The Gardiner Expressway

[basketcase]

The only possible solution would be an underground expressway through the core but that would mean tax money which people hate, even when it directly benefits them. Okay, the other would be a massive investment in public transit and tolls for out-of-towners using DVP/Gardiner.

Maybe 20 years before parts of it become critically unsafe; tearing it down is the least expensive option even though it is the worst.

 

[Anbarandy]

Except it's not a "great wall". It's about 50 yards of overhead structure.

Those same pedestrians would have crossed a far larger stretch of east-west rail corridor - because that fucker's HUGE! And under Chow's plan, they would have to cross a very wide ground level road.

It's a great rant - "Clear the great wall to make the little children free and happy!".... But in fact, it's just a road.

Sure Mandy, sure.

You fare much, much better in the Russian Genocidal Industrial Scale War Crimes State threads than you are apparently faring here.

 

[Anbarandy]

Don't you love it when Ford gave cities mayoral powers, now Chow has the power to tear down the Gardiner. Either way city council will vote in favor to tear down the Gardiner. I love it when Ford nation starts whining. HAHAHA!

Those powers are only to be used for Provincial priorities of which, tearing down the Gardiner certainly is a red line not to be crossed for the Thug.

 

[Anbarandy]

Part of that is likely because Lakeshore has been f'd up for so long with endless construction. Coming from the east end is a disaster now.
If you gain back an exit onto lakeshore that gives more flow.
Right now it only works if you're trying to bypass the downtown altogether, where if you can get on the DVP through lakeshore again that works better than being stuck from Jarvis to Bloor with no exit/entrance.

They, the masters of Toronto, that being raging car drivers are unable to separate their rage of not being able to drive free like the wind on every square centimeter of tar in Toronto from objective facts.

 

[Hands95]

So this thread caused me to go and read some of the related articles. Lots of rhetoric; light on decent information. Of course, why present facts when they get in the way of what you want.

At Cherry Street, you have 4 lanes each way on the Gardiner and 3 lanes each way on Lakeshore. This appears to go to 2 each way on both the DVP and Lakeshore East. The traffic studies quoted talk about the small impact. I'd suggest that their baseline is corrupt to start with. If the DVP/Gardiner interchange, either way, can't be navigated at near highway speeds, then the existing setup is already deficient. It makes zero sense to bring a highway to a set of lights to then merge back onto a highway. The freeing up of 'valuable' land is also touted as being great. Does Toronto really need more condos? Because that is exactly what developers will want to build.

 

[james t kirk]

Part of that is likely because Lakeshore has been f'd up for so long with endless construction. Coming from the east end is a disaster now.
If you gain back an exit onto lakeshore that gives more flow.
Right now it only works if you're trying to bypass the downtown altogether, where if you can get on the DVP through lakeshore again that works better than being stuck from Jarvis to Bloor with no exit/entrance.

The Lakeshore has been fucked out of its mind forever. From the time I moved to Toronto in the early 90's till today, the Lakeshore is the road from HELL.

Only fools think that the Lakeshore is the way to go. You're coming down Spadina to get on the Gardiner westbound and you look up at the Gardiner and you can see the traffic is either dead stopped or slower than you could walk. Then you look at the Lakeshore and you think, "maybe I'll give Lakeshore a try as it might be faster" WRONG. You get on Lakeshore and no sooner do you get about half a km west of Spadina and the Lakeshore locks up. It's stop and go all the way to Windermere with far more stop than go. Meanwhile, the Gardiner has unlocked around the Exhibtion. Construction or no construction, it doesn't make any difference.

NEVER EVER TAKE THE LAKESHORE IN TRAFFIC. YOU WILL LOSE EVERY TIME NO MATTER WHAT.

 

[james t kirk]

There is one other thing that no-one has mentioned yet in this thread.

Demolishing the Gardiner and building an at grade road with traffic lights every 30 metres will lead to huge increases in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Internal combustion engines are at their most efficient in highway traffic because the car is cruising along at constant high speed, but low engine RPM's due to there being no need to accelerate or brake. Contrasted to stop and go traffic that you would get in city traffic where you are constantly braking and accelerationg.

At hightway speeds, when an engine is operating at low RPMS and constant high speeds, all of its pollution control systems are working. In addition, it's using much less gasoline because all the engine has to do is overcome friction to maintain speed. Autmotive standards require that in these cases, all pollution controls are working, in addition, the engine control module will do everything possible to lean out the mixture to save fuel. (The beauty of electronic fuel injection). The exact opposite is true in city traffic. From stop, the engine must now overcome inertia and friction. (Ever watch your fuel economy bar chart go max vertical to the top of the scale when you accelerate from a traffic light?) To do this, standards allow for the bypassing of some pollution control systems (for the safety of the occupants becasue a) you need to overcome inertia and b) you may need to get out of a tricky situation and in that case, acceleration is your beast friend.) Ever been on the highway and some guy ahead of you hits the gas, you get a strong smell of exhaust as opposed to cruising where you smell nothing? That's because the computer will temporarily disengage some pollution control systems (like the EGR valve for example which works to lower NOX levels and NOX (nitrogen oxide) is a particularly nasty pollutant)

EGR valves (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) valves work by drawing exhaust from the exhaust manifold and injecting it into the intake stream. This spent exhuast gas is inert. It neither burns, nor does it support burning. By introducing exhaust gases back into the intake stream it replaces some of the air fuel mixture into the intake stream and thus into the cylinders and it then occupies volume in the cylinders which means you get a cooler combustion stroke and ergo you minimize NOX. (NOX levels being directly proportional to the combustion temperature). However, this process only happens with the EGR valve open and that only occurs at constant speeds. When you accelerate, the engine control module will sense the acceleration and it will close the EGR valve in order to get you more power / acceleration to get you moving. (Because your cylinders are now 100 percent filled with the air fuel mixture.)

I know most of you don't understand what the fuck I'm talking about, but even the dumbest dummy knows that city driving uses a lot more fuel than highway driving. But what he probably doesn't know is that using more fuel creates a lot more pollution AND that pollution is also dirty with much higher levels of NOX and other nasty shit that you just don't get when you're crusing.

So, building a road with stop and go traffic at stop lights will result in huge increases in pollution. In short, it's gonna stink like hell down there and the people who live down there are going to be far worse off than they are now. (And yes, I know that the Gardiner features stop and go traffic, but an at grade road will be nothing but stop and go traffic.)

 

[Frankfooter]

There is one other thing that no-one has mentioned yet in this thread.

Demolishing the Gardiner and building an at grade road with traffic lights every 30 metres will lead to huge increases in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Internal combustion engines are at their most efficient in highway traffic because the car is cruising along at constant high speed, but low engine RPM's due to there being no need to accelerate or brake. Contrasted to stop and go traffic that you would get in city traffic where you are constantly braking and accelerationg.

At hightway speeds, when an engine is operating at low RPMS and constant high speeds, all of its pollution control systems are working. In addition, it's using much less gasoline because all the engine has to do is overcome friction to maintain speed. Autmotive standards require that in these cases, all pollution controls are working, in addition, the engine control module will do everything possible to lean out the mixture to save fuel. (The beauty of electronic fuel injection). The exact opposite is true in city traffic. From stop, the engine must now overcome inertia and friction. (Ever watch your fuel economy bar chart go max vertical to the top of the scale when you accelerate from a traffic light?) To do this, standards allow for the bypassing of some pollution control systems (for the safety of the occupants becasue a) you need to overcome inertia and b) you may need to get out of a tricky situation and in that case, acceleration is your beast friend.) Ever been on the highway and some guy ahead of you hits the gas, you get a strong smell of exhaust as opposed to cruising where you smell nothing? That's because the computer will temporarily disengage some pollution control systems (like the EGR valve for example which works to lower NOX levels and NOX (nitrogen oxide) is a particularly nasty pollutant)

EGR valves (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) valves work by drawing exhaust from the exhaust manifold and injecting it into the intake stream. This spent exhuast gas is inert. It neither burns, nor does it support burning. By introducing exhaust gases back into the intake stream it replaces some of the air fuel mixture into the intake stream and thus into the cylinders and it then occupies volume in the cylinders which means you get a cooler combustion stroke and ergo you minimize NOX. (NOX levels being directly proportional to the combustion temperature). However, this process only happens with the EGR valve open and that only occurs at constant speeds. When you accelerate, the engine control module will sense the acceleration and it will close the EGR valve in order to get you more power / acceleration to get you moving. (Because your cylinders are now 100 percent filled with the air fuel mixture.)

I know most of you don't understand what the fuck I'm talking about, but even the dumbest dummy knows that city driving uses a lot more fuel than highway driving. But what he probably doesn't know is that using more fuel creates a lot more pollution AND that pollution is also dirty with much higher levels of NOX and other nasty shit that you just don't get when you're crusing.

So, building a road with stop and go traffic at stop lights will result in huge increases in pollution. In short, it's gonna stink like hell down there and the people who live down there are going to be far worse off than they are now. (And yes, I know that the Gardiner features stop and go traffic, but an at grade road will be nothing but stop and go traffic.)

Unless of course the change means less people take the route because its slower, then there are fewer cars and fewer emissions.

 

[Anbarandy]

There is one other thing that no-one has mentioned yet in this thread.

Demolishing the Gardiner and building an at grade road with traffic lights every 30 metres will lead to huge increases in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Worse yet.

I saw Chairman Chow's top secret "f*ck the car drivers" plans for detonating the Gardiner and beautifying Lakeshore Blvd. East.

It dictates one lane east and one lane west on Lakeshore including traffic lights every 5 meters and 3 lanes east and 3 lanes west dedicated to bike lanes, vegetation, pottery and social protest safe spaces.

 

[NotADcotor]

If you are going to fuck with the road system, perhaps they should embiggin the metro system first so people have alternatives.

I know, crazy talk. Up there with fixing the housing and doctor shortage before bringing in a million new people a year. Sure bringing in the right sort of people could help, but they were apparently not doing that when it was 300 to 400K.

 

[james t kirk]

Unless of course the change means less people take the route because its slower, then there are fewer cars and fewer emissions.

You think that NOX levels in an internal combustion engine are linearly porptional to combustion chamber temperature? That's so cute. You don't know the first thing about physics do you? NOX emissions with respect to combustion chamber temperature are not a linear relationship, they are an parabolic relationship. Usually, EGR valves operate by introducing about 20% by volume inert exhaust gas into the intake stream in a gasoline powered engine without adversely affecting engine performance. If you look at the curves in the attached links for a gasoline engine with about 20% by volume, NOX will be at about 500 mg / m3. But look at the curve as the percentage of exhaust gas injected into the intake stream decreases (which it would as an EGR valve closes when there is a demand for acceleration, like from a stop). In other words, you will get as much pollution from 1 stop and go car with a closed EGR valve as you would from 3 or 4 cars maintaining speed with an open EGR valve reducing NOX emissions.

And I know you still don't get it, so let me put it into terms you may understand. You remember that Volkswagon scandal where the emission tests were rigged. Where the cars understood they were on a dynometer and the computer would manipulate the engine control module to fool the test? That was ALL ABOUT NOX.

Plus you'd have just as many cars and trucks in the city as before as some commuters might opt for other streets besides an at grade Lakeshore Boulevard.

Nor the fact that the road being proposed is 8 lanes wide (see the environmental assesment) or some are calling for 10 lanes. LOL. And given that Toronto standards for a vehicular lane on a road like this would be 3.0 metres, 8 x 3.0 m = 24 metres wide, or 79 feet Add in sidewalks and bike lanes and turning lanes, you're really talking about a corridor that would cap out around 110 to 120 feet wide. Filled with fucking cars and trucks belching out pollution. Yeah, great idea. (And given the nature of this road, City Engineering staff would not accept 3.0 metres, they would want 3.5 metre lane widths. But for now, we will stick with 3.0.)

Now let's look at the Parisian cafe scene artiste rendering again.......let's show an asphalt corridor 120 feet wide with solid cars belching pollution and an 88 metre wide railway embankment 55 metres to the north.

Just so we are dealing in reality and not flying pink unicorns.

 

[dirtyharry555]

We already have single lanes on Bloor street right in the core of the city - at some of the busiest intersections in the country - due to the introduction of bike lanes.

Adding new ways to gridlock the city makes perfect sense.

It's what they want. And you voted for them.

Going "green" is painful. lol

 

[Anbarandy]

Plus you'd have just as many cars and trucks in the city as before as some commuters might opt for other streets besides an at grade Lakeshore Boulevard.

Nor the fact that the road being proposed is 8 lanes wide (see the environmental assesment) or some are calling for 10 lanes. LOL. And given that Toronto standards for a vehicular lane on a road like this would be 3.0 metres, 8 x 3.0 m = 24 metres wide, or 79 feet Add in sidewalks and bike lanes and turning lanes, you're really talking about a corridor that would cap out around 110 to 120 feet wide. Filled with fucking cars and trucks belching out pollution. Yeah, great idea. (And given the nature of this road, City Engineering staff would not accept 3.0 metres, they would want 3.5 metre lane widths. But for now, we will stick with 3.0.)

Now let's look at the Parisian cafe scene artiste rendering again.......let's show an asphalt corridor 120 feet wide with solid cars belching pollution and an 88 metre wide railway embankment 55 metres to the north.

Just so we are dealing in reality and not flying pink unicorns.

As opposed to wastefully spending what will amount to +$2billion dollars to rehabilitate the Gardiner East, tear down current decomposing 800 or so odd meter current arc of the Gardiner connecting to the DVP and rebuilding a much tighter arc connecting it to the DVP a few meters to the north. And for what? Cars will still belch NOX as you termed it and it and the Lakeshore will still be a car caused congested hellscape.

It is time to challenge this notion that cities are built and/or should be rebuilt with preference and priority to meet the needs of cars above the needs of the people who live there and create their and the city's life.

This 50's and 60's free road mentality is past it's best before date and no longer works here.

 

[Frankfooter]

You think that NOX levels in an internal combustion engine are linearly porptional to combustion chamber temperature? That's so cute. You don't know the first thing about physics do you? NOX emissions with respect to combustion chamber temperature are not a linear relationship, they are an parabolic relationship. Usually, EGR valves operate by introducing about 20% by volume inert exhaust gas into the intake stream in a gasoline powered engine without adversely affecting engine performance. If you look at the curves in the attached links for a gasoline engine with about 20% by volume, NOX will be at about 500 mg / m3. But look at the curve as the percentage of exhaust gas injected into the intake stream decreases (which it would as an EGR valve closes when there is a demand for acceleration, like from a stop). In other words, you will get as much pollution from 1 stop and go car with a closed EGR valve as you would from 3 or 4 cars maintaining speed with an open EGR valve reducing NOX emissions.

And I know you still don't get it, so let me put it into terms you may understand. You remember that Volkswagon scandal where the emission tests were rigged. Where the cars understood they were on a dynometer and the computer would manipulate the engine control module to fool the test? That was ALL ABOUT NOX.

Plus you'd have just as many cars and trucks in the city as before as some commuters might opt for other streets besides an at grade Lakeshore Boulevard.

Nor the fact that the road being proposed is 8 lanes wide (see the environmental assesment) or some are calling for 10 lanes. LOL. And given that Toronto standards for a vehicular lane on a road like this would be 3.0 metres, 8 x 3.0 m = 24 metres wide, or 79 feet Add in sidewalks and bike lanes and turning lanes, you're really talking about a corridor that would cap out around 110 to 120 feet wide. Filled with fucking cars and trucks belching out pollution. Yeah, great idea. (And given the nature of this road, City Engineering staff would not accept 3.0 metres, they would want 3.5 metre lane widths. But for now, we will stick with 3.0.)

Now let's look at the Parisian cafe scene artiste rendering again.......let's show an asphalt corridor 120 feet wide with solid cars belching pollution and an 88 metre wide railway embankment 55 metres to the north.

Just so we are dealing in reality and not flying pink unicorns.

That's not what I said, captain.

I said if this results in people deciding its too slow and less cars driving on the QEW that means fewer emissions not more.
By the way, is the air safe to breath today or are we all still supposed to stay in?

 

[wigglee]

I remember reading somewhere that tearing it down and building a boulevard will only increase time in traffic by 3 minutes. If that is the case, may be it is not such a bad idea to do so, and use the money saved for other things, especially affordable housing.

3 minutes, my ass.... Chow is an idiot and the east end is getting fucked up the ass. Leave the elevated Gardner and rebuild that ramp at the eastern end. The province should step in and build and maintain it as it is a provincial highway .

 

[explorerzip]

If you are going to fuck with the road system, perhaps they should embiggin the metro system first so people have alternatives.

I know, crazy talk. Up there with fixing the housing and doctor shortage before bringing in a million new people a year. Sure bringing in the right sort of people could help, but they were apparently not doing that when it was 300 to 400K.

How do you suppose we build a bigger and better system while not increasing taxes? It's going to takes hundreds of billions to make up for decades of not building, cancelling plans and building transit to nowhere. Unless Tory's Dumb Track opened and we're not aware of it?

We can't even keep the ceiling tiles from falling off in most subway stations. Union is a major bottleneck for GO trains and it easily takes 10 minutes for people to get off the platform and into the concourse. No wonder that the Union project has taken over 10 years and costed almost $1B and they're not done yet. Upgrading Yonge and Bloor is another $1B at least. Then we have the never ending saga of the Crosstown, which is billions over budget. The same will happen with the Ontario Line.

Maybe slowing or stopping immigration seems like a simple solution, but maybe think about why we do it. The birth rate in Canada has been declining for decades. We're either delaying or not having kids at all. Many of the kids we're having are not going into medicine, trades, or even pilots etc. hence the shortages you referred to. On the other hand, those sectors likely have protectionist measures that prevent or slow down people from getting in, which worsens the shortages. Then we end up with skilled workers driving Uber.

Where do you think we can make up for this shortage of people? Short of forcing people to have at least 3 kids or cloning, immigration is the only way we can grow the population, workforce and keep the economy going. Once you slow down or completely stop population growth it will be very hard to get it moving again and has decades long effects. That was China's big mistake and they will be paying for it in the coming years as it's population ages, and the workforce shrinks.

 

[explorerzip]

The only possible solution would be an underground expressway through the core but that would mean tax money which people hate, even when it directly benefits them. Okay, the other would be a massive investment in public transit and tolls for out-of-towners using DVP/Gardiner.

Maybe 20 years before parts of it become critically unsafe; tearing it down is the least expensive option even though it is the worst.

I hope it never comes to this, but the worst case is that a big chunk comes crashing down and kills many people. One person won't be enough because they'll just patch it again. Only then will something maybe happen, but there will still be plenty of complainers. Sadly, tragedy needs to happen before people react to on-going problems.

 

[explorerzip]

If you look at the statistics, there's a lot of random violent attacks on the TTC. The chance of that happening in your car are next to nil.

Yes there were "alot" of incidents in 2022. There were just over 1000 violent incidents in all of 2022. That's 1000 incidents out of ~365 million passenger rides (~1M average rides per day X 365 days) in 2022, or 0.0002739726% or a tiny fraction.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ttc-violence-rising-report-1.6758669

2022 Operating Statistics

The TTC Operating Statistics publication contains all the key facts and figures about the system’s performance in an annual period and is an invaluable quick reference when talking about the TTC’s achievements in service. The Operating Statistics are compiled by the Corporate Communications...

www.ttc.ca

That number doesn't even include the kids under 12 riding for free. Meaning the chance of being violently assaulted on the TTC is also next to nil. I don't know how that compares to incidents by car, plane, train, etc. but it's still very small. I'm not downplaying anyone that feels unsafe riding the TTC, but that's just what the numbers say.

Those numbers must be faked because it comes from the crooked media!? Even if you increase the incidents by 10, 100, 1000, or even 10,000 times, that's still a very small number. Isn't it funny how math and statistics actually work?

 

[NotADcotor]

How do you suppose we build a bigger and better system while not increasing taxes? It's going to takes hundreds of billions to make up for decades of not building, cancelling plans and building transit to nowhere. Unless Tory's Dumb Track opened and we're not aware of it?

We can't even keep the ceiling tiles from falling off in most subway stations. Union is a major bottleneck for GO trains and it easily takes 10 minutes for people to get off the platform and into the concourse. No wonder that the Union project has taken over 10 years and costed almost $1B and they're not done yet. Upgrading Yonge and Bloor is another $1B at least. Then we have the never ending saga of the Crosstown, which is billions over budget. The same will happen with the Ontario Line.

Maybe slowing or stopping immigration seems like a simple solution, but maybe think about why we do it. The birth rate in Canada has been declining for decades. We're either delaying or not having kids at all. Many of the kids we're having are not going into medicine, trades, or even pilots etc. hence the shortages you referred to. On the other hand, those sectors likely have protectionist measures that prevent or slow down people from getting in, which worsens the shortages. Then we end up with skilled workers driving Uber.

Where do you think we can make up for this shortage of people? Short of forcing people to have at least 3 kids or cloning, immigration is the only way we can grow the population, workforce and keep the economy going. Once you slow down or completely stop population growth it will be very hard to get it moving again and has decades long effects. That was China's big mistake and they will be paying for it in the coming years as it's population ages, and the workforce shrinks.

1: It costs what it costs. My point still stands.
2: I never actually said anything about reducing immigration, actually I hinted at it being a potential solution as well as problem if it was managed right, but it isn't.

 

[explorerzip]

1: It costs what it costs. My point still stands.
2: I never actually said anything about reducing immigration, actually I hinted at it being a potential solution as well as problem if it was managed right, but it isn't.

"If you are going to fuck with the road system, perhaps they should embiggin the metro system first so people have alternatives." I could be wrong, but I think you're implying that the metro system must be upgraded before changing the road system. That is a flawed argument because the transit systems (GO and TTC) are very far behind and will take many decades to build and decades of continuous funding to build enough capacity make any change in traffic. To pay for all that, we have to raise property taxes, implement tolls or some version of Tax Increment Financing like Tory proposed to pay for Dumb Track that didn't go anywhere and likely never will.

No, you didn't explicitly say anything about reducing immigration so I was a bit ahead of you. Yet I already explained how reducing or stopping immigration is not actaully a solution and likely makes the problem worse. Unless we can increase the birth rate exponentially and / or convince a whole bunch of people to move into skilled trades, medicine, etc. then the shortage remains. Unless you have any other well thought out ideas, increasing not decreasing immigration is the only solution I can see to fix worker shortages. I don't see how we can fix a worker shortage by restricting people supply. Feel free to prove me wrong though. Since you assert that the immigration system isn't managed right, then what specifically is wrong and what would you do differently? Is it just the number of people you're concerned about or how the points system works, etc. The details of these matter a lot in this discussion.

Here's an interesting announcement from last week about attracting digital nomads or remote workers to live in Canada. Tthe article correctly makes the point about where to house these people and how it's going to impact the market for locals. There are lots of other details the policy makes need to iron out. Maybe you automatically don't like such a program because it's a Liberal program? Then feel free to think about a better one.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-digital-nomads-strategy-talent-economy-1.6893150