page_title: Gardiner Expressway
section_title: East of Jarvis review
hierarchical_section_title: Gardiner Expressway / Future / East of Jarvis review
caption_attribution_description: English: I took a series of four pictures of the intersection(s) of Cherry Street and Lakeshore Boulevard, just north of the mouth of the Don River into Toronto Harbour. Cherry and Lakeshore merge for about one hundred metres -- hence two intersections. There are tentative plans build a streetcar plan down Cherry. The raised highway is the Gardiner Expressway. I am standing on a railway embankment. In 2014 mayoralty candidate John Tory backed a plan to for the aging Gardiner Expressway to re-route and rebuilt a portion of the Gardiner on a slightly more northern right-of-way, just south of this railway embankment. Tory was elected, and this plan is one of three under consideration. The other two are to fix the Gardiner from Jarvis Street to the Don Valley Parkway, and to tear it down, and widen the parallel arterial road, Lake Shore Boulevard. The teardown is the cheapest option. Simple repair would cost half a billion dollars. Realignment next to the railway embankment would cost an additional $200 million. What none of those advocating realignment are saying is that the tear down of the kilometer of the Gardiner next to the Keating Channel would free up a couple of dozen acres of potentially valuable waterfront property.
context_page_description: The Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway, commonly known as the Gardiner Expressway or simply the Gardiner, is a municipal expressway in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Running close to the shore of Lake Ontario, it extends from the foot of the Don Valley Parkway in the east, just past the mouth of the Don River, to the junction of Highway 427 and the Queen Elizabeth Way in the west, for a total length of 18.0 kilometres. East of Dufferin Street to just east of the Don River, the roadway is elevated for a length of 6.8 kilometres, unofficially making it the longest bridge in Ontario. It runs above Lake Shore Boulevard east of Spadina Avenue.
  The highway is named after the first chair of the now-defunct Metro Council, Frederick G. Gardiner. The six-lane section east of the Humber River was built in segments from 1955 until 1964 by the Metropolitan Toronto government with provincial highway funds. The ten-lane section west of the Humber was formerly part of the QEW. The Gardiner Expressway is wholly owned and operated by the City of Toronto.
  The highway has been described as "an out-of-date, crumbling and frequently traffic-jammed freeway."
context_section_description: In May 2008, Waterfront Toronto (the former TWRC) proposed the demolition of the segment from Jarvis Street to the Don River and construction of a widened Lake Shore Boulevard in the style of University Avenue at a projected cost of $200 to $300 million. The proposal shelved the previous plan to demolish the central section and the construction of the Front Street Extension. Waterfront Toronto proposed to get started on the environmental assessment of the demolition, which is expected to take up to five years and cost $10 million. Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong criticized the proposal, pointing out that the city already had a $300 million backlog of road repairs. Mayor David Miller endorsed the proposal, noting that the funds for the demolition and the eight-lane boulevard would come from monies saved by not building the Front Street Extension, and money saved on the maintenance of the elevated highway. In July 2008, City Council voted to proceed with the environmental assessment. In March 2009, Waterfront Toronto started the environmental assessment consultation process, with open houses and an online consultation web site. The Terms of Reference were approved by City Council in May 2009 and the Government of Ontario in September 2009 and an Environmental Assessment was expected to start in April 2010.
  City staff abandoned the Environmental Assessment in November 2010, to await direction from the new Council after the election of Rob Ford as Toronto mayor. Councillor Minnan-Wong, who had become chairman of the public works committee of Council, later described the removal project as "dead", and the estimated $300 million cost as "too expensive" in light of a $270 million backlog on repairs of Toronto roads. Minnan-Wong was further quoted as saying that "tearing down the Gardiner Expressway, an important and vital transportation corridor, doesn't make sense".
  In 2013, as part of a staff report on condition the Gardiner, City staff reported to Council that a decision on the eastern segment would have to be made. The section was identified by staff as having reached the end of its lifespan, unless a significant rebuild were to be done. They estimated that it needed to be made no later than 2014 to co-ordinate with needed remedial work.
  After consideration of the proposal to repair the elevated section, Council voted in January 2013 to 'restart' the environmental assessment of the section east of Jarvis. Waterfront Toronto was engaged to deliver public feedback on  various proposals, that of keeping the Gardiner, reconfiguring it or demolishing it. After the review, the consensus proposal was to demolish the expressway section as being cost-effective with little impact on commuters. Before Council was to vote on the proposal, Council decided instead to direct City staff to study a "hybrid" proposal, keeping that part of the Gardiner connecting the expressway to the Don Valley Parkway, while demolishing the rest.
  City staff studied the hybrid proposal and reported on the cost of the three options over 100 years in April 2015. The cost of the hybrid proposal was estimated at $414 million for construction and $505 million for upkeep. The 'keep as-is' proposal was the next most expensive at $342 million for a rebuild and $522 million of the next 100 years. The demolish proposal was the least expensive at a total of $326 million immediately and $135 million for upkeep of a new surface boulevard. After public consultations, City Council is to vote on the proposals after a final report is delivered in June 2015 from city staff.
  The review came to City Council for consideration at its June 2015 session. Prior to the meeting, several special interest groups weighed in with their opinions on the debate. A group of Toronto developers came out in favour of full removal. The Ontario Trucking Association and Canadian Automobile Association came out in favour of the "hybrid" option. Mayor John Tory announced he would support the "hybrid" option and speculation in the media was that the vote would be close between the "hybrid" and "remove" 
caption: The "remove" option would have removed this section of the Gardiner, freeing up acres of waterfront property.
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