UPDATE ON THE GARDINER EXPRESSWAY

By Braz Menezes 

The Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation (TWRC) has released the details of yet another Consultant’s report on the future of the Gardiner/Lake Shore Corridor. The options are: burying it, taking it to grade, or giving it a major cosmetic facelift to keep it going for a few more decades.

According to the TWRC, determining the future of the Gardiner/Lake Shore Corridor is important to waterfront revitalization from both a transportation and city building perspective.  We all surely agree with such a generic statement.

The city is now conducting a thorough analysis of the plan.  The next steps include complete public consultations in the Winter 2007, followed by a report to City Council in the Winter/Spring 2007.  If the city decides to proceed with improvements to the corridor, an environmental assessment will be required before any improvements can be started. The next stage, whatever plan is adopted except keeping it as is, will take about five years.

So we are looking at a minimum of seven to ten years and a total cost of between one and two billion dollars. Wake up everybody and stop dreaming!

Given the city’s weak financial projections in the foreseeable future, the complexity of municipal governance in City Hall, and the lukewarm support from other levels of government to Toronto’s needs, little is likely to happen.

YQNA has consistently stated that the Gardiner is no longer the eyesore it once was, because of the many new condos that screen it. The City and TWRC should devote more effort to extending the PATH and other north-south safe pedestrian walkways to the waterfront.

The city lacks an overall transportation vision. It should address the Gardiner/Lakeshore corridor while at the same time improving public transit, bicycle and pedestrian routes. Road pricing (toll road and parking access charges) and incentives (affordable improved public transport) will resolve most problems without killing off the city’s economic vitality.

Meanwhile, let’s work on those improved pedestrian and bike connections immediately.