Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
More accurately, in favour of Tory's BS "hybrid" approach.
This is frustrating but not surprising to me at all. This city really has no guts, no vision, and always takes the smallest steps possible.
The truth is, the ridership doesn't justify keeping East Gardiner, the cost of maintaining it is $500m a year more, and opportunity cost of not opening the space is massive.
Yet people don't care. Most people don't care about downtown - downtown to them is nothing but some shopping in Eaton Centre or watching some games at the ACC - that's it. The idea of demolishing a dysfunctional expressway and spending 5 more minutes driving to downtown is simply so appalling to them that any rational thinking or cost-benefit becomes completely irrelevant.
You know why I never speak too highly of Toronto, this is why. It is so scare of being too successful and it is doing everything it can to avoid change for the right direction.
Congrats to car drivers. Your vehicles will continue to be the king. In fact, why not finish the Spadina expressway?
More accurately, in favour of Tory's BS "hybrid" approach.
This is frustrating but not surprising to me at all. This city really has no guts, no vision, and always takes the smallest steps possible.
The truth is, the ridership doesn't justify keeping East Gardiner, the cost of maintaining it is $500m a year more, and opportunity cost of not opening the space is massive.
Yet people don't care. Most people don't care about downtown - downtown to them is nothing but some shopping in Eaton Centre or watching some games at the ACC - that's it. The idea of demolishing a dysfunctional expressway and spending 5 more minutes driving to downtown is simply so appalling to them that any rational thinking or cost-benefit becomes completely irrelevant.
You know why I never speak too highly of Toronto, this is why. It is so scare of being too successful and it is doing everything it can to avoid change for the right direction.
Congrats to car drivers. Your vehicles will continue to be the king. In fact, why not finish the Spadina expressway?
I agree that its a bad decision but lets not get too carried away in drama here - its not the end of the world or the end of Toronto lol...
Go to Luminato/Gay pride this month and take a load off Botti lol....
I don't know why I expected Toronto to be any different than Halifax, or Ontario from Nova Scotia. Same endemic lack of vision, lack of will, lack of guts, lack of everything except endless hand-wringing, fence-sitting, and gutless half-steps.
* Public smoking. NS wanted to ban smoking in public restaurants and bars. Restaurant owners cried that people would never set foot outside of their homes again if such a law passed. The world would end! So, the government ordered owners to build smoking enclosures inside their facilities at considerable cost and inconvenience. A few years later, they just ended up banning it (as expected). The world did not end, and people still go out to eat and drink in smoke-free facilities. Imagine.
* Sunday shopping. The majority of people wanted it, but the conservative vocal majority wanted to preserve Sundays as a day of rest and keep everything closed. The world would end, and streets would burn. Babies would cry and there would be gnashing of teeth. So the government allowed grocery stores to section off a small portion of their stores and sell specific types of goods on Sundays. And, of course, a couple years later they just ended up allowing it. Oddly enough, the world did not end, and many who opposed it can now be found in Home Depot or the local Mall on their "day of rest".
I see the same thing with the recent beer sales being allowed in grocery stores. Only 6-packs, only during LCBO/Beer Store hours, etc. Tiny steps towards the inevitable goal of treating consumers with respect and ending a ridiculous monopoly and out-dated business model. But no guts to just do it now.
Same thing with the Gardiner. Here was a chance to be bold and make a statement about the direction the city wants to go in. But the powers that run the city want to stand still while pretending to move forward. Talk, talk, talk, study, study, study. Let's do the bare minimum and pat ourselves on the back about how progressive we are. In a few years, the estimates will have doubled, the delays will seem endless, and when it is finished (if it ever is), it will not have solved a damn thing.
More accurately, in favour of Tory's BS "hybrid" approach.
This is frustrating but not surprising to me at all. This city really has no guts, no vision, and always takes the smallest steps possible.
The truth is, the ridership doesn't justify keeping East Gardiner, the cost of maintaining it is $500m a year more, and opportunity cost of not opening the space is massive.
Yet people don't care. Most people don't care about downtown - downtown to them is nothing but some shopping in Eaton Centre or watching some games at the ACC - that's it. The idea of demolishing a dysfunctional expressway and spending 5 more minutes driving to downtown is simply so appalling to them that any rational thinking or cost-benefit becomes completely irrelevant.
You know why I never speak too highly of Toronto, this is why. It is so scare of being too successful and it is doing everything it can to avoid change for the right direction.
Congrats to car drivers. Your vehicles will continue to be the king. In fact, why not finish the Spadina expressway?
Missed opportunity man, but as people are saying it is not in the least bit surprising. The people tasked with making this decision are easily some of the most backward and risk adverse people you will meet in your life.
This is just depressing, but not surprising at all. Now, just build the Scarborough subway, and Toronto will really be on the road into the purgatory of would be world class cities.
I've always held the opinion that Toronto City Hall/City Council should never be tasked with these kinds of decisions. Hopefully in a few years TTC falls apart and everything gets taken over by Metrolinx, only then we'll see some sanity in urban planning.
Anyhow, I'm never venturing into eastern part of Gardiner anyway, nothing to do there anyway as of now. If the residents there want to screw up their neighborhood, by all means. Really hope Metrolinx gets RER going in the next few years, and show Toronto/TTC what a functioning transit system actually looks like. I recently found out that even Mississauga has fully adopted PRESTO on all its buses, and TTC is still postponing their installation schedules for the bus and streetcar system. It's just hopeless. I'm sorry Fusion, but news like this just makes me want to slam a truck straight into city hall.
I'm just wondering does removing this part of the Gardiner really make that much of a difference to that area of the city? Isn't it only a couple of kilometres long that they're talking about either removing or altering yet somehow its such a big deal?
I haven't read about this issue in complete detail, but is there really that big a difference between the two options? And also it seems like even though they say this decision is 'made', there's still going to be alot of discussion to be had before anything actually gets done and it could still be many years before something actually happens and you see shovels in the ground.
I'm just wondering does removing this part of the Gardiner really make that much of a difference to that area of the city? Isn't it only a couple of kilometres long that they're talking about either removing or altering yet somehow its such a big deal?
I haven't read about this issue in complete detail, but is there really that big a difference between the two options? And also it seems like even though they say this decision is 'made', there's still going to be alot of discussion to be had before anything actually gets done and it could still be many years before something actually happens and you see shovels in the ground.
Agree,
I don't get it too.
I'm in favour of keeping eastern section of the Gardiner.
Toronto has too few expressways to begin with.
It would have been nice to have "buried" it under the city to begin with
but it is needed, traffic is so bad to begin with.
They don't call it the "Don Valley Parking Lot" for nothing.
Not enough lanes, both Gardiner and DVP should have more lanes.
8 lanes for DVP (could be done)
and "double decker" the Gardiner
I'm in favour of keeping eastern section of the Gardiner.
Toronto has too few expressways to begin with.
It would have been nice to have "buried" it under the city to begin with
but it is needed, traffic is so bad to begin with.
They don't call it the "Don Valley Parking Lot" for nothing.
Not enough lanes, both Gardiner and DVP should have more lanes.
8 lanes for DVP (could be done) and "double decker" the Gardiner
I really hope you are joking and not being serious. The money the will spend building this idiotic hybrid option (plus adding your beloved lanes) will cost the city the equivalent of the downtown relief subway line, along with a couple of LRT lines that could've been built.
The ONLY solution to congestion is building better transit, medium to high density neighborhoods, and prevent sprawling. If you travel at all to other major cities world wide, you'll notice that it is in the cities, not far-flung suburbs, where the vast majority of people in this world will live. More efficient allocation of resources, energy savings, less congestion, better access to transit, less waste. What is it that's so hard to understand?
And bury the Gardiner? Ha! Do you realize how long and how much $$$ Boston spent to bury a few miles of highway underneath its downtown? Boston's "Big Dig" was a 20+ year project, costing over $22 billion USD, and became the most expensive infrastructure project in U.S. history - all for 3 miles of buried highways (the cost ballooned by 10x the initial estimate). Oh and it still doesn't solve the congestion problem - try driving in the buried sections of I-93 between 4 - 8 pm everyday: bumper to bumper chaos when entering and exiting the tunnels just like the Gardiner, except that this one is underground. Well I guess it's all worth it if we stick to the old saying: "Out of sight, out of mind".
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
While we're at it finish the Gardiner to it's original destination, Pickering. 
