page_title: Gardiner Expressway
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Gardiner Expressway / History / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: The Gardiner Expressway in Toronto, ON, looking westward. Photo taken from Dufferin Street bridge.
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  The highway has been described as "an out-of-date, crumbling and frequently traffic-jammed freeway."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: Construction on the expressway began in 1955 with the building of the Queen Street Extension and the Keating Avenue (now Lake Shore Boulevard East) extension to the foot of Woodbine Avenue. The Gardiner was built in segments, with the final section being completed in 1966. The cost was approximately $110 million ($839 million in 2018 dollars). Construction of the first part of the actual Expressway started in 1956 with the Humber River bridge, followed by the Humber to Jameson segment. Max Tanenbaum's York Steel supplied the iron girder sections that supported the road deck on the elevated sections.
  Humber River to Jameson Avenue
  The route of the Expressway around Humber Bay necessitated the demolition of the Sunnyside Amusement Park on the lake shore, which had existed since 1925. Some amusements were moved to the CNE, others sold off or just destroyed.  The carousel was moved to the newly built Disneyland. The Amusement Park lands were subsumed by the Lake Shore Boulevard expansion to six lanes. Only the Palais Royale hall, Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion and Sunnyside Pool were not demolished. A pedestrian bridge crossing was built from the foot of Roncesvalles Avenue to the Palais Royale site.
  To the east of Sunnyside, the 1800s-era 'South Parkdale' residential neighbourhood at the foot of Jameson Avenue was demolished in 1957. The Expressway, like the railway just to the north, was cut through the area at lake shore level. An interchange was built at Jameson with on and off ramps to Lake Shore Boulevard, and Lake Shore Boulevard was expanded to six lanes in the area. This created a pedestrian barrier to the lake shore for Parkdale neighbourhood residents to the north. Efforts made by community groups over the next 20 years to restore access to the lake shore, including plans to cover the section of the Expressway and railway line, did not come to fruition. A pedestrian bridge over Lake Shore Boulevard at the foot of Jameson Avenue was eventually built. Jameson Avenue, which had previously been a street of mansions, saw intense apartment building development after the building of the Expressway.
  The section between Humber River and Jameson Avenue was completed in 1958. The expressway, by then named the Gardiner Expressway, was officially opened by Gardiner and Ontario Premier Leslie Frost on August 8, 1958. When this section opened, it opened without guard-rails on the median dividing the different directions. Steel guard-rails and a 'glare shield' were approved for this section in 1965 at a cost of $200,000.
  Jameson Avenue to York Street
  The section between Jameson Avenue and Spadina Avenue was completed and opened on August 1, 1962 and the westbound lanes from York Street were opened on December 3, 1962. The eastbound lanes from Spadina to York opened in 1963. The elevated section starts from the north-east corner of the CNE. The route to the east of the CNE was modified to avoid passing over historic Fort York. This section was built wider to accommodate a possible interchange with the Highway 400 extension south to downtown, proposed by the Province of Ontario in 1956 and later cancelled.
  East of Fort York, the Gardiner was built entirely as an elevated route, through a predominantly industrial area, to the south of railway lands to reach downtown. The roadway was built directly overhead of Fleet Street (Fleet is now called Lake Shore Boulevard West) through much of this section. The expressway off-ramp to York Street was developed as a two-lane eastbound 'finger' flying over Harbour Street, south of the main roadway, descending to Harbour Street with a circular off-ramp to York Street northbound.
  York Street to the Don Valley Parkway
  This segment was completed in 1964. In the original proposal, this segment went to the ground with a clover-leaf interchange with the Don Valley Parkway. It was instead constructed as an elevated section that passes over Lake Shore Boulevard and at its eastern end forks into a flyover of the Don River mouth and a separate connector to the east. The section between the Parkway and Yonge S
caption: The Gardiner Expressway from the Dufferin Street bridge, looking west toward the Jameson Avenue/Dunn Avenue exit
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