The city is leaning towards tearing down part of the Gardiner Expressway
The city has been trying to figure out what to do with the Gardiner Expressway for 30 years, but now, with the prospect of “punch-through” lending a little additional urgency to the issue, it’s looking like something major may happen soon. Today, city staff and Waterfront Toronto released a joint report that outlines several solutions. The most favoured option? Tear it down.
Not the whole thing, that is, but just the 2.4 kilometre elevated section east of Jarvis Street. That stretch of road would be replaced with a ground-level eight-lane boulevard. It wouldn’t be an unprecedented move. A stretch of the Gardiner between Leslie Street and the Don River was torn down about 15 years ago.
In its analysis, the city considered three other options: maintenance, improvement and replacement. While the report doesn’t make any official recommendations, it does identify demolition as the least disruptive option based on a list of dozens of criteria. Ultimately, it will be up to city council to decide whether or not to move ahead with the tear-down—a choice that will likely become an issue in the 2014 mayoral campaign.
Rob Ford and several right-leaning councillors have already come out against the idea. Ford, for his part, believes the move would “cause traffic chaos.” The city is estimating that the change would increase travel times by about 10 minutes each way for the average driver in 2031. For the time being, we wait.
![](http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://torontolife.com/city/gardiner-expressway-tear-down/&title=The city is leaning towards tearing down part of the Gardiner Expressway&picture=https://torontolife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/gardiner-removal-624x395.jpg&description=[caption id="attachment_258378" align="alignnone" width="656"] An architectural rendering of a torn-down Gardiner Expressway. (Image: Courtesy of the city)[/caption]
The city has been trying to figure out what to do with the Gardiner Expressway for 30 years, but now, with the prospect of "punch-through" lending a little additional urgency to the issue, it's looking like something major may happen soon. Today, city staff and Waterfront Toronto released a joint report that outlines several solutions. The most favoured option? Tear it down.
Not the whole thing, that is, but just the 2.4 kilometre elevated section east of Jarvis Street. That stretch of road would be replaced with a ground-level eight-lane boulevard. It wouldn't be an unprecedented move. A stretch of the Gardiner between Leslie Street and the Don River was torn down about 15 years ago.
In its analysis, the city considered three other options: maintenance, improvement and replacement. While the report doesn’t make any official recommendations, it does identify demolition as the least disruptive option based on a list of dozens of criteria. Ultimately, it will be up to city council to decide whether or not to move ahead with the tear-down—a choice that will likely become an issue in the 2014 mayoral campaign.
Rob Ford and several right-leaning councillors have already come out against the idea. Ford, for his part, believes the move would "cause traffic chaos." The city is estimating that the change would increase travel times by about 10 minutes each way for the average driver in 2031. For the time being, we wait.){kind=link}
Tear the entire thing down, forget the 8-lane street. Make it four- or even two. Make the cities human again and wipe out the killer robots.
They have already made too many of us into slaves.
Replace with an eight-lane boulevard? What a ridiculous solution! Take all that lane capacity that is now stacked on top of itself, and flatten it out. Its like transplanting the same level of pedestrian friendliness as somewhere in Mississauga near Pearson to downtown. Brilliant!
There’s so much development on the south side of the city on either side of the Gardiner it just seems insane to reduce the capacity of it (and add traffic lights) when it’s already consistently slammed with traffic. The drive into the city on the elevated part (heading west) is also actually quite nice with the city skyline, particularly at night. If they’re going to start tearing down infrastructure they should at least do so in conjunction with a congestion charge like London (England) has to reduce the number of cars in the city.