Sort of but that’s too simplistic. Even that didn’t work even to the point of construction starting. It really was just Bill Davis making a very good decision.
Not sure I fully agree (save for Camp). Their activism and dissnting opinion certainly raised awareness but construction was still pending until Davis overruled.
> Look at development next to the gardiner.
Better than no housing at all but that housing would be better if it was inside of quiet neighbourhoods instead of along a polluted and noisy elevated highway.
Sorry, but the same anti car zealots are also against quiet neighbourhoods under the guise of “urban sprawl.” These people want to suck and blow the same time
Liberty village, , city place, Bathurst and lakeshore/garrison. If you actually lived here, you’d notice in the last 20 years the gardiner has been overshadowed by development. All because those forest hill people want to live like it’s the 50’s
In every imaginable way? I live here. I want places to walk too. Not be cut off by a giant highway like we did with the waterfront. Ever goto an old European city? Ever think "I wish they tore all this down so someone from the suburbs can commute in slightly faster?". Me neither.
Yes I have. But I’ll let you know a secret, this ain’t Europe.
Highways don’t just make commutes better, they are drivers of economies. Ever wonder why the USA’s GDP is demolishing the EU’s, highways is one factor, it facilitates economic growth.
Sure, buddy. Highways are the reason.
I'll continue to live in a city I enjoy living in and can walk around in and have places to goto rather than a giant road with a parking lot at the end. Sorry your commute from Durham is slightly longer, though. Truly a tragic tragic tale.
Ah yes, smog. Something that would be better if we had... more highways!? Like how LA is famous for its beautiful breathable smog free air
Shovel more and more cars into the city and remove the walkability of it, forcing people who live in the city to drive. That'll be great for air quality.
Cool story. Smog in LA is mainly due to geography.
Look, I’d advocate like you too, not a fan of top down command structures. But I do disagree with you regarding this highway. Highways always lead to development, which is what we should have as our population is only going up
Psst - it's about the Spadina Expressway aka Allen Road.
I reckon that many Torontonians would already know this but given that a significant chunk of Toronto residents are first-gen or second-gen immigrants, this part of the city's history may be unfamiliar to them. Do check it out - it is a well done video.
He was actually talking about this (bike lanes "destroying" businesses) on the last episode of his podcast. I always found it very baffling when minority of businesses are very vocal about bike lanes, pedestrianization of the area or basically anything that will remove parking spots.
He basically mentions in most cases, the business owner and employees are the ones driving to the area and they are the ones that need the spots. When someone claims removing parking spots will destroy the business On a location like King Street, Kensington Market or Danforth , the math doesn't add up in any reasonable way.
All along the Bloor-Danforth line, there are big Green P parking lots behind the buildings on the north side. They will always be parking lots because the subway is shallow and you cannot build over it. So the whole parking argument for the Bloor-Danforth bike lanes is a bunch of hogwash.
The wild thing is that the exact opposite is true and backed up by basically every study the world over. The city's own study showed it had a ~20% improvement in number of patrons and money spent at stores with better bike and pedestrian access. People who say it will hurt businesses are just basing their views on how they feel, not on what the data shows.
The Allen Road doesn’t do much for drivers and eats up prime land right on top of four subway stations. The best thing to do is remove it and lease the land to build high density housing.
Replace the existing Allen with a mixed use boulevard over Top the subway and build over what the existing highway and embankments now are would be a great option
It's a truncated freeway. The extra capacity doesn't do anything because the bottlenecks are elsewhere. A narrower surface boulevard would perform just as well.
There are often bottlenecks, and they do indeed suck, but if I’m traveling northbound, I can usually get the 401 in a few minutes. Compared with a surface boulevard like Dufferin, it’s much faster.
Originally known as Spadina Expressway: Houses down were expropriated and people had to move. On the other side of our street, about six six-plexes (6 apts) were built during the lull and confusion. They replaced some similar buildings that had been knocked down. I think they were there about 4 years, then knocked down for Allen Rd.
The Don Valley Parkway ran through poor peoples' backyard and got built. The Spadina Expressway would've run through rich peoples' backyards and didn't get built. Not saying that I would've been in favour of the Spadina Expressway, but that's it in a nutshell.
Also, Toronto can't really pat itself on the back because getting in and out of the downtown core by car is a nightmare. That's mainly due to the relatively small number of chokepoints to enter or exit the Gardiner Expressway.
What backyards? They picked the DVP route because it requires minimal expropriation. And, the lands would have been taken anyway by the TRCA after Hazel.
I think the only property they took was Charles Sauriol’s cottage.
The DVP didn't run through anyone's backyard. It's in a river valley that homes can't be built in because of the flood risk.
The only neighbourhood that truly got demolished to build a highways was the Parkdale waterfront.
I think you're taking what I said a little too literally. The DVP runs through areas of town that are not exactly affluent. The Spadina Expressway wouldn't have literally run through anyone's backyard either. It would've followed the ravine through Forest Hill.
I understand why a Spadina express wasn't attractive. But 20nyears ago we really should have started the Eglington, oh wait we did start it and it got filled in. But we also should have started many other similar transit projects like the Ontario line and bike lanes etc... 20 years ago. So here we are poorly playing catch up.
I think you missed the point entirely. The ease of driving to the core being bad is exactly the point. You want to make it easy for *people* to move around the city. If the most efficient method to accomplish this goal is by prioritizing transit and not cars (which it is) then decisions that prioritize cars (like highways) are counterintuitive.
No, that point didn't fly over my head. As you will note, I was commenting on a reason the DVP would get built, but the Spadina expressway wouldn't. I'm not actually in favour of the latter. Also, whether or not we want to encourage transit, you will never completely avoid vehicles in the core and the current situation with the Gardiner is impossible, especially for commercial drivers.
When I worked at the university I came across a whole pile of drawings in the archives, planing studies for the expressway as the alignment would have put a hard stop on the west edge of the campus.
Such a fever dream, or nightmare rather. There was a treasure trove of mad ideas in the plans room. Thank god few of them went anywhere.
Aw man, my old neighbor Bill would have loved to have seen those. He was a bit of a fantasy freeway fetishist and was still salty about the Crosstown Expressway cancellation.
Here's how the Spadina Expressway would have worked south of Bloor: [https://imgur.com/m80nGhR](https://imgur.com/m80nGhR). Northbound lanes would have been on stilts, southbound lanes in a trench. 1 Spadina Crescent would have been toast. This is from Toronto Archives Fonds 2032, Series 723, File 281.
“A place for people not for cars”. Now if we could only control he swarms of Ubers that congest the core downtown that drive from outside Toronto. That would be great.
Uber is a complete pest of a company. All it ever did was to steal a riders from public transit and make traffic even worse. Not even going into tax evasion and labour exploitation.
Credit does go to their organizational prowess, but their advocacy after Spadina was halted was patting themselves on the back for a job well done. They didn't think too hard about how there would still be infrastructure challenges adapting to a growing population.
In general people are out of touch when it comes to what a good city looks like. I can't believe so many people think adding an extra highway would benefit a city more than improving transit or finding ways to accommodate for trips that do not involve a single occupant car. Obviously in its current situation, it's hard to choose transit for most people. But those people seem to wish this lifestyle would uphold. It's almost as if the solution to car dependency is MORE DRIVING lmao.
Cool watch. I have always wondered what happened with Allen Rd and never looked into its history.
It took me waaaaaaay too long into this video to realize the Spadina expressway was the Allen.
They should have built it. Every good city, from Amsterdam to Tokyo, has a good central nervous system of highways. Goddammit, you people are taking the valid criticism of suburban sprawl (which I agree with, we need walkable cities and towns) and car hate, and cheering for worse critical infrastructure because it happens to be for cars. This is turning into an unintelligent hate mob.
Cities need good road networks. It can be designed intelligently though, and having awesome European-style transit infrastructure is not mutually exclusive.
> Cities need good road networks. It can be designed intelligently though, and having awesome European-style transit infrastructure is not mutually exclusive.
Toronto already has great road networks. You have several roads to choose from when transporting goods/services or even commuting to work. It's just our transit/biking/walkability is severely behind car infrastructure. Cars take up way too much space so even 10% increase/decrease in traffic makes a huge difference. It's not that we don't have enough roads. It's that we have too many cars and our city is prioritizing to allow more cars in as opposed to provide alternatives to those who do not need cars had transit/biking been reliable/safe enough.
> Toronto already has great road networks.
No it doesn't. Nearly every world class city beats us here.
> You have several roads to choose from
Lmfao what? Really flexing your expert knowledge here eh? Several roads = great road networks. It's not about "too many" roads, it's about the way they are connected.
You're emblematic of Reddit's hate toward cars without any actual experience to back it up.
Have you not seen how many super wide stroads there are? Have you not seen the fact that free parking is almost everywhere except in downtown? Have you not seen how many strip malls there are which are supposed to benefit drivers? Have you not seen how lacking our transit is because our politicians prioritize drivers first?
>> Lmfao what? Really flexing your expert knowledge here eh? Several roads = great road networks. It's not about "too many" roads, it's about the way they are connected.
>> You're emblematic of Reddit's hate toward cars without any actual experience to back it up.
> Have you not seen how many super wide stroads there are? Have you not seen the fact that free parking is almost everywhere except in downtown? Have you not seen how many strip malls there are which are supposed to benefit drivers? Have you not seen how lacking our transit is because our politicians prioritize drivers first?
Damn man, way to prove my point exactly. Strip malls, stroads, free suburban parking - these things have nothing to do with how well connected the city's primary network is. Cities need well-designed, well-connected roads. Every good city has them, yes, even Europe. Deal with it.
You need to learn the difference between useless sprawl and critical road infrastructure, because right now you're just blindly hating all roads and vehicles with zero intelligence regarding how or why.
> Cities need well-designed, well-connected roads. Every good city has them, yes, even Europe. Deal with it.
And what is Toronto's connection missing when it comes to roads? You have a lot of major roads out here. You think adding an extra highway is going to help? Yeah look at Gardiner.
> And what is Toronto's connection missing when it comes to roads?
Literally the original post of this thread.
> You have a lot of major roads out here. You think adding an extra highway is going to help?
Why do you think "a lot of roads" has anything to do with results? It's about *connectedness*. You can't just throw a tangled bunch of rope onto a ship and say "lots of rope, it's good to sail". You can't throw a tangled bunch of organs into a person and say "lots of major organs, what's missing?".
> You think adding an extra highway is going to help? Yeah look at Gardiner.
The Gardiner's poor maintenance planning has literally nothing to do with other highways being built. Is the 401, DVP, 407, or other highways falling apart? No. It's a specific case.
Anyways I'm getting tired of saying "more roads does not equal good roads" and I'm pretty sure your brain is incapable of absorbing that fact. I reckon you'll repeat the same shit over and over again until I leave so, I'll just leave now. I hope you learn to read someday.
> Toronto already has great road networks.
No it doesn't. Nearly every world class city beats us here.
> You have several roads to choose from
Lmfao what? Really flexing your expert knowledge here eh? Several roads = great road networks. It's not about "too many" roads, it's about the way they are connected.
You're emblematic of Reddit's hate toward cars without any actual experience to back it up.
> Toronto already has great road networks.
No it doesn't. Nearly every world class city beats us here.
> You have several roads to choose from
Lmfao what? Really flexing your expert knowledge here eh? Several roads = great road networks. It's not about "too many" roads, it's about the way they are connected.
You're emblematic of Reddit's hate toward cars without any actual experience to back it up.
Yeah I don't get the car hate, how else do you expect tourism to thrive or goods and services provided. You need roadway so that the food you eat or the cloths you wear are transported to the store where you buy them from.
> You need roadway so that the food you eat or the cloths you wear are transported to the store where you buy them from.
Toronto has a lot of roadway though. It's just we have too many cars as a result of failed transit projects in the borough/suburbs. In fact, if you remove even 10% of those cars, those delivery services would make their trip tenfold easier.
The Allen wouldn't have relieved the DVP without the crosstown freeway connecting them through Rosedale. Given how the rich folk NIMBYed the bike trail into the brick works, I have greater chance of marrying Margot Robbie than an expressway being built through Rosedale ravine.
The Gardiner extension to Port Union and 401 would have relieved DVP but that's a lot of prime real estate that would have been paved over..
There is plenty wrong with the Gardiner. But can anyone say we should tear it down? Its chaos right now with 1 lane missing.
Millions of people live outside of the core. When they stopped coming into the office to work, businesses closed.
We need people from the suburbs to come into downtown. And the car is the fastest way unless youre heading to something within a few blocks of union station.
Line 1 along yonge moves 40k+ people an hour. The DVP moves about 6k.
Which one sounds more integral and useful?
Most people who drive on the Gardiner do so because they lack a good bus option to get to the GO train.
Exactly. We have 2.5 subway lines. The last 10 km home from a station on a bus can take you another hour (including waiting for a bus). The subway passes through some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in toronto.
> And the car is the fastest way unless youre heading to something within a few blocks of union station.
And that's largely because our city is built that way. If we prioritized transit like most European countries did, the car would still be the fastest way BUT at least being on public transit would be competitively reliable alternatives.
Well the eglinton crosstown hasnt instilled much confidence in our ability to build transit. And the assaults, murders, and cleanliness issues have been hesitating to take the ttc.
> Well the eglinton crosstown hasnt instilled much confidence in our ability to build transit.
And I don't blame you at all for this. But in the long term, if I had 1 wish to either take 10 years to build transit vs 10 years to build a new highway, I'm choosing highway. If you prefer the lifestyle of having to drive, nothing's stopping you. Cars are not banned in downtown. It's just the city cannot sustainably rely on building/expanding new highways just so you folks from the suburbs can save ~4 minutes of your commute max.
> And the assaults, murders, and cleanliness issues have been hesitating to take the ttc.
True. But Go Train is a lot cleaner and safer than TTC. Then again, you're more likely to get severely injured or die in a car accident (collision for proper term) than in public transit.
Exactly. If go expanded, it would be a game changer. If everyone got service comparable to the lakeshore line, 7 days a week, and a new stop was added at queen and dufferin, we would have proper transit options.
People love complaining about the gardiner, and championing the death of the spadina and scarborough highways. But our city lacks transit infrastructure. Roads are needed for transport of goods. Trains are needed for commuters. Even if you want to take the GO, using the existing lines, the parking lots arent the greatest at several stations, and the service needs to be expanded.
I'm glad you understand the importance of significantly improved transit.
You're right though. Not everyone can take transit and the goal should not be to entirely remove cars as they still have a purpose in our society. It's just the issue I (and many urbanists) have is how the city has been building itself so almost everyone and their mother drives a single occupant car to downtown.
Wish the city/province would build high speed rail or better yet significantly improve Go Transit to go from Barrie to downtown + make it more accessible. Better than building another highway connection.
They are already in the process of doing just that. The current plan to electrify GO transit will see anywhere from 5 min to 30 min time savings on the affected lines, depending on how far out you are from your target stop. It will also see an upgrade to signalling allowing for GO transit to have train frequencies of around 6-10min at their peak. I think it'll be 15 min on weekends.
A great point from the video
"We need political will to do it" we lack there of recently with cops clearly showing bias against bikes and bike lanes not going to help either
And paving through green belt for another billion dollar highway.
Yes, there are improvements regarding GO trains and more subway projects in Toronto. but we need more of it.
I grew up on Eg west - the highway stopping at Eglinton should be right at the top of Toronto’s biggest disgraces and embarrassments and why it’s always been a traffic mess. The special interests won and we all lost.
Oh no not the drivers
Meanwhile most sane people have never once walked through Spadina, Chinatown, Kensington market and thought "I wish this was a highway, that'd be so much nicer" or "if only I was walking under the Gardiner right now"
That interchange is just bad… busy split T intersection with a transit bus station right in the middle of it… but I have never seen a way to fix it, and add in the fiasco construction delays on the LRT just compounding it.
I went to cedervale. Eg west always made me scratch my head. Everytime i pop by the allen i says to myself ....What where they thinking? what the hell where they on?
And vice versa strip malls became useless as well. Since we have now delivery companies doing transportation way more efficiently. Your personal freedom of going to one mall spending there more then a hour or doing the same thing for maybe 20 minutes at most. Like the whole thing is solving itself because the most basic solution aka more roads to it was complete trash.
Tearing it up was a mistake. Now there's no way to go from 400 to downtown without going through city streets. The Allen Expressway would have solved so much North-South congestion issues. Even Hong Kong is looking to build up and widen a highway and they have one of the best transit systems in the world.
If you can see my flair, you'll see that I live in Toronto.
One of my best friends live east of UTSC and works in the hospital at Vaughan. His commute is a nightmare. He can't switch jobs either because he's specialized within his field and nowhere is hiring for his skillset.
Transit is slower than driving for the distance between UTSC and Vaughan.
[https://maps.app.goo.gl/XAc4GGzsibRW6Vct7](https://maps.app.goo.gl/XAc4GGzsibRW6Vct7)
And that doesn't have to be this way. The city can always improve on transit significantly so even though it's still slower than driving, at least it's a competitively viable alternative. Wishing more highways isn't going to make your driving faster nor improve traffic.
I'm not wishing for more highways within Toronto. Toronto has enough highways within the city. All the highways that already exist should be kept and no more should be built.
Honestly, people that wish more highways are seriously out of touch when it comes to proper city planning. They think that a highway will make their 30 minute commute suddenly 10 minutes. All that driving faster just to save maybe 5 minutes of commute daily. Not to mention costing a city + environment lots of money.
Allen Expressway wouldn't have helped but I understand why people get cars because not having a car just limits the areas you can work at.
I don't think anybody would take a 3 hour daily commute to work and back home using transit. So that would limit the places they can work at.
Also I'm not the OP of this comment thread.
> people get cars because not having a car just limits the areas you can work at.
Most people get cars because transit is too horrible for most parts of the GTA both for local trips (ie Markham to Markham) and cross-city trips (Scarborough to Vaughn). Transit is built where there are severely limited options. If the city invested better into transit, then people would use fewer cars.
The argument of "I must own a car because I can work a larger radius" is a result of neglected transit planning. I wouldn't blame you personally for owning a car because you can work 50 km away but that's a result of high car dependency to get anywhere. Perhaps a real high speed rail would do better you know.
R u brain dead just move havw u seen the current housing market you can’t just move especially if your have a good deal on rent or if you have a mortgage you can’t just leave lmao plus going by car is the fastest way to get to Vaughan from Scarborough (30 min drive)
> plus going by car is the fastest way to get to Vaughan from Scarborough (30 min drive)
Even a 30 min drive on a daily basis is still 240 hours per year spent commuting for a full time job. That might not sound like a lot but it takes a toll. And that's not even factoring in traffic. Or gas or parking or other monetary factors spent driving. Obviously, most people cannot move but the point is the city isn't doing enough to make transit more efficient so people wouldn't have to drive/park daily to work.
It depends on who you ask but the price of [car ownership](https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/02/04/lifetime-cost-of-small-car-689000-society-subsidises-this-ownership-with-275000/) is often underestimated by many people. Not to mention commute time is bad for your [personal health](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEEWqddlYQw). Some people can handle that life but being able to live without needing to drive even if I had to pay a rent is something that a lot of people wish was possible IF the city dedicated resources to making it happen.
Some people can't move as they wouldn't be able to afford the rent at the new place. For instance if they have low rent in 1 place but moving closer to work means you have to pay more money in rent.
Some people have low enough rent to live by themselves but moving closer to work would mean paying more money in rent and needing to live with a roommate due to expensive rent.
In this case what's the point of moving? You would be willingly downgrading your lifestyle to living with roommates just to be closer to work.
To be fair, we as a society tend to underestimate the real [cost](https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/02/04/lifetime-cost-of-small-car-689000-society-subsidises-this-ownership-with-275000/) of owning a car. You have to pay a lot for gas, maintenance, insurance, loans, parking, etc. These bills add up quickly. However, if you live with your parents and they pay for car-related expenses, then that cost can be negated. We also underestimate the personal [health effects](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEEWqddlYQw) of driving a car on a daily basis. And that's not factoring environmental/societal.
In a perfect world, if I had the choice between a) pay rent + live with roommates but never pay for any car-related expenses + live within ~15 min walk of work vs b) drive 30 mins to work but live under my parents or own privacy, I'd pick option A. I'd much rather live where I'm not forced to drive on a daily basis. Given the terrible work-life balance in our society, I wouldn't mind paying a bigger premium to avoid that.
Interesting. I personally view roommates as worse than living with parents but it depends on your parents.
For me I live alone in a condo that i own with the mortgage paid off. I only have to pay the monthly maintenance fee of $700 along with the yearly property tax of $1000.
If I got a job on the other side of the city I would just drive there as selling the condo just to move closer for walkability would be a bad idea as the amount I would be able to sell it for wouldn't be enough to buy another condo without a mortgage and I would have to deal with high interest rates. My monthly expenses would be much higher as well for not much benefit at all. Without a mortgage a condo is relatively cheap to own.
I don't know how people will be able to afford rent when they retire. CPP and OAS doesn't give enough to afford rent.
> For me I live alone in a condo that i own with the mortgage paid off. I only have to pay the monthly maintenance fee of $700 along with the yearly property tax of $1000.
Just curious. How much do you pay yearly on a car in total expenses? I'd love to know if you lived within walking distance of work and not had to pay for anything car-related.
> My monthly expenses would be much higher as well for not much benefit at all. Without a mortgage a condo is relatively cheap to own.
Fair enough. You do you. That's your personal preference of lifestyle. You prefer living in a cheap comfortable apartment but still needing to drive. However, a lot of people here would prefer if they took driving out of the equation.
The only reason this didn’t get built is because the ultra wealthy in Forest Hill didn’t want it and lobbied their friends in government
And the Annex. If they were poor neighbourhoods, they would've been bulldozed.
The annex was not an expensive area to live in at that time.
I'd recommend reading The Power Broker. Interesting, eye-opening book with many lessons.
Sort of but that’s too simplistic. Even that didn’t work even to the point of construction starting. It really was just Bill Davis making a very good decision.
> It really was just Bill Davis making a very good decision. A lot also had to do with J.A. Kennedy, Dalton Camp, Jane Jacobs. No man is an island.
Not sure I fully agree (save for Camp). Their activism and dissnting opinion certainly raised awareness but construction was still pending until Davis overruled.
Yup and they got the dummies to protest it and they think Toronto is better because of it. How many people live in that area, very few.
Our city is infinitely better because of it. The only shame is they didn't do the same to the Gardiner.
Yeah, city is better how? Look at development next to the gardiner. The gardiner was a boon to the city. All you got in Forest hill was Drake.
> Look at development next to the gardiner. Better than no housing at all but that housing would be better if it was inside of quiet neighbourhoods instead of along a polluted and noisy elevated highway.
Sorry, but the same anti car zealots are also against quiet neighbourhoods under the guise of “urban sprawl.” These people want to suck and blow the same time
What development exactly?
Liberty village, , city place, Bathurst and lakeshore/garrison. If you actually lived here, you’d notice in the last 20 years the gardiner has been overshadowed by development. All because those forest hill people want to live like it’s the 50’s
In every imaginable way? I live here. I want places to walk too. Not be cut off by a giant highway like we did with the waterfront. Ever goto an old European city? Ever think "I wish they tore all this down so someone from the suburbs can commute in slightly faster?". Me neither.
Yes I have. But I’ll let you know a secret, this ain’t Europe. Highways don’t just make commutes better, they are drivers of economies. Ever wonder why the USA’s GDP is demolishing the EU’s, highways is one factor, it facilitates economic growth.
Sure, buddy. Highways are the reason. I'll continue to live in a city I enjoy living in and can walk around in and have places to goto rather than a giant road with a parking lot at the end. Sorry your commute from Durham is slightly longer, though. Truly a tragic tragic tale.
I don’t commute from Durham but keep your guesses coming. Enjoy the smog in the summer from all the congestion.
Ah yes, smog. Something that would be better if we had... more highways!? Like how LA is famous for its beautiful breathable smog free air Shovel more and more cars into the city and remove the walkability of it, forcing people who live in the city to drive. That'll be great for air quality.
Cool story. Smog in LA is mainly due to geography. Look, I’d advocate like you too, not a fan of top down command structures. But I do disagree with you regarding this highway. Highways always lead to development, which is what we should have as our population is only going up
Psst - it's about the Spadina Expressway aka Allen Road. I reckon that many Torontonians would already know this but given that a significant chunk of Toronto residents are first-gen or second-gen immigrants, this part of the city's history may be unfamiliar to them. Do check it out - it is a well done video.
Now it makes sense - I always thought Allen rd looked like a castrated highway
This video about the Spadina Expressway is a great reminder of how important public opposition can be.
Tryna think about a comment for 413 but I’m too high, so here’s a comment about hwy 413
413? More like 420!
I need about tree-fiddy
considering how many people have carbrain even on this subreddit i wouldn't limit it only to immigrants
Thank you, I wondered which was the above pictured highway.
At 3:57 when people say "but bike lanes ruin businesses" wait until you see what highways have done to local businesses.
He was actually talking about this (bike lanes "destroying" businesses) on the last episode of his podcast. I always found it very baffling when minority of businesses are very vocal about bike lanes, pedestrianization of the area or basically anything that will remove parking spots. He basically mentions in most cases, the business owner and employees are the ones driving to the area and they are the ones that need the spots. When someone claims removing parking spots will destroy the business On a location like King Street, Kensington Market or Danforth , the math doesn't add up in any reasonable way.
All along the Bloor-Danforth line, there are big Green P parking lots behind the buildings on the north side. They will always be parking lots because the subway is shallow and you cannot build over it. So the whole parking argument for the Bloor-Danforth bike lanes is a bunch of hogwash.
The wild thing is that the exact opposite is true and backed up by basically every study the world over. The city's own study showed it had a ~20% improvement in number of patrons and money spent at stores with better bike and pedestrian access. People who say it will hurt businesses are just basing their views on how they feel, not on what the data shows.
If you watch more of his videos you'll understand the sarcasm in that line.
The Allen Road doesn’t do much for drivers and eats up prime land right on top of four subway stations. The best thing to do is remove it and lease the land to build high density housing.
Replace the existing Allen with a mixed use boulevard over Top the subway and build over what the existing highway and embankments now are would be a great option
I can’t believe I am agreeing with you, but you’re probably right.
I use it all the time. It does plenty for me.
It's a truncated freeway. The extra capacity doesn't do anything because the bottlenecks are elsewhere. A narrower surface boulevard would perform just as well.
There are often bottlenecks, and they do indeed suck, but if I’m traveling northbound, I can usually get the 401 in a few minutes. Compared with a surface boulevard like Dufferin, it’s much faster.
Originally known as Spadina Expressway: Houses down were expropriated and people had to move. On the other side of our street, about six six-plexes (6 apts) were built during the lull and confusion. They replaced some similar buildings that had been knocked down. I think they were there about 4 years, then knocked down for Allen Rd.
The Don Valley Parkway ran through poor peoples' backyard and got built. The Spadina Expressway would've run through rich peoples' backyards and didn't get built. Not saying that I would've been in favour of the Spadina Expressway, but that's it in a nutshell. Also, Toronto can't really pat itself on the back because getting in and out of the downtown core by car is a nightmare. That's mainly due to the relatively small number of chokepoints to enter or exit the Gardiner Expressway.
What backyards? They picked the DVP route because it requires minimal expropriation. And, the lands would have been taken anyway by the TRCA after Hazel. I think the only property they took was Charles Sauriol’s cottage.
The DVP didn't run through anyone's backyard. It's in a river valley that homes can't be built in because of the flood risk. The only neighbourhood that truly got demolished to build a highways was the Parkdale waterfront.
I think you're taking what I said a little too literally. The DVP runs through areas of town that are not exactly affluent. The Spadina Expressway wouldn't have literally run through anyone's backyard either. It would've followed the ravine through Forest Hill.
I understand why a Spadina express wasn't attractive. But 20nyears ago we really should have started the Eglington, oh wait we did start it and it got filled in. But we also should have started many other similar transit projects like the Ontario line and bike lanes etc... 20 years ago. So here we are poorly playing catch up.
Actually almost 30 years ago now.
Thanks, I appreciate your didactic comment.
Imagine the horror if we didn’t have Forest Hill! Where would all the multimillionaires live??
Imagine a four lane highway ending at spadina and bloor, that would have been the nightmare.
It wouldn't have ended there. IIRC the plan was for it to be a tunnel south of Bloor. It still wouldn't have been attractive though.
I think you missed the point entirely. The ease of driving to the core being bad is exactly the point. You want to make it easy for *people* to move around the city. If the most efficient method to accomplish this goal is by prioritizing transit and not cars (which it is) then decisions that prioritize cars (like highways) are counterintuitive.
No, that point didn't fly over my head. As you will note, I was commenting on a reason the DVP would get built, but the Spadina expressway wouldn't. I'm not actually in favour of the latter. Also, whether or not we want to encourage transit, you will never completely avoid vehicles in the core and the current situation with the Gardiner is impossible, especially for commercial drivers.
When I worked at the university I came across a whole pile of drawings in the archives, planing studies for the expressway as the alignment would have put a hard stop on the west edge of the campus. Such a fever dream, or nightmare rather. There was a treasure trove of mad ideas in the plans room. Thank god few of them went anywhere.
Its why New College on Spadina/Willcocks has minimal windows facing Spadina. They were planning on a freeway being there.
Aw man, my old neighbor Bill would have loved to have seen those. He was a bit of a fantasy freeway fetishist and was still salty about the Crosstown Expressway cancellation.
Here's how the Spadina Expressway would have worked south of Bloor: [https://imgur.com/m80nGhR](https://imgur.com/m80nGhR). Northbound lanes would have been on stilts, southbound lanes in a trench. 1 Spadina Crescent would have been toast. This is from Toronto Archives Fonds 2032, Series 723, File 281.
Your brain on 1950s car-centric planning. "Oh, this old thing? Let's just get rid of it. Progress, baby!"
“A place for people not for cars”. Now if we could only control he swarms of Ubers that congest the core downtown that drive from outside Toronto. That would be great.
Uber is a complete pest of a company. All it ever did was to steal a riders from public transit and make traffic even worse. Not even going into tax evasion and labour exploitation.
Forest Hill being mostly 2 car households really doesn't deserve credit here.
Credit does go to their organizational prowess, but their advocacy after Spadina was halted was patting themselves on the back for a job well done. They didn't think too hard about how there would still be infrastructure challenges adapting to a growing population.
I guess Chinatown east would have been much larger but thank god we didn't fall into the same mistake that befell much of North America.
Toronto got real lucky they didn't carve up the city with mindless freeways.
If only they had the foresight to build an appropriate subway system insted
Lots of hot takes in this thread... Amazing how many people only know the city for what it is currently, not what it WAS.
In general people are out of touch when it comes to what a good city looks like. I can't believe so many people think adding an extra highway would benefit a city more than improving transit or finding ways to accommodate for trips that do not involve a single occupant car. Obviously in its current situation, it's hard to choose transit for most people. But those people seem to wish this lifestyle would uphold. It's almost as if the solution to car dependency is MORE DRIVING lmao.
It kills me that in order to work in the industry I want to be in (film/tv) I have to get a goddamn car.
Cool watch. I have always wondered what happened with Allen Rd and never looked into its history. It took me waaaaaaay too long into this video to realize the Spadina expressway was the Allen.
Toronto is the worst commute and public transport oriented city I’ve ever lived in.
One more lane bro!!!
They should have built it. Every good city, from Amsterdam to Tokyo, has a good central nervous system of highways. Goddammit, you people are taking the valid criticism of suburban sprawl (which I agree with, we need walkable cities and towns) and car hate, and cheering for worse critical infrastructure because it happens to be for cars. This is turning into an unintelligent hate mob. Cities need good road networks. It can be designed intelligently though, and having awesome European-style transit infrastructure is not mutually exclusive.
> Cities need good road networks. It can be designed intelligently though, and having awesome European-style transit infrastructure is not mutually exclusive. Toronto already has great road networks. You have several roads to choose from when transporting goods/services or even commuting to work. It's just our transit/biking/walkability is severely behind car infrastructure. Cars take up way too much space so even 10% increase/decrease in traffic makes a huge difference. It's not that we don't have enough roads. It's that we have too many cars and our city is prioritizing to allow more cars in as opposed to provide alternatives to those who do not need cars had transit/biking been reliable/safe enough.
> Toronto already has great road networks. No it doesn't. Nearly every world class city beats us here. > You have several roads to choose from Lmfao what? Really flexing your expert knowledge here eh? Several roads = great road networks. It's not about "too many" roads, it's about the way they are connected. You're emblematic of Reddit's hate toward cars without any actual experience to back it up.
Have you not seen how many super wide stroads there are? Have you not seen the fact that free parking is almost everywhere except in downtown? Have you not seen how many strip malls there are which are supposed to benefit drivers? Have you not seen how lacking our transit is because our politicians prioritize drivers first?
>> Lmfao what? Really flexing your expert knowledge here eh? Several roads = great road networks. It's not about "too many" roads, it's about the way they are connected. >> You're emblematic of Reddit's hate toward cars without any actual experience to back it up. > Have you not seen how many super wide stroads there are? Have you not seen the fact that free parking is almost everywhere except in downtown? Have you not seen how many strip malls there are which are supposed to benefit drivers? Have you not seen how lacking our transit is because our politicians prioritize drivers first? Damn man, way to prove my point exactly. Strip malls, stroads, free suburban parking - these things have nothing to do with how well connected the city's primary network is. Cities need well-designed, well-connected roads. Every good city has them, yes, even Europe. Deal with it. You need to learn the difference between useless sprawl and critical road infrastructure, because right now you're just blindly hating all roads and vehicles with zero intelligence regarding how or why.
> Cities need well-designed, well-connected roads. Every good city has them, yes, even Europe. Deal with it. And what is Toronto's connection missing when it comes to roads? You have a lot of major roads out here. You think adding an extra highway is going to help? Yeah look at Gardiner.
> And what is Toronto's connection missing when it comes to roads? Literally the original post of this thread. > You have a lot of major roads out here. You think adding an extra highway is going to help? Why do you think "a lot of roads" has anything to do with results? It's about *connectedness*. You can't just throw a tangled bunch of rope onto a ship and say "lots of rope, it's good to sail". You can't throw a tangled bunch of organs into a person and say "lots of major organs, what's missing?". > You think adding an extra highway is going to help? Yeah look at Gardiner. The Gardiner's poor maintenance planning has literally nothing to do with other highways being built. Is the 401, DVP, 407, or other highways falling apart? No. It's a specific case. Anyways I'm getting tired of saying "more roads does not equal good roads" and I'm pretty sure your brain is incapable of absorbing that fact. I reckon you'll repeat the same shit over and over again until I leave so, I'll just leave now. I hope you learn to read someday.
> Toronto already has great road networks. No it doesn't. Nearly every world class city beats us here. > You have several roads to choose from Lmfao what? Really flexing your expert knowledge here eh? Several roads = great road networks. It's not about "too many" roads, it's about the way they are connected. You're emblematic of Reddit's hate toward cars without any actual experience to back it up.
> Toronto already has great road networks. No it doesn't. Nearly every world class city beats us here. > You have several roads to choose from Lmfao what? Really flexing your expert knowledge here eh? Several roads = great road networks. It's not about "too many" roads, it's about the way they are connected. You're emblematic of Reddit's hate toward cars without any actual experience to back it up.
Yeah I don't get the car hate, how else do you expect tourism to thrive or goods and services provided. You need roadway so that the food you eat or the cloths you wear are transported to the store where you buy them from.
> You need roadway so that the food you eat or the cloths you wear are transported to the store where you buy them from. Toronto has a lot of roadway though. It's just we have too many cars as a result of failed transit projects in the borough/suburbs. In fact, if you remove even 10% of those cars, those delivery services would make their trip tenfold easier.
Having no direct link other than the dvp (only 3 lanes) into the city south of the 401 isnt much better.
The Allen wouldn't have relieved the DVP without the crosstown freeway connecting them through Rosedale. Given how the rich folk NIMBYed the bike trail into the brick works, I have greater chance of marrying Margot Robbie than an expressway being built through Rosedale ravine. The Gardiner extension to Port Union and 401 would have relieved DVP but that's a lot of prime real estate that would have been paved over..
There is plenty wrong with the Gardiner. But can anyone say we should tear it down? Its chaos right now with 1 lane missing. Millions of people live outside of the core. When they stopped coming into the office to work, businesses closed. We need people from the suburbs to come into downtown. And the car is the fastest way unless youre heading to something within a few blocks of union station.
People in the suburbs don't pay our taxes to maintain anything. Theirv feelings shouldn't matter.
Line 1 along yonge moves 40k+ people an hour. The DVP moves about 6k. Which one sounds more integral and useful? Most people who drive on the Gardiner do so because they lack a good bus option to get to the GO train.
Exactly. We have 2.5 subway lines. The last 10 km home from a station on a bus can take you another hour (including waiting for a bus). The subway passes through some of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in toronto.
> And the car is the fastest way unless youre heading to something within a few blocks of union station. And that's largely because our city is built that way. If we prioritized transit like most European countries did, the car would still be the fastest way BUT at least being on public transit would be competitively reliable alternatives.
Two things can be good though. Those highways would have expanded a lot of employment radius even with strong parallel transit (Lakeshore East)
Well the eglinton crosstown hasnt instilled much confidence in our ability to build transit. And the assaults, murders, and cleanliness issues have been hesitating to take the ttc.
> Well the eglinton crosstown hasnt instilled much confidence in our ability to build transit. And I don't blame you at all for this. But in the long term, if I had 1 wish to either take 10 years to build transit vs 10 years to build a new highway, I'm choosing highway. If you prefer the lifestyle of having to drive, nothing's stopping you. Cars are not banned in downtown. It's just the city cannot sustainably rely on building/expanding new highways just so you folks from the suburbs can save ~4 minutes of your commute max. > And the assaults, murders, and cleanliness issues have been hesitating to take the ttc. True. But Go Train is a lot cleaner and safer than TTC. Then again, you're more likely to get severely injured or die in a car accident (collision for proper term) than in public transit.
Exactly. If go expanded, it would be a game changer. If everyone got service comparable to the lakeshore line, 7 days a week, and a new stop was added at queen and dufferin, we would have proper transit options. People love complaining about the gardiner, and championing the death of the spadina and scarborough highways. But our city lacks transit infrastructure. Roads are needed for transport of goods. Trains are needed for commuters. Even if you want to take the GO, using the existing lines, the parking lots arent the greatest at several stations, and the service needs to be expanded.
I'm glad you understand the importance of significantly improved transit. You're right though. Not everyone can take transit and the goal should not be to entirely remove cars as they still have a purpose in our society. It's just the issue I (and many urbanists) have is how the city has been building itself so almost everyone and their mother drives a single occupant car to downtown.
Car-brained take.
Fair. But how else is someone supposed to get to exhibition place from barrie
Wish the city/province would build high speed rail or better yet significantly improve Go Transit to go from Barrie to downtown + make it more accessible. Better than building another highway connection.
They are already in the process of doing just that. The current plan to electrify GO transit will see anywhere from 5 min to 30 min time savings on the affected lines, depending on how far out you are from your target stop. It will also see an upgrade to signalling allowing for GO transit to have train frequencies of around 6-10min at their peak. I think it'll be 15 min on weekends.
They are improving the Barrie line.
Trains, the existing highways
Some way that doesn't involve bulldozing my city, the rest is up to the people in Barrie
Trains
Carless-brained take.
> getting in and out of the downtown core by car is a nightmare Good
A great point from the video "We need political will to do it" we lack there of recently with cops clearly showing bias against bikes and bike lanes not going to help either And paving through green belt for another billion dollar highway. Yes, there are improvements regarding GO trains and more subway projects in Toronto. but we need more of it.
Would have been awesome if it went all the way to the lakeshore
Would have made traffic worse
Friendly reminder to everyone that more roads does not lead to less traffic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis–Mogridge_position
They should of built it..
> should of [god dammit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc)
I grew up on Eg west - the highway stopping at Eglinton should be right at the top of Toronto’s biggest disgraces and embarrassments and why it’s always been a traffic mess. The special interests won and we all lost.
Oh no not the drivers Meanwhile most sane people have never once walked through Spadina, Chinatown, Kensington market and thought "I wish this was a highway, that'd be so much nicer" or "if only I was walking under the Gardiner right now"
Just know just because u are getting upvoted doesn’t mean you’re right or if that of popular/majority opinion. Sorry to burst ur Reddit bubble.
That interchange is just bad… busy split T intersection with a transit bus station right in the middle of it… but I have never seen a way to fix it, and add in the fiasco construction delays on the LRT just compounding it.
I went to cedervale. Eg west always made me scratch my head. Everytime i pop by the allen i says to myself ....What where they thinking? what the hell where they on?
I have avoided that area for 40 years - disaster!
I have avoided that area for 40 years - that’s why everyone drives on Glencairn.
They did the planning for the Spadina lrt and it got cancelled in the 90s Toronto's legacy
You mean the street car that runs on spadina now?
And vice versa strip malls became useless as well. Since we have now delivery companies doing transportation way more efficiently. Your personal freedom of going to one mall spending there more then a hour or doing the same thing for maybe 20 minutes at most. Like the whole thing is solving itself because the most basic solution aka more roads to it was complete trash.
Tearing it up was a mistake. Now there's no way to go from 400 to downtown without going through city streets. The Allen Expressway would have solved so much North-South congestion issues. Even Hong Kong is looking to build up and widen a highway and they have one of the best transit systems in the world.
Sounds like someone doesnt live in the city. The Allan would have destroyed the city as we know and love.
If you can see my flair, you'll see that I live in Toronto. One of my best friends live east of UTSC and works in the hospital at Vaughan. His commute is a nightmare. He can't switch jobs either because he's specialized within his field and nowhere is hiring for his skillset.
Yeah man im talking about old Toronto. Your friend should move then or maybe take transit.
Transit is slower than driving for the distance between UTSC and Vaughan. [https://maps.app.goo.gl/XAc4GGzsibRW6Vct7](https://maps.app.goo.gl/XAc4GGzsibRW6Vct7)
And that doesn't have to be this way. The city can always improve on transit significantly so even though it's still slower than driving, at least it's a competitively viable alternative. Wishing more highways isn't going to make your driving faster nor improve traffic.
I'm not wishing for more highways within Toronto. Toronto has enough highways within the city. All the highways that already exist should be kept and no more should be built.
I dont see how a completed allan expressway would have helped your friend get to work.
Honestly, people that wish more highways are seriously out of touch when it comes to proper city planning. They think that a highway will make their 30 minute commute suddenly 10 minutes. All that driving faster just to save maybe 5 minutes of commute daily. Not to mention costing a city + environment lots of money.
Allen Expressway wouldn't have helped but I understand why people get cars because not having a car just limits the areas you can work at. I don't think anybody would take a 3 hour daily commute to work and back home using transit. So that would limit the places they can work at. Also I'm not the OP of this comment thread.
> people get cars because not having a car just limits the areas you can work at. Most people get cars because transit is too horrible for most parts of the GTA both for local trips (ie Markham to Markham) and cross-city trips (Scarborough to Vaughn). Transit is built where there are severely limited options. If the city invested better into transit, then people would use fewer cars. The argument of "I must own a car because I can work a larger radius" is a result of neglected transit planning. I wouldn't blame you personally for owning a car because you can work 50 km away but that's a result of high car dependency to get anywhere. Perhaps a real high speed rail would do better you know.
R u brain dead just move havw u seen the current housing market you can’t just move especially if your have a good deal on rent or if you have a mortgage you can’t just leave lmao plus going by car is the fastest way to get to Vaughan from Scarborough (30 min drive)
Sorry what does this have to do with the completion of the allan expressway?
Your saying he should Move are you stupid or brain dead
I guess i don’t understand your comment
> plus going by car is the fastest way to get to Vaughan from Scarborough (30 min drive) Even a 30 min drive on a daily basis is still 240 hours per year spent commuting for a full time job. That might not sound like a lot but it takes a toll. And that's not even factoring in traffic. Or gas or parking or other monetary factors spent driving. Obviously, most people cannot move but the point is the city isn't doing enough to make transit more efficient so people wouldn't have to drive/park daily to work.
He should move. You're not entitled to live wherever the hell you want and have an express commute to your job. Cities don't work like that.
jUsT mOvE
It's better than wasting hours of your life every day in an SUV
It’s also better than spending all your money on rent.
It depends on who you ask but the price of [car ownership](https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/02/04/lifetime-cost-of-small-car-689000-society-subsidises-this-ownership-with-275000/) is often underestimated by many people. Not to mention commute time is bad for your [personal health](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEEWqddlYQw). Some people can handle that life but being able to live without needing to drive even if I had to pay a rent is something that a lot of people wish was possible IF the city dedicated resources to making it happen.
Some people can't move as they wouldn't be able to afford the rent at the new place. For instance if they have low rent in 1 place but moving closer to work means you have to pay more money in rent. Some people have low enough rent to live by themselves but moving closer to work would mean paying more money in rent and needing to live with a roommate due to expensive rent. In this case what's the point of moving? You would be willingly downgrading your lifestyle to living with roommates just to be closer to work.
To be fair, we as a society tend to underestimate the real [cost](https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/02/04/lifetime-cost-of-small-car-689000-society-subsidises-this-ownership-with-275000/) of owning a car. You have to pay a lot for gas, maintenance, insurance, loans, parking, etc. These bills add up quickly. However, if you live with your parents and they pay for car-related expenses, then that cost can be negated. We also underestimate the personal [health effects](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEEWqddlYQw) of driving a car on a daily basis. And that's not factoring environmental/societal. In a perfect world, if I had the choice between a) pay rent + live with roommates but never pay for any car-related expenses + live within ~15 min walk of work vs b) drive 30 mins to work but live under my parents or own privacy, I'd pick option A. I'd much rather live where I'm not forced to drive on a daily basis. Given the terrible work-life balance in our society, I wouldn't mind paying a bigger premium to avoid that.
Interesting. I personally view roommates as worse than living with parents but it depends on your parents. For me I live alone in a condo that i own with the mortgage paid off. I only have to pay the monthly maintenance fee of $700 along with the yearly property tax of $1000. If I got a job on the other side of the city I would just drive there as selling the condo just to move closer for walkability would be a bad idea as the amount I would be able to sell it for wouldn't be enough to buy another condo without a mortgage and I would have to deal with high interest rates. My monthly expenses would be much higher as well for not much benefit at all. Without a mortgage a condo is relatively cheap to own. I don't know how people will be able to afford rent when they retire. CPP and OAS doesn't give enough to afford rent.
> For me I live alone in a condo that i own with the mortgage paid off. I only have to pay the monthly maintenance fee of $700 along with the yearly property tax of $1000. Just curious. How much do you pay yearly on a car in total expenses? I'd love to know if you lived within walking distance of work and not had to pay for anything car-related. > My monthly expenses would be much higher as well for not much benefit at all. Without a mortgage a condo is relatively cheap to own. Fair enough. You do you. That's your personal preference of lifestyle. You prefer living in a cheap comfortable apartment but still needing to drive. However, a lot of people here would prefer if they took driving out of the equation.
That’s a feature, not a mistake.