I am still waiting to hear a reply from GWEED since he is always against LRT as a waste of resources when BRT could do. With that same logic why cant a boulevard suffice instead of a underground tunnel?
Note quite the same analogy though, since a BRT line and an LRT line along the street take up roughly the same amount of space (curb BRT lanes are only slightly wider than median LRT lanes). The designs of either are relatively similar. An elevated or tunnelled highway vs a boulevard have two completely different designs, and have different impacts. I think a more apt comparison would be subway vs at-grade LRT.
One of the big reasons why I favour BRT over LRT in a lot of cases is because the usage can be handled by BRT. In the case of the Gardiner, replacing it with a boulevard would be a net reduction in capacity, when at the very least maintaining the same capacity is needed, at least in the west end. In the east end, a boulevard would do because that section of the highway isn't approaching capacity most times. The reality is an expressway is needed, regardless of the transit improvements that are made heading into downtown.
I think that any replacement of the Gardiner needs to include recapturing land for development, either land that's currently occupied by the Gardiner or land occupied by the rail corridor. Without that revenue, the economics just don't make sense.
I also think that the costs of any Gardiner replacement project need to be borne primarily by drivers. This means tolls. A model similar to the Confederation Bridge may be in order, although I'd prefer it remain in public hands the entire time. At the very least, I'd like to see the toll revenues equal the cost of paying down the bond over a period of 30 years.
This approach is fundamentally different than building transit. Costs of building transit should be borne by the society as a whole, because it benefits everybody. Building a tunnelled expressway benefits only the users of the expressway, and thus the costs should be borne by them. If tolls need to be instituted on the DVP in order to help pay for the tunnel as well, so be it.