Gardiner Expressway: Chief planner wants to resurrect cost/benefit study

[Jonno]

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/cityhallpolitics/article/1303629--gardiner-expressway-chief-planner-wants-to-resurrect-cost-benefit-study-ford-killed

Days after yet another chunk of concrete tumbled off the underbelly of the Gardiner Expressway — this time a 4.5-kilogram block roughly the size of a shovel head — Toronto's chief planner said she is opposed to spending massive sums on infrastructure focused on "moving more cars."

As the city wades into a multi-billion-dollar debate on the future of its main commuter artery, planner Jennifer Keesmaat said Monday she believes tax dollars are better spent on improving public transit.

Her comments were made in response to a question about whether to move the 7 kilometres of elevated expressway underground. They come in the wake of an ongoing Star investigation which revealed that the crumbling highway is in a state far worse than city staff previously told the public.

In the latest incident, the block of concrete plummeted to the westbound lane of Lake Shore Blvd. near Rees St. around midnight Friday night. No one was injured.

This is at least the seventh falling-concrete incident this year. But the crisis extends beyond loose pieces of the outer layer. Without half a billion dollars in emergency repair work to the deck, nearly half of the elevated portions of the Gardiner could be structurally unsafe within a decade.

Keesmaat said she won't draw conclusions on the demolition question without a proper study, but she already has concerns about the underground proposal.

"I'm not big on massive investments in infrastructure that are about moving more cars. I think there's a better way to invest in movement in the city, and that's by investing in public transit. ... It's counterintuitive to me to spend a significant amount of money on a tunnel for cars," she said.

This transit-friendly philosophy will no doubt play prominently in the larger discussion about the Gardiner's future.

Keesmaat, who has been in the job less than six months, said she wants to immediately resume an environmental assessment that was quietly shelved after Mayor Rob Ford's election. That study was supposed to provide a cost-benefit analysis of tearing down versus maintaining the structure.

Keesmaat wants city staff, rather than Waterfront Toronto, to take the lead in the new incarnation of the study.

"Given the significant public interest in ensuring careful due diligence," she said, "it would be appropriate for city staff to lead the environment assessment going forward."

Public works and infrastructure chair Denzil Minnan-Wong said Keesmaat needs to get on board with a staff recommendation to carry about $505 million of rehabilitation work over the next decade on two sections of the Gardiner.

"She's in favour of spending the tens of millions that's required to keep the Gardiner up while we could wait for six, seven, eight years to get an environmental assessment done, then flushing all that money down the toilet and maybe tearing the Gardiner down," he said.

Keesmaat said a proper study could take up to five years, with many potential outcomes: "Take it down and tunnel? Take it down and just leave that capacity (of car traffic)? Take it down and invest significantly on transit? Leave it up and toll? Leave it up and the city pays for it? Leave it up and sell it?"

"Yes, the city is going to have to spend money to maintain the structure. That's absolutely clear. The extent to which an investment goes into the structure changes if we're seeing it as a long-term part of the city infrastructure, or if we imagine it coming down eventually."

It's unclear how much a full tear-down would cost. Some estimates have said $3 billion.

Meanwhile, Toronto's budget committee asked staff to look into the feasibility of selling or leasing the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway, as well as the possibility of replacing it with a tunnel.

Yet in Australia we are still building them!!!

[Gazza]

Yet in Australia we are still building them!!!

Only Australia?

[Golliwog]

You also neglect that one of the main reasons that they're even looking at replacing it in the first place is that it was built in the 60's and wasn't built to withstand salt being used on the roads to stop them from icing up. Hence the steel in the elevated section is corroding, and causing issues with the concrete.