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard...

Ouch. Coming from someone presumably involved in realty, that's saying something.

I'm sorry, but not everyone wants to live in 500sf condos or $600,000, 100yr old homes in the city.. But they still need to come to work in the city. Either the traffic will get worse, or business will move out to where their workers are (Mississauga, Markham, Richmond Hill etc)

Okay. a) Toronto has different modes of housing than just those two. b) Traffic will get worse regardless. c) Parts of the 905 are already experiencing their own transportation problems as their cities grow.

I'm referring specifically to the eastern part of the Gardiner which is under review for takedown, by the way. While I do believe the whole thing should (and will) come down at some point, there needs to be a phased in approach.

What kind of rational is it to knock down the Gardiner with no viable replacements..

Build the viable replacements (High Speed rail lines, subways etc) and then watch the traffic decline.. If you don't believe me, go to Europe, where major cities have transit that works.

I'm not against long-term planning that involves building rail infrastructure while removing road capacity, but I do think if we get into a habit of saying "We can't do this until X happens" we will, in essence, be waiting forever.

Trying to steer this back on topic:

It's easy to see from this thread alone how quickly the argument can slip from "Let's look at taking down the Gardiner from the DVP to Jarvis" to "Let's tear the whole thing down!" We should definitely focus on the former, and avoid the latter.

The Eastern section is ideal for removal. While there's still the railway tracks to consider as a 'barrier', they're not particularly wide at Parliament or Sherbourne streets. With the Distillery and the Don Land developments, the east side of downtown gives us our best shot to have a contiguous section of Toronto that runs right down to the water's edge.

Also: for those who say "Crossing under the Gardiner is way easier than crossing a 10-lane at-grade road" you do understand that there are already is a very wide at-grade road that needs to be crossed (Lakeshore) while passing under the Gardiner, right? Hell, Lakeshore doesn't even have crosswalks on all sides of intersections. It's as pedestrian-hostile as it gets.

 

[TKTKTK]

The Eastern section is ideal for removal. While there's still the railway tracks to consider as a 'barrier', they're not particularly wide at Parliament or Sherbourne streets. With the Distillery and the Don Land developments, the east side of downtown gives us our best shot to have a contiguous section of Toronto that runs right down to the water's edge.

Well it's not contiguous though, is it? Because of those aforementioned tracks. They're not that wide, no, but they're...umm...well, here they are:

Also: for those who say "Crossing under the Gardiner is way easier than crossing a 10-lane at-grade road" you do understand that there are already is a very wide at-grade road that needs to be crossed (Lakeshore) while passing under the Gardiner, right? Hell, Lakeshore doesn't even have crosswalks on all sides of intersections. It's as pedestrian-hostile as it gets.

That's a very good argument. Which is why most everyone is opposed to what tearing down the Gardiner will do to Lake Shore; making it even wider, busier, and difficult to cross. More can be done to pedestrianize Lake Shore with the Gardiner running over it, than if you were to remove that bypass.

But then, this discussion really isn't focused on improving Toronto in any real way - it's about exacting revenge on an arch(ed) enemy

 

[GraphicMatt]

Ah, back in this thread, going back-and-forth with TKTKTK. Feels like old times.

Well it's not contiguous though, is it? Because of those aforementioned tracks. They're not that wide, no, but they're...umm...well, here they are:

It's an ugly underpass at this point, sure, but given that it's not all that wide I think there's a lot that could be done to make it more hospitable. There are underpasses of similar length all over the city and no one sees them as barriers.

(Of course, your counter-argument might be: Why don't we just beautify the underside of the Gardiner? To which I'll say this: Right now, we have the railroad tracks, the Gardiner and the Lake Shore, all of which are ugly and serve as barriers. Getting rid of the highway, improving the streetscape of the Lakeshore, and beautifying the underpass is the best workable solution in this section.)

That's a very good argument. Which is why most everyone is opposed to what tearing down the Gardiner will do to Lake Shore; making it even wider, busier, and difficult to cross. More can be done to pedestrianize Lake Shore with the Gardiner running over it, than if you were to remove that bypass.

But then, this discussion really isn't focused on improving Toronto in any real way - it's about exacting revenge on an arch(ed) enemy

I don't think the Lake Shore needs to be much wider than it is, at least in this section. (Further west might be a different story.) I doubt it will get any wider than it already is at Jarvis, as it's already ridiculously wide due to the ramps to the highway.

Of course, having said that, my support for this plan hinges almost exclusively on the Lake Shore proposal. If they're just going to cheap out and give us an at-grade highway with stop lights at every intersection, then why bother with this at all?

 

[AKS]

I'm sorry, but not everyone wants to live in 500sf condos or $600,000, 100yr old homes in the city.. But they still need to come to work in the city. Either the traffic will get worse, or business will move out to where their workers are (Mississauga, Markham, Richmond Hill etc)

This is interesting...So you're saying, companies should be catering to the workers, not the workers catering to the companies. Why should a company be located in downtown if they wanted to. They should move to the suburbs because WE the workers live there. YOU have to cater to us. You only pay us, why should we have to travel so far to work for you. We prefer to live in the suburbs, so you should move there and make it convenient for us.

Do you see a problem to this logic?