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SixPoints

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Rocco Rossi says as mayor he would build a traffic tunnel from the south end of the Allen expressway right into the downtown core.

Rossi called his scheme to extend the Allen from its current end, at Eglinton Ave. W., into the core “the boldest move of the mayor campaign.” One downtown councillor quickly branded it “an insane idea” that would require the destruction of parts of downtown and cost tens of billions of dollars.

Rossi vowed Monday that, if elected Oct. 25, he’ll have construction on the “Toronto tunnel” started by the end of his four-year term.

“Under my plan, we will tunnel the Eglinton subway crosstown and we will tunnel the Allen expressway downtown,” he said in a release.

Rossi said the megaproject would jump-start Toronto’s economic growth, reduce gridlock and encourage businesses to return to the downtown core.

“Companies and workers would rather establish in the 905 than fight their way into downtown Toronto every day,” said Rossi. “I want our kids to have a chance to live and work at good jobs in the city of Toronto.”

His audacious plan — to be financed, he said, through a public-private partnership — essentially finishes, underground, a project that was cancelled in the 1970s.

Plans to continue the Allen above-ground as the Spadina Expressway all the way to Spadina and Harbord St. sparked a huge battle in the late 1960s, culminating with cancellation of the project by then-premier Bill Davis in June 1971.

Rossi’s plan assumes that burying the expressway’s new incarnation would largely negate the old complaints that a new thoroughfare would destroy homes and neighbourhoods and cause pollution and noise.

Councillor Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) called Rossi’s tunnel one of the strangest, most absurd ideas he has heard.

The tunnel would have to be built under the existing subway tunnel, while entry and exit points would require building traffic cloverleafs and therefore the demolition of parts of downtown, he said.

“You would have to bomb the downtown core and find another $30 billion or $40 billion to build it,” said Vaughan, whose late father, Colin Vaughan, successfully campaigned against the Spadina Expressway.

David Rider
Urban Affairs Bureau Chief

Source: thestar.com
 
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Ha! I'd rather he take the money and bury the Gardiner Expressway. That would open up the waterfront and get rid of an eyesore that is decaying and in need of expensive repairs.

The Spadina Expressway was canceled for a reason. Taking it underground doesn't justify it's construction. How about tunneling Highway 400 / Black Creek Drive to meet up with the Gardiner instead? Or just take the (theoretical) money (where's it coming from again?) and use it to build tunnels for trains.
 
i'd rather the money be spent on subways. leave the gardiner alone and forget about extending the 400 south or reviving the spadina expressway. more subways take cars off the roads which frees up existing road capacity. if you want to make the best use of our roads, build more subways!

again, regarding the gardiner, whatever they would replace it with would be an even worse eye sore.
 
again, regarding the gardiner, whatever they would replace it with would be an even worse eye sore.
With what Rossi just proposed, we could instead replace the Gardiner with a tunnel from High Park to the DVP. Which seems odd, given that previously no one though we could afford the much shorter 2 km tunnel from Bathurst to Yonge.
 
I am absolutly dumbfounded by how INSANE this idea is.

"OMG"

Firstly, even if it did get built, it would probably be gridlocked for all of rush-hour anyways. Its been know for quite some times that if you add highway capacity, it doesn't relive traffic, it just permits more traffic.

Secondly, even IF it was possible to find the RIDICULOUS amount of money this would require, just IMAGINE how much (actually traffic reducing) TRANSIT you could build. We could have it all! 40 billion? We could build all the subways we'd want and put one under Steeles just for fun.

INSANE. This is the CRAZIEST thing I've heard from someone who wasn't saying it as a joke.
 
Even if we're going to spend money on roads, this is a bad idea. The technical challenges would be substantial (the original Spadina Expressway plan didn't even make it all the way south to the Gardiner) and the benefits are minimal. I suspect this would really overload the 401 (being the only way to access the Allen by highway) not to mention the western Gardiner.
 
What the hell. I'm trying to find words for this one.

Did they not even consider the impact building entrances and exits through downtown would have on these historic neighbourhoods?

If you want to bury a highway, bury the one that's already built. Jesus, what a screw-up Rossi is.
 
I suspect this would really overload the 401 (being the only way to access the Allen by highway)
Your are likely correct. In my experience, the worst spot in Toronto on the 401, except perhaps on the bottleneck between 427 and 409 (which can normally be avoided by taking the 427 and 409) is in afternoon rush-hour, eastbound on the 401 from the Allen to Yonge, which can't handle the load coming off the Allen, mostly from the north. Significantly increasing the traffic from the south would make this much worse.
 
If we had that amount of money, we could build quite a few new subway lines.
We could extend the Yonge line most of the way to Orillia - underground. Or the Danforth line almost to Trenton.

Some are estimating $30 to $40-billion.

For that kind of money you are looking at over 100 km of subway. Let's see, we could finish the Sheppard line, convert the SRT to subway and extend to Malvern, build the Downtown Relief line, both legs to Sheppard, Build the Eglinton subway from Pearson to Kennedy, extend the Yonge line to Major McKenzie, extend the Bloor line to Erin Mills Parkway. And all tunnelled.

It's obscene.

I said that Rossi had lost it when he proposed getting rid of existing bike lanes. This proposal further demonstrates where his head is at.
 
If a candidate proposed spending $40 billion on transit it would be dismissed as insanity and the media wouldn't even take them seriously.
 
I for one welcome this project. Hear me out:

The "idiot vote" right now is almost entirely going for Ford. This bone-headed plan will hopefully cause some of those people to switch and vote for Rossi, therefore reducing the number of people voting for Ford, giving the rational candidates a better chance at winning.

Smitherman should be sending Rossi a gift basket, because he has just completely undercut Rob Ford's "I'm barely literate" voting base.
 
If a candidate proposed spending $40 billion on transit it would be dismissed as insanity and the media wouldn't even take them seriously.
Which is really a sad thing. As nfitz said, that amount of money would get well over 100 km of subway, enough for Toronto to at least make up it's transit debt. But instead, he's proposing a single highway. Great thinking guys.
 

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