quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut Slick. Let me guess - ETA circa 2070? Seriously, at the rate construction seems to go in Toronto, I think it's completely naïve for anybody to accept the excuse that alternative routes will be put in place after the fact. As citizens we should be demanding that these routes be available before tearing down the expressway; we simply cannot afford the loss of another major artery for even a month, let alone several years. I'd love for it to look like that though. Practical AND awesome, kinda like the Japanese do it.

It's also completely feasible, because similar bridges have been built

Millau Viaduct in France over the Tarn River &


Cooper River Bridge in the U.S.

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Last edited by Stilez on May-31-2008 at 03:34

quote:

Originally posted by Jayx1 Like it or not most people have a car. Most people are going to use that car. That wont change because we tear down a highway or two. It will just make getting around much worse. The only way we can get people out of cars is to build better transit. The only way we can build better transit is to condense our construction habits. The way i see it, we have probably about 50 years of infill and massive reconstruction to go before we can even consider abandoning cars. In the mean time, we need to build both roads AND transit to accomodate both. Anyone with an ounce of urban planning knowledge understands that toronto cannot be a transit city the way it is built now. ESPECIALLY anywhere north of St Clair/Eglinton. As for the corruption... why would anyone be so gungho about a massive disruption in our transportation grid if there want something in it for them?

I guess my beef was just specifically with the "as long as they put a FREEWAY with equal or greater capacity in it's place. Oh and it has to be toll free" part. The whole point is that we can no longer keep building to accommodate cars on an equal plane with transit. People are going to feel the crunch and it's going to hurt, but planning is essentially demand management, and building freeways is now part of a past life in this city.

Another element of demand management is introducing road pricing, and if a champion steps up to push it through (see Ken Livingston in London and Michael Bloomberg in New York), we may have enough political will to get it implemented in our lifetime. That could mean toll routes or congestion charges within a cordon around the city, but the money has start coming in for transit to be properly funded.

quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut Actually, that is the outdated stream of thought. It's just got new packaging.

I don't think so. A new Regional Transportation Plan, with Places to Grow and the Greenbelt Plan to support it, sounds pretty new and updated to me (both plans were only introduced in 2005). If it gets the political drive and public backing it needs to actually implement what's being proposed in the white papers, Toronto could actually become one of leaders of sustainable transportation in North America.

that is the most retarded thing I have heard....a bunch of dumb mother******s that need to get the boot if you ask me....as if Toronto already doesnt have a transportation crisis adding on this would not help.

quote:

Originally posted by Intuition The whole point is that we can no longer keep building to accommodate cars on an equal plane with transit. People are going to feel the crunch and it's going to hurt, but planning is essentially demand management, and building freeways is now part of a past life in this city.

Oh, and do you have some evidence for this claim, or is it just empty rhetoric?

It's a great strategy for the anti-automobile crowd: get the governments to starve the budget for roads and expressways, then point to all the traffic congestion and say "See! Look guys, we can't sustain this! Cars don't scale, we need a better way!"

If we'd built the half-dozen or so or expressways that were supposed to be built way back in the 70s but got canceled because those same people insisted that mass transit would be better (even though the MT extensions never got built either), we'd have only a tiny fraction of the kind of traffic congestion you see today.

Just one other tangential question for you: who do you propose should run this rosy new Regional Transportation system? The TTC?

quote:

Another element of demand management is introducing road pricing

On this point you're absolutely correct. Almost every other major city has toll roads. Look no further than the 407 - the only highway in northern Toronto that actually moves during rush hour - to see why that is.

However, the tolls do need to be reasonable and toll roads need to be properly maintained (which often isn't the case for roads downtown). Taking money from the drivers means you can't get away with constant lane closures and an 8-month construction season stretched over 3 years. Miller will never understand this - to him, tolls are just another way to try to force drivers off the road, as opposed to forcing them to find alternate routes or shift their schedules to the off-peak hours.

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quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut Just one other tangential question for you: who do you propose should run this rosy new Regional Transportation system? The TTC?

it's called metrolinx btw.

[Robert Moses]
i say why not add a couple lanes onto the gardiner instead of knocking it down. i'm sure there's some room for that. and a few more lanes on the 401. we could always expropriate the housing on either side of it. ppl there don't even like living there cuz of highway anyway, so we'd just be making it easier on them. widen the dvp too. there's that whole ravine waiting to be filled in. start the spadina expressway project going again, jane jacobs isn't around anymore. and we could finally connect it to the allen expressway. and on top of all that, lets start rebuilding the torn down part of the scarbourough expressway that was torn down east of the dvp/gardiner interchange and into the heart of scarbourough.

think about how much easier it would be to get into downtown with all those expansions.
[/Robert Moses]

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quote:

Originally posted by activate The plan is to redevelope the area with pedestrian walkways.. bike paths, parkland etc.. i think it's a great idea.

agreed.

having said that, it means there ought to be some guarantee that major investment in public transit will coincide with the teardown of this section of the Gardiner, which could help offset the lower capacity of roads that would remain/replace it.

I support this IF they adequately incorporate public transit into the re-development plan.

quote:

Originally posted by smuncky there's that whole ravine waiting to be filled in.

lmao.

I'd rather have a University Avenue than a Gardiner, even though that strip btwn DVP and Jarvis is sooooooooo convenient. Even during rush hour, for some reason I always find that strip totally empty! If they add more lanes to the DVP->Lakeshore link (which they will surely do, as they wouldn't allow all of DVP to end into a single scrimpy, bottlenecked lane) and we're forced to go through a traffic light or to until we hit Jarvis and catch another Gardiner on-ramp, or just proceed along Lakeshore and see some beautiful parks and lakeview, I wouldn't mind that at all as a driver. No biggie for me.

But I do find that small highway close to the beaches in Scarborough totally random. That should have been connected to the Gardiner way back when. I think it's called the 16 or something? Totally ran into it by mistake when I took a wrong turn near Meadowvale.

quote:

Originally posted by smuncky it's called metrolinx btw.

Yes, I read that. I thought that they were only supposed to be involved in the "planning", not the actual running. Is this then supposed to replace the TTC or are they supposed to cooperate? And in either case, what are their plans to do so, given that they'll clearly have to built right into existing TTC routes and stations?

Maybe this information is available somewhere but I can't find it.

I'm also not at all impressed that they have David Miller and Adam Giambrone on their board. And directly from their front page: "First official Metrolinx program focuses on cyclists’ needs."

Do these people really sound serious to any of you? Because frankly I wouldn't trust them to build a bus stop, let alone the entire GTA's transportation infrastructure.

---
On a different note, for those people constantly pointing out that the Gardiner or parts of it are empty or not congested - considering that it is a freeway, light traffic still does not mean that a few other poorly-maintained city roads can support that traffic. Highway 400 has little patches during rush hour where it seems to be empty between Finch and Rutherford, if you get on at exactly the right time, but what do you think would happen if all that traffic were to be shunted onto Jane and Keele?

That's a rhetorical question - we know what happens because it has happened when the 400 gets closed due to a major accident: it completely cripples that area of the city, and a 15-minute commute for people who don't even use the 400 suddenly takes 2 hours. God help you if you take the bus because you might as well just walk home. That's precisely what will happen if the Gardiner gets closed down and there's no alternative route with equal throughput - it will be a disaster even for people who never take the Gardiner.

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quote:

Originally posted by Jayx1 My position is that i dont care if they tear down the gardiner as long as they put a FREEWAY with equal or greater capacity in it's place. Oh and it has to be toll free. These clowns want to replace it with university avenue! A tunnel would be a great idea but how would the city and namely city officials make any money?

+1. End of story. We need to solve the problem of traffic congestion far more than that of beautifying the waterfront. I don't care if we've got pretty little shrubs adorning the sidewalks, if there's 24-7 bumper to bumper traffic no one's gonna wanna use the area for leisure activities anyway.

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quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut [FONT=Tahoma][COLOR=#99CCEE]Yes, I read that. I thought that they were only supposed to be involved in the "planning", not the actual running. Is this then supposed to replace the TTC or are they supposed to cooperate? And in either case, what are their plans to do so, given that they'll clearly have to built right into existing TTC routes and stations?

eventually, they will intergrate all the gta transit systems. they are now in the planning stages but eventually will run the whole transportation system in the gta.

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quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut Slick. Let me guess - ETA circa 2070? Seriously, at the rate construction seems to go in Toronto, I think it's completely naïve for anybody to accept the excuse that alternative routes will be put in place after the fact. As citizens we should be demanding that these routes be available before tearing down the expressway; we simply cannot afford the loss of another major artery for even a month, let alone several years. I'd love for it to look like that though. Practical AND awesome, kinda like the Japanese do it.

The viaduct proposal actually called for construction to occur in parallel with the dismantling of the Gardiner, albeit at a huge cost. In comparison, I believe plans for the Boston Big Dig started sometime in the 1970's, completed roughly 40 years later. Nonetheless, I don't agree with tearing down the Gardiner without some alternative plan to route traffic (such as the viaduct). Initial assessments by the city show that the rush hour commute would increase by 2 minutes with that section of the freeway removed. I don't think anyone actually believes that.

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Last edited by dEsidEL on May-31-2008 at 17:17