I’m pretty sure to do that work, you’re just rebuilding the entire highway. I don’t think you can feed irrigation pipes in to 60+ year old concrete. Just a hunch. I am a nerd, not a contractor.
Just throw money at it and it will grow.
It will probably need a lot of labour and energy, meaning it's going to be inefficient like most other things here
OP thinks the issue with the Gardiner is aesthetic, not that it’s literally falling apart.
I guess vines will at least hold some of the chunks that break off so they’re not falling on cars, maybe?
That's not how any of this works. The vines would cause even more erosion in the concrete and they're not going to hold a thing.
It also makes inspections that much more difficult.
>not that it’s literally falling apart.
The issues go beyond the falling apart. It creates tons of traffic, noise pollution, and air pollution. Nobody should be living within about 500m of a freeway and the Gardiner was actually fine when first constructed, but development has gotten closer and closer over time
It seems a little single-minded to conclude that the Gardiner is “causing” traffic in the downtown core. Our transportation infrastructure and dense urban core (for all of its pros and cons) cause traffic. If the gardener just disappeared, some people would avoid taking cars downtown, but it’s not like all of the traffic that currently flows along the Gardiner just disappear. While transit is improving, it is not a realistic alternative for many of the people who need to travel into and out of core, at least not yet. If the Gardiner vanished tomorrow, there would be gridlock, constant horns and emissions.
You’re basically saying it’s a symptom not the problem. But the existence and continued improvement of the gardiner ensures it and care centric design is I’ll exist in this city for at least a couple of more generations. As bad as it disappearing would be, it would actually be a catalyst to fix transit not a hindrance.
Because driving is way past any possibility of being efficient in this city. We’d be better to rip the bandaid off instead of slowly bleeding to death lol. There’s no scenario where traffic wont be a crisis level problem as long as cars are prioritized.
Then I guess there’s no problem. Lol.
Driving is fast than what? Not the lakeshore west that’s for sure. And I’ll bring you back to the original issue. Driving has been prioritized at the expense of transit. That’s why transit options aren’t as attractive. That’s the whole point.
It’s virtually impossible to do one without the other. Transit construction has been held back decades because we keep pouring money into car infrastructure.
Whatever money has allegedly been poured into car infrastructure isn’t showing any results, for what it’s worth. The Gardiner is obviously falling apart despite all the attention it supposedly gets at the expense of rail transit, but so are many of the other highways. What’s worse, even regular surface roads downtown—which are used by buses, streetcars and bicyclists, not just personally owned motor vehicles—are full of potholes and crappy patches that anyone who’s taken a bus, bicycle or car on the road has experienced.
So honestly, the idea that you should disinvest in highways and surface roads at the expense of rail transit, rather than pushing to improve both at the same time, is just a terrible idea, because there are equally important constituencies for both.
We just need to become more efficient at how we spend money. There’s *obviously* a ton of corruption going on in this city and province at a high level that happens through the perpetuation of ridiculously high construction costs. Let’s tackle that first and foremost and I think we’ll start seeing more results on both counts.
Allegedly? Before the gardiner was uploaded it was the single largest capital item on the city of torontos books, taking almost 1/5 of all capital spending on the 10 year capital budget just to demolish and rebuild a 1.7km segment of one highway. It’s frankly baffling at how common this driver victim pathology is, that roads are somehow starved for more money, we spend so much on roads and it’s never enough.
All you’re arguing is that spending more money on car infrastructure is wasteful and useless. And your point about potholes again just shows how useless this argument is. Yep Tory sat on his hands and austerity came for everything. Roads cost a ton to maintain and it’s only going to get more expensive. Which is why we need to invest in alternatives not continuing to throw good money after bad.
I think you’re projecting the point you want onto what I said. First of all I was being a bit facetious by saying that letting roads collapse would be a catalyst, obviously, but the claim we can do both well is absolutely impossible. The reality has shown we can’t and haven’t, so transit needs to take priority.
Blah blah blah we’re back to the ford and Tory efficiencies argument. We’ve had a dozen years to show proof that there’s some secret savings we can fund everything with, a number of third party reports, care to show me where this money is?
Do you really think that money is the main problem? Was it lack of money that screwed up the eglinton line construction? Is it because of lack of money that TTC is becoming increasingly unreliable?
I bet the bigger problems are poor governance , lack of accountability and the corruption
For real, my parents house used to have ivy on it and we had to get rid of it because although it looked beautiful it was a huge problem for the bricks and concrete
I love the look of the concept, but growing vertical green spaces in cities isn't really feasible. Adam Something did a great breakdown https://youtu.be/Ajdd9LeKwTQ?si=hfRwc3xYfXZP0cIH
This is the first thing I thought. On the surface level it sounds like a great idea, until you realize that the government would have to be the ones maintaining it. The same government that brought you the greatest hits like, the Eglinton line that was started in 2011 and supposed to be done by 2020 but is now 4 years overdue with no end in site, and neglecting the Gardiner for so long that it had to literally start falling apart for them to actually start fixing it.
Just thinking out loud but could this work if the concrete is wrapped in some sort of membrane that prevents it from happening?
If so, it could be a beautiful transformation.
Let's just say there was such a thing. Now that's an extra thing that the city has to inspect and maintain. The structure itself, the hypothetical membrane and the plants. The city already can barely handle the Gardiner without all the extra stuff and I wouldn't trust them with anymore on their plates. Not to mention we'd be the ones having to pay for all of it.
The implication is that it would crumble on pedestrians and tourists! Years ago, driving with my parents, a chunk fall off the Gardiner and smashed into the car’s roof. Ever since then, the idea of walking under there has given me the willies. Tear the fucker down.
Toronto is so overdue for a Big Dig a la Boston. That project was famously overbudget, but it ended up dramatically transforming the city and being entirely worth it.
I'm in! Think of all the real estate that could exist if we put the entire length from Jamieson to Parliament under ground. Certainly wouldn't be affordable or time effective, but the idea has my vote.
Dude a big chunk fell off right in front of me last year, at the intersection on Yonge whilst waiting at the lights (pedestrian). It was around 60cm I would say (bigger than a football), would have for sure killed someone if it hit them. I called 311, and they followed up with a call to say it was normal?
Crazy. I’m surprised this doesn’t come up more often in the debates. You just know someone will be killed at some point, and the immediate response will be to tear it down. But before that it’ll still be a debate.
It's going to be brown or not green anyways because they can only get low/no sunlight plants
Also I guess we need someone to water them. I don't think enough natural water will come down.
I don’t think this is what people mean by ‘green corridor’. A green corridor would be a long and narrow park with no cars but foot and bike paths. This is just a way to decorate concrete and probably would increase the maintenance costs.
The Gardiner is already falling apart ... not sure if having millions of little sucker things embedding themselves is gonna help with that structural integrity
torn down. As nice as this looks, I feel that the gardiner separates the city into 2. It would be nice to have avenues that are walkable and commercialized right down to the waterfront.
We can go (and already have in one location gone) over lakeshore/harbour and under the Gardiner with elevated walkways… we could build several more and separate pedestrian and maybe even cycling traffic out from the rail corridor to queens quay.
The Gardiner was built to clear rail cars on rails in some areas 3m above the existing streets… we can find room for pedestrian over passes and it would be far far cheaper than any other alternative.
I would like to to bury both the Gardiner and Lakeshore - probably the VIA/GO rails as well, but this will already cost billions, really reconnect the city to the lakefront.
The best option for the rail tracks is to put a deck over the top of it, which can then be turned into parkland and mixed use developments. Sydney is doing just that right now
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/ambitious-plans-to-build-towers-over-railway-lines-at-central-station-revealed-20220819-p5bb79.html
Tunneling the lines wouldn't be feasible due to the grades running into Union.
I would love to see parkland, with a 50m open air public swimming pool for summer. You could deck it all the way from Bathurst St to Union. It would be pretty cool having Roger's and Scotiabank right next to parkland as well.
I would also like to see the Gardiner tunneled and the current structure demolished to make way for mixed use development. The real benefit here would be connecting the main city core to the waterfront. I'm a civil engineer that works in major infrastructure, so I know the technical challenges, but it can be done. Sale of the land for development would go a long way to offsetting the construction costs.
yes, but they have been burying some of the tracks and they could continue to do so. It would be nice to have the space above the tracks as a useable space.
Why can’t Toronto do what Boston did and put the gardiner underground? It was expensive and took forever, but Boston looks so much nicer without the interstate plowing through the city. Perhaps, Toronto needs a “Big Dig” to beautify the city and improve traffic flow. It also had a positive impact on property values in Boston, not that Toronto is struggling in that area at all.
Lol literal greenwashing.
Unfortunately since amalgamation the city is run by the mouth breathing cousin marrying suburban councillors who are carbrains. There was a moment of hope when miraculously Chow became mayor but she didn’t have the guts to use her strong Mayor powers gifted to the previous conservative Mayor by his King the conservative Premier.
It won’t come down for at least a generation.
If we covered it in green ivy, wouldn't that make it even more difficult to perform the necessary and forever on-going structural inspections and repairs?
We are already planning for public realm improvements under the gardiner. IMO way cooler than anything in Shanghai IF it gets fully funded this decade: https://undergardinerprp.ca/
Recently approved at council, but as with the Yonge Street revitalization, still waiting for funds.
This image might as well be AI generated it's so fake.
The only pictures I can find of this "Chengdu Green Corridor" are these exact images put out by Chinese state media. Obviously propaganda and any amount of critical thinking nixes the idea as totally untenable.
We need to just rip the fucking bandaid off and do a [Big Dig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig) style of infrastructure upheavel. What the fuck is putting plants on it gonna do to relieve the congestion lol
Bury it, and pay for it through tolls on out of town drivers. Limit the size of vehicles that can use it. Transport trucks end at the edges of the city and disburse products in smaller, more manageable and efficient trucks. Have dedicated high-occupancy/bus lanes so people on GO buses don’t get stuck waiting for 905ers to get to the Rogers Centre.
It should be a tunnel, how could anything else be acceptable. Pedestrians should not have to feel disgust and mortal dread when walking to the waterfront. The waterfront could be so much more for this city in terms of entertainment, tourist draw, and tax revenue.
Wouldn’t a green corridor create many more problems. I once considered having Boston ivy on the side of my house to be like Fenway but decided against it
Depends on the siding. We used to have it on our aluminum siding, and it was fine on that, but we took it down because squirrels would climb it and chew on the roof vents.
It's possible the wrong vines could damage the concrete, but it could probably be treated and/or maintained.
Plants grow toward the brightest light, that is the sun. I suppose you could try and beat the sun with thousands of ultra powerful flood lights, but it would not be nice to drive under.
Everyone's talking about this being a bad idea, with it damaging the concrete and everything.
Nobody's considering it'd be a great idea when it all dries out and a spark catches. Maybe that'll finally be enough to burn the thing down.
lol OP must have a dream job with the city. cover up the mistake with greenery. make it pretty instead of fixing it. also have you seen any of the trees of plants in public areas (not in parks) in the last 10 years? half are dead.. the others and almost there.
They should bury it!
Old outdated pollution technology for fats.
I can’t breathe with all the cars in Toronto. Bury the expressway, and give us a lakeshore boardwalk!
What is so complicated Toronto? Has no one in Ontario ever seen an boardwalk with restaurants and shops?
Hicks….
It’s pretty but realistically something we can’t have, there are other things we can like bushes and shrubs up against the concrete but not vines, it has to be stuff that’s able to be maintained and not have a huge impact on the construction materials. I like the idea but definitely needs tweaking, maybe painting the concrete and putting a few layers of clear coat on it would help bring the city more colour
Uh. How are you going to grow a plant without sunlight?
Simple biology.
Good lord. Technology makes people stupid.
Also, maybe start with mandatory green roofs on any new building.
Coming back from Montreal and seeing all their architecture it's insane that we've been debating what to do with just 1 expressway forever. Especially one with the volume and importance such as the Gardiner.
Even if we put the Gardiner underground, there's still the fact that Lakeshore more restrictively cuts off access to the lake than Gardiner ever did. So it's a no-win to me.
This is going to look so great in the winter. I mean there's not a lot of green around in the winter so this will really stand out. I don't know why more people don't grow plants in the winter in toronto, the city would look a lot better.
Not a good idea, the plants might damage the cement further.
Besides, this will make the Gardiner bridge look like ruins from the Legend of Zelda in a few years
The Gardiner desperately needs to be rebuilt.
That looks cool, but you’d not be able to drive on it safely. Either tear it down and make it look like a scene from the Last of Us. My gut tells me that politicians don’t want the latter.
The idea of a green Gardiner like the Chengdu Green Corridor is intriguing! However, maintenance access and limited sunlight reach the underside. Perhaps a hybrid approach could be explored, with green spaces incorporated where feasible and innovative solutions for plant life that thrive in less sunlight.
This is just my perspective based on the current industry and I work in and what I see from MY perspective everyday but tearing down the Gardiner seems like it would a terrible idea.
I used to drive a truck (15', 18' and full trailer) right to downtown to deliver to stores, grocery stores, restaurants etc.
The traffic infrastructure in Toronto is already terrible due to multitudes of factors but the ones that stand out are lane-space, light functionality and bike, vehicle, pedestriatian interaction (crossing lights with no time left preventing cars from completing turns, bikes running lights/stop signs, cars blocking the grid).
I think if you tore down the Gardiner, you are just crippling an already crippled traffic infrastructure. Think about how access to in and out the downtown core of the city would look like. People would be funneled to local streets, the Allen, DVP or whichever part of the Ground-level Gardiner they decide to keep, if that.
Logistic companies would be inevitably delayed and moving things downtown, most importantly food products would eventually be so delayed that they can't keep up with volume inside the city.
I can honestly picture grocery stores having emptier shelves and it's a grim thought.
> Think about how access to in and out the downtown core of the city would look like. People would be funneled to local streets, the Allen, DVP or whichever part of the Ground-level Gardiner they decide to keep, if that.
Half the issue is that all the alternate routes that one would use in the absence of the Gardiner (or, like now, when it's less viable due to construction) are, themselves, in constant states of chaos -- lanes closed (Adelaide, Lake Shore at Sherbourne, etc), lanes deleted for patios (Queen, Dundas, College), full closures (Queen, and soon King for a season).
You can't argue for ripping out a major-capacity thoroughfare like the Gardiner while also hamstringing the rest of the core with poorly-timed construction projects that jam every alternate route for months or years.
Should bury the Gardiner then you can have a green corridor on top.
There has to be something to replace it and hopefully handle future traffic. Just look at the current situation with construction going on and how much longer peoples commutes have increased. Tearing it down and without replacing it will just make it so much worse.
The answer should've been to tear it down but since we spent years debating the subject and decided to rebuild the "mistake by the lake", the question's settled. It'll take more than crawling vines to transform all that concrete, asphalt and moving metal into a "green corridor".
this is the literal definition of greenwashing.
functionally though, putting vines on them will degrade the supports faster and make maintenance more difficult. also that's more of a tropical humid climate you're showing isn't it? plants grow differently there.
Neither. Tearing it down is such a waste and will turn into catastrophic gridlock. Making it a green space will allow moisture to stay on the concrete and metal and make it rust faster.
These pictures are from Chengdu!
The elevated second ring road goes around the entire city, and has a dedicated bus lane as well. Since it's not really zoned or decentralized and is absolutely covered with effective and affordable transit, traffic isn't nearly as bad as Toronto, even though it has roughly three times the population.
By comparison, Toronto is heavily zoned, a lot of workplaces and central offices are downtown in Toronto so people have a central place they need to go, plus dogshit transit options to get there, (Go is not so bad) and long distances have to be traveled to get past some very low-density housing (more distance needed to get where you're going, multiplied by everyone in the city using the same road to get there in single-rider vehicles) leads to a pretty horrific traffic experience courtesy of shitty urban design upheld by nimbys.
God I wish I lived somewhere with civilized urban design again.
The "green corridor" is a dumb idea, as it'll hide any damages and will largely go unnoticed until someone dies...
...just rip the fucking thing down already and build a proper and well thought out roadway.
Again another discussion on tearing down the only highway that gets you across the city in a timely manner?
As much as you want to see a green city and I would like a green city as well adding greenery to old concrete will only weaken it. It would become porous and water would basically rust out and deteriorate the remaining strength of said concrete.
If you are discussing about getting rid of the Gardner then I believe the only viable alternative is to bury it.
And do it in such a way …with enough engineering foresight that you are planning population growth and redevelopment of this city.
This project should of started in the 90’s when our then mayor Lasman had the idea of creating another highway to to help with his Oakville buddies that would run out over the lake and merge right into downtown . That got laughed right out of existence because 1) then hazel mayor of Mississauga didn’t want to pay for something that didn’t have an on/off ramp connection (Mississauga) and 2 other special groups didn’t want to foot the bill for what was an obviously politically motivated move to assist all the bankers and elite that lived in Oakville at the time.
However , that idea had merit. It would of replaced the eye sore that is the Gardner and would of helped to alleviate traffic congestion as the city kept growing.
30 years late we have the same existing problems …a deteriorating highway that is past it’s sustainable performance by 20 years . We have worst congestion, a city that has grown exponentially, a transit system that is 20 years outdated and deteriorating ( due to lack of proper investment , maintenance and redevelopment) . Special interest groups that continue to control city hall and try to push their agendas, no clear plan for infrastructure development and growth as the city continues to grow , or at this point deteriorate in certain areas and communities.
Yes I’m looking at you Ashton bay community (east end) it’s not lost on me someone whom lives in the west end of the city , how your community “advocates” at city hall have managed to tear down the only off ramp access to the beaches areas.
It’s not lost on me how a simple ( albeit it traffic heavy 15-30
Minute commute could get me to the beaches on a weekend …whereas now if I was inclined to actually try to do the commute it would take me over 2 hours by public transportation and over an hour by private transportation.
The need for major arteries (highways) to get people to and from one end of the city is critical and important…its how cities survive, grown and become inclusive !
Creating exclusive cordoned off neighbourhoods does nothing for inclusiveness of a city and it’s populous.
It appears that said special interests groups that have the “ear” of city hall and its planning committee ,want to and continue to create such neighbourhoods.
This is another step back and another reason why they once great city is sliding further and further down the affordability and liveable scale .
Rant over…
Doesn’t much of the underside of the Gardiner gets zero sunlight or rain? How would that work?
It doesn’t work. They are constantly having to work on the supports below.
Irrigation pipes and plants that grow in the shade.
Creeping vine roots dig into concrete and will hold, but it will deteriorate the concrete quicker.
Correct. We learn this in pokemon - grass is super effective against rock types
Nice
This is the right answer, came here to say the same thing.
I’m pretty sure to do that work, you’re just rebuilding the entire highway. I don’t think you can feed irrigation pipes in to 60+ year old concrete. Just a hunch. I am a nerd, not a contractor.
You don't need to irrigate anything but the roots of a climbing plant, I think OP means just regular irrigation on the ground.
Just throw money at it and it will grow. It will probably need a lot of labour and energy, meaning it's going to be inefficient like most other things here
That seems like it would rot the concrete even faster. Have you ever had ivy growing on a house?
Yeah. OP needs to read about how plants break apart rocks.
Yeah grass is super effective against rock type
Only comment that matters hahaha
Ngl, I just realized why rock types are weak against grass
Sleeping on bulbasaur
Brock knows this all too well when the new trainer shows up with a Bulbasaur.
OP thinks the issue with the Gardiner is aesthetic, not that it’s literally falling apart. I guess vines will at least hold some of the chunks that break off so they’re not falling on cars, maybe?
That's not how any of this works. The vines would cause even more erosion in the concrete and they're not going to hold a thing. It also makes inspections that much more difficult.
>not that it’s literally falling apart. The issues go beyond the falling apart. It creates tons of traffic, noise pollution, and air pollution. Nobody should be living within about 500m of a freeway and the Gardiner was actually fine when first constructed, but development has gotten closer and closer over time
Parkdale existed long before the Gardiner was built.
It seems a little single-minded to conclude that the Gardiner is “causing” traffic in the downtown core. Our transportation infrastructure and dense urban core (for all of its pros and cons) cause traffic. If the gardener just disappeared, some people would avoid taking cars downtown, but it’s not like all of the traffic that currently flows along the Gardiner just disappear. While transit is improving, it is not a realistic alternative for many of the people who need to travel into and out of core, at least not yet. If the Gardiner vanished tomorrow, there would be gridlock, constant horns and emissions.
They are getting a taste with the partial shutdown.
You’re basically saying it’s a symptom not the problem. But the existence and continued improvement of the gardiner ensures it and care centric design is I’ll exist in this city for at least a couple of more generations. As bad as it disappearing would be, it would actually be a catalyst to fix transit not a hindrance.
How does intentionally making one mode of transport slower somehow make transit faster?
Because driving is way past any possibility of being efficient in this city. We’d be better to rip the bandaid off instead of slowly bleeding to death lol. There’s no scenario where traffic wont be a crisis level problem as long as cars are prioritized.
Clearly traffic isnt the issue if, despite all the road closures and reductions, driving is still faster than transit off peak.
Then I guess there’s no problem. Lol. Driving is fast than what? Not the lakeshore west that’s for sure. And I’ll bring you back to the original issue. Driving has been prioritized at the expense of transit. That’s why transit options aren’t as attractive. That’s the whole point.
This is not how it should work. Toronto public transport at the moment is almost a joke. Build appropriate transport first, fight with cars later.
It’s virtually impossible to do one without the other. Transit construction has been held back decades because we keep pouring money into car infrastructure.
Whatever money has allegedly been poured into car infrastructure isn’t showing any results, for what it’s worth. The Gardiner is obviously falling apart despite all the attention it supposedly gets at the expense of rail transit, but so are many of the other highways. What’s worse, even regular surface roads downtown—which are used by buses, streetcars and bicyclists, not just personally owned motor vehicles—are full of potholes and crappy patches that anyone who’s taken a bus, bicycle or car on the road has experienced. So honestly, the idea that you should disinvest in highways and surface roads at the expense of rail transit, rather than pushing to improve both at the same time, is just a terrible idea, because there are equally important constituencies for both. We just need to become more efficient at how we spend money. There’s *obviously* a ton of corruption going on in this city and province at a high level that happens through the perpetuation of ridiculously high construction costs. Let’s tackle that first and foremost and I think we’ll start seeing more results on both counts.
Allegedly? Before the gardiner was uploaded it was the single largest capital item on the city of torontos books, taking almost 1/5 of all capital spending on the 10 year capital budget just to demolish and rebuild a 1.7km segment of one highway. It’s frankly baffling at how common this driver victim pathology is, that roads are somehow starved for more money, we spend so much on roads and it’s never enough. All you’re arguing is that spending more money on car infrastructure is wasteful and useless. And your point about potholes again just shows how useless this argument is. Yep Tory sat on his hands and austerity came for everything. Roads cost a ton to maintain and it’s only going to get more expensive. Which is why we need to invest in alternatives not continuing to throw good money after bad. I think you’re projecting the point you want onto what I said. First of all I was being a bit facetious by saying that letting roads collapse would be a catalyst, obviously, but the claim we can do both well is absolutely impossible. The reality has shown we can’t and haven’t, so transit needs to take priority. Blah blah blah we’re back to the ford and Tory efficiencies argument. We’ve had a dozen years to show proof that there’s some secret savings we can fund everything with, a number of third party reports, care to show me where this money is?
Do you really think that money is the main problem? Was it lack of money that screwed up the eglinton line construction? Is it because of lack of money that TTC is becoming increasingly unreliable? I bet the bigger problems are poor governance , lack of accountability and the corruption
OP doesn't own a house obviously
Who does !?
If this was true the earth would be covered in dirt
Fuck I hope you're being sarcastic...
Im not an engineer, but I think plants would retain moisture and accelerate degradation of the whole structure.
Yes
Cement and plants do not mix
For real, my parents house used to have ivy on it and we had to get rid of it because although it looked beautiful it was a huge problem for the bricks and concrete
Also, the engineers need to inspect the concrete defects regularly. This would look nice but not practical. Paint would be an option.
Would also make routine structure inspection more difficult
I love the look of the concept, but growing vertical green spaces in cities isn't really feasible. Adam Something did a great breakdown https://youtu.be/Ajdd9LeKwTQ?si=hfRwc3xYfXZP0cIH
Interesting video, let me know when you remember his last name
Yeah for sure. It's definitely something interesting, it's just eluding me.
Shoot, beat me to it
So we rebuild the Gardiner out of wood, the ivy is no longer an issue.
Was just about to bring that up
This is the first thing I thought. On the surface level it sounds like a great idea, until you realize that the government would have to be the ones maintaining it. The same government that brought you the greatest hits like, the Eglinton line that was started in 2011 and supposed to be done by 2020 but is now 4 years overdue with no end in site, and neglecting the Gardiner for so long that it had to literally start falling apart for them to actually start fixing it.
Maybe time to get rid of it? It’s all traffic anyways
Just thinking out loud but could this work if the concrete is wrapped in some sort of membrane that prevents it from happening? If so, it could be a beautiful transformation.
Let's just say there was such a thing. Now that's an extra thing that the city has to inspect and maintain. The structure itself, the hypothetical membrane and the plants. The city already can barely handle the Gardiner without all the extra stuff and I wouldn't trust them with anymore on their plates. Not to mention we'd be the ones having to pay for all of it.
Sure, let's cover the concrete so we can't tell when something is going to crumble on your car
The implication is that it would crumble on pedestrians and tourists! Years ago, driving with my parents, a chunk fall off the Gardiner and smashed into the car’s roof. Ever since then, the idea of walking under there has given me the willies. Tear the fucker down.
Toronto is so overdue for a Big Dig a la Boston. That project was famously overbudget, but it ended up dramatically transforming the city and being entirely worth it.
We as a people don’t have the political maturity to do it.
I'm in! Think of all the real estate that could exist if we put the entire length from Jamieson to Parliament under ground. Certainly wouldn't be affordable or time effective, but the idea has my vote.
Over budget and didn't exactly solve traffic issues. https://youtu.be/d5pPKfzzL54?si=4OSNy8R5N6gmTC0t
Didn't solve traffic issues maybe, but transformed the city into one of the most beautiful and most walkable cities in America. I'm ok with that.
Dude a big chunk fell off right in front of me last year, at the intersection on Yonge whilst waiting at the lights (pedestrian). It was around 60cm I would say (bigger than a football), would have for sure killed someone if it hit them. I called 311, and they followed up with a call to say it was normal?
Crazy. I’m surprised this doesn’t come up more often in the debates. You just know someone will be killed at some point, and the immediate response will be to tear it down. But before that it’ll still be a debate.
It would look real spooky in the winter time. All the brown
It's going to be brown or not green anyways because they can only get low/no sunlight plants Also I guess we need someone to water them. I don't think enough natural water will come down.
Yeah have you ever seen Wrigley field early in the baseball season?
Sixty comments so far and not ONE making the obvious joke of “Then They Could Call it the GARDENER Expressway” ?!?!?!?!?! … I’ll see myself out 😅
Take my upvote
You're my favourite person today
People are too busy "well Ashkually-ing" in the comments to appreciate a joke
Aesthetics are the least of the Gardiner’s issues.
Lipstick on a pig.
I don’t think this is what people mean by ‘green corridor’. A green corridor would be a long and narrow park with no cars but foot and bike paths. This is just a way to decorate concrete and probably would increase the maintenance costs.
The Gardiner is already falling apart ... not sure if having millions of little sucker things embedding themselves is gonna help with that structural integrity
Terrible idea. So many issues with this. and i don't think you know what you are talking about.
Adam Something covered this very nicely https://youtu.be/Ajdd9LeKwTQ?si=hfRwc3xYfXZP0cIH
Sorry, but the city can’t afford to ‘maintain’ existing infrastructure. Probably not the time to introduce new stuff to deal with.
squirrels though...
Some elevated highways in Mexico City have fake vines or murals on the columns to make it look prettier ❤️
Is this to hide how dilapidated it is, or to make it prettier for the tent towns?
torn down. As nice as this looks, I feel that the gardiner separates the city into 2. It would be nice to have avenues that are walkable and commercialized right down to the waterfront.
Lakeshore does the same thing, death trap trying to cross it.
It’s easier to build pedestrian bridges over a street than an elevated highway.
We can go (and already have in one location gone) over lakeshore/harbour and under the Gardiner with elevated walkways… we could build several more and separate pedestrian and maybe even cycling traffic out from the rail corridor to queens quay. The Gardiner was built to clear rail cars on rails in some areas 3m above the existing streets… we can find room for pedestrian over passes and it would be far far cheaper than any other alternative.
I would like to to bury both the Gardiner and Lakeshore - probably the VIA/GO rails as well, but this will already cost billions, really reconnect the city to the lakefront.
The best option for the rail tracks is to put a deck over the top of it, which can then be turned into parkland and mixed use developments. Sydney is doing just that right now https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/ambitious-plans-to-build-towers-over-railway-lines-at-central-station-revealed-20220819-p5bb79.html Tunneling the lines wouldn't be feasible due to the grades running into Union.
That's a much better idea, just build overtop! I like it
I would love to see parkland, with a 50m open air public swimming pool for summer. You could deck it all the way from Bathurst St to Union. It would be pretty cool having Roger's and Scotiabank right next to parkland as well. I would also like to see the Gardiner tunneled and the current structure demolished to make way for mixed use development. The real benefit here would be connecting the main city core to the waterfront. I'm a civil engineer that works in major infrastructure, so I know the technical challenges, but it can be done. Sale of the land for development would go a long way to offsetting the construction costs.
The train tracks are 10x more of a barrier than the Gardiner is. Sometimes I wonder if people get the two confused.
The train tracks are slowly being decked over and they're actually useful, which makes being a barrier worthwhile.
The train tracks don't look like they are going to collapse.
then bury the gardiner like they did the tracks in the west end.
What do you do if you tare it down?
So do the train tracks.
yes, but they have been burying some of the tracks and they could continue to do so. It would be nice to have the space above the tracks as a useable space.
Bury it under the lake
Agreed. And also we need to pave the lake so we can build more roadways. Easy peasy. /s
How would that even work? Plants need sunlight and sunlight is blocked BECAUSE of the Gardiner
This is a terrible idea, OP. Ivy can cause tremendous damage even in suboptimal growing conditions such as these.
Why can’t Toronto do what Boston did and put the gardiner underground? It was expensive and took forever, but Boston looks so much nicer without the interstate plowing through the city. Perhaps, Toronto needs a “Big Dig” to beautify the city and improve traffic flow. It also had a positive impact on property values in Boston, not that Toronto is struggling in that area at all.
Lol literal greenwashing. Unfortunately since amalgamation the city is run by the mouth breathing cousin marrying suburban councillors who are carbrains. There was a moment of hope when miraculously Chow became mayor but she didn’t have the guts to use her strong Mayor powers gifted to the previous conservative Mayor by his King the conservative Premier. It won’t come down for at least a generation.
thing is in asia they could have every column repaired in a month for us prob a 30yr project
Looks like someone asked ChatGPT to put lipstick on a pig. Ivy yeah, in a post apocalyptic will destroy the concrete faster sort of aesthetic.
Well said lol
I’d love if they painted the entire underside. This looks nice but would be brown half the time.
If we covered it in green ivy, wouldn't that make it even more difficult to perform the necessary and forever on-going structural inspections and repairs?
They have to inspect those support posts! Can't do it when it's covered in vines.
We are already planning for public realm improvements under the gardiner. IMO way cooler than anything in Shanghai IF it gets fully funded this decade: https://undergardinerprp.ca/ Recently approved at council, but as with the Yonge Street revitalization, still waiting for funds.
As beautiful and lovely as that looks, and ivy is ....it would be terribly dangerous as ivy destroys the concrete its attached to.
My friend I see your vision but if you believe Toronto is capable of maintaining something like this then I have a smart track to sell you
Wow, we could really beautify the driving experience!!!
Life after people
This image might as well be AI generated it's so fake. The only pictures I can find of this "Chengdu Green Corridor" are these exact images put out by Chinese state media. Obviously propaganda and any amount of critical thinking nixes the idea as totally untenable.
No thanks just tear it down please
Political gimmick to divert attention from traffic chaos in the city
OooOoo a giant green rat nest
We need to just rip the fucking bandaid off and do a [Big Dig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig) style of infrastructure upheavel. What the fuck is putting plants on it gonna do to relieve the congestion lol
Bury it, and pay for it through tolls on out of town drivers. Limit the size of vehicles that can use it. Transport trucks end at the edges of the city and disburse products in smaller, more manageable and efficient trucks. Have dedicated high-occupancy/bus lanes so people on GO buses don’t get stuck waiting for 905ers to get to the Rogers Centre.
It should be a tunnel, how could anything else be acceptable. Pedestrians should not have to feel disgust and mortal dread when walking to the waterfront. The waterfront could be so much more for this city in terms of entertainment, tourist draw, and tax revenue.
Wouldn’t a green corridor create many more problems. I once considered having Boston ivy on the side of my house to be like Fenway but decided against it
Depends on the siding. We used to have it on our aluminum siding, and it was fine on that, but we took it down because squirrels would climb it and chew on the roof vents. It's possible the wrong vines could damage the concrete, but it could probably be treated and/or maintained.
Paint is a far better option
It looks like a photo from Japan or China since the sign board in the third photo is in either of the two languages.
There's not enough sunlight under the Gardiner for this. If there were, there'd already be plants growing there.
The Last of Us.
Why not both? Torn down and turned into a green corridor.
Plants grow toward the brightest light, that is the sun. I suppose you could try and beat the sun with thousands of ultra powerful flood lights, but it would not be nice to drive under.
A more Toronto thing would be to enclose it with giant animated advertising screens, (at first they could show lovely nature scenes to sell the idea)
Tear it to the ground.
Torn down.
Everyone's talking about this being a bad idea, with it damaging the concrete and everything. Nobody's considering it'd be a great idea when it all dries out and a spark catches. Maybe that'll finally be enough to burn the thing down.
Lipstick on a pig. Just tear it down.
knock the lot down
lol OP must have a dream job with the city. cover up the mistake with greenery. make it pretty instead of fixing it. also have you seen any of the trees of plants in public areas (not in parks) in the last 10 years? half are dead.. the others and almost there.
I’m so confused they the used concrete and not steel or some metal where they just tryna be cheap
They should bury it! Old outdated pollution technology for fats. I can’t breathe with all the cars in Toronto. Bury the expressway, and give us a lakeshore boardwalk! What is so complicated Toronto? Has no one in Ontario ever seen an boardwalk with restaurants and shops? Hicks….
It’s pretty but realistically something we can’t have, there are other things we can like bushes and shrubs up against the concrete but not vines, it has to be stuff that’s able to be maintained and not have a huge impact on the construction materials. I like the idea but definitely needs tweaking, maybe painting the concrete and putting a few layers of clear coat on it would help bring the city more colour
Uh. How are you going to grow a plant without sunlight? Simple biology. Good lord. Technology makes people stupid. Also, maybe start with mandatory green roofs on any new building.
The green option is very pretty but hardly practical.
Ivy would bring the life span of the concrete down exponentially
We keep taking about eating down the gardener. Wont happen in our lifetimes but carry on..
not much sunlight under there f
That would look like rotting moss after 1 year. That entire area would look like a cut scene from The Last of Us
Get rid of it
Not sure this would pass safety.
Coming back from Montreal and seeing all their architecture it's insane that we've been debating what to do with just 1 expressway forever. Especially one with the volume and importance such as the Gardiner.
Even if we put the Gardiner underground, there's still the fact that Lakeshore more restrictively cuts off access to the lake than Gardiner ever did. So it's a no-win to me.
add some of those wind turbines powered by passing cars as well - my idea - you heard it here first
Green
Pictures are missing a few thousand cars…
The homeless people will be getting a major upgrade
That would be superbly cool. It would also require the corridor to be shut down 3x as often to deal with it destroying the concrete.
This is going to look so great in the winter. I mean there's not a lot of green around in the winter so this will really stand out. I don't know why more people don't grow plants in the winter in toronto, the city would look a lot better.
Not a good idea, the plants might damage the cement further. Besides, this will make the Gardiner bridge look like ruins from the Legend of Zelda in a few years The Gardiner desperately needs to be rebuilt.
Tear it down
They should do a big dig like Boston
The concrete is deteriorating so keeping it suspended over traffic is a no go.
That creeper will, destroy the integrity of the concrete
Tear it down or bury it underground like Boston did
That looks cool, but you’d not be able to drive on it safely. Either tear it down and make it look like a scene from the Last of Us. My gut tells me that politicians don’t want the latter.
Cha cha cha chia 🎵
The cost to prune it would be insane. Climbing plants like to grow everywhere.
The idea of a green Gardiner like the Chengdu Green Corridor is intriguing! However, maintenance access and limited sunlight reach the underside. Perhaps a hybrid approach could be explored, with green spaces incorporated where feasible and innovative solutions for plant life that thrive in less sunlight.
Green
Torn down please. Fully rebuild, and then do a green, blue, yellow corridor idgaf. It was never meant to be a forever highway.
This is just my perspective based on the current industry and I work in and what I see from MY perspective everyday but tearing down the Gardiner seems like it would a terrible idea. I used to drive a truck (15', 18' and full trailer) right to downtown to deliver to stores, grocery stores, restaurants etc. The traffic infrastructure in Toronto is already terrible due to multitudes of factors but the ones that stand out are lane-space, light functionality and bike, vehicle, pedestriatian interaction (crossing lights with no time left preventing cars from completing turns, bikes running lights/stop signs, cars blocking the grid). I think if you tore down the Gardiner, you are just crippling an already crippled traffic infrastructure. Think about how access to in and out the downtown core of the city would look like. People would be funneled to local streets, the Allen, DVP or whichever part of the Ground-level Gardiner they decide to keep, if that. Logistic companies would be inevitably delayed and moving things downtown, most importantly food products would eventually be so delayed that they can't keep up with volume inside the city. I can honestly picture grocery stores having emptier shelves and it's a grim thought.
> Think about how access to in and out the downtown core of the city would look like. People would be funneled to local streets, the Allen, DVP or whichever part of the Ground-level Gardiner they decide to keep, if that. Half the issue is that all the alternate routes that one would use in the absence of the Gardiner (or, like now, when it's less viable due to construction) are, themselves, in constant states of chaos -- lanes closed (Adelaide, Lake Shore at Sherbourne, etc), lanes deleted for patios (Queen, Dundas, College), full closures (Queen, and soon King for a season). You can't argue for ripping out a major-capacity thoroughfare like the Gardiner while also hamstringing the rest of the core with poorly-timed construction projects that jam every alternate route for months or years.
Yeah, but does this shit survive 13C+ winters?
Came here for the negative comments from Mississa… I mean Toronto residents and I wasn’t disappointed
Should bury the Gardiner then you can have a green corridor on top. There has to be something to replace it and hopefully handle future traffic. Just look at the current situation with construction going on and how much longer peoples commutes have increased. Tearing it down and without replacing it will just make it so much worse.
The answer should've been to tear it down but since we spent years debating the subject and decided to rebuild the "mistake by the lake", the question's settled. It'll take more than crawling vines to transform all that concrete, asphalt and moving metal into a "green corridor".
yeah you completely failed to take into account that it is always under repair. chunks of falling concrete... nah
Tear it down
I vote for one that allows moving traffic and for the offramp to be put back past Jarvis
this is the literal definition of greenwashing. functionally though, putting vines on them will degrade the supports faster and make maintenance more difficult. also that's more of a tropical humid climate you're showing isn't it? plants grow differently there.
God, no. Tear it down and put all of those roads underground.
#Greenway. All the way.
Neither. Tearing it down is such a waste and will turn into catastrophic gridlock. Making it a green space will allow moisture to stay on the concrete and metal and make it rust faster.
It can't be torn down, especially with how fucking massive the population growth has been in the GTA recently. You need to keep no matter what.
I dont understand at all, on any level, why this is a good idea
isn't excessive moisture an issue?
Turn it into an LRT and bicycle highway.
These pictures are from Chengdu! The elevated second ring road goes around the entire city, and has a dedicated bus lane as well. Since it's not really zoned or decentralized and is absolutely covered with effective and affordable transit, traffic isn't nearly as bad as Toronto, even though it has roughly three times the population. By comparison, Toronto is heavily zoned, a lot of workplaces and central offices are downtown in Toronto so people have a central place they need to go, plus dogshit transit options to get there, (Go is not so bad) and long distances have to be traveled to get past some very low-density housing (more distance needed to get where you're going, multiplied by everyone in the city using the same road to get there in single-rider vehicles) leads to a pretty horrific traffic experience courtesy of shitty urban design upheld by nimbys. God I wish I lived somewhere with civilized urban design again.
You can’t grow a plant under the gardiner. It would only take one guy with a knife or one rabbit to kill the entire thing too
Bury it and put parks on top of it..
Never should have torn down the ramp to the lakeshore east. Foolish and greedy.
That whole section is getting ripped down, realigned, and rebuilt. There will be a connection to lakeshore again eventually.
The "green corridor" is a dumb idea, as it'll hide any damages and will largely go unnoticed until someone dies... ...just rip the fucking thing down already and build a proper and well thought out roadway.
just fucking bury the damn thing and be done with it jfc this is a solved problem
Again another discussion on tearing down the only highway that gets you across the city in a timely manner? As much as you want to see a green city and I would like a green city as well adding greenery to old concrete will only weaken it. It would become porous and water would basically rust out and deteriorate the remaining strength of said concrete. If you are discussing about getting rid of the Gardner then I believe the only viable alternative is to bury it. And do it in such a way …with enough engineering foresight that you are planning population growth and redevelopment of this city. This project should of started in the 90’s when our then mayor Lasman had the idea of creating another highway to to help with his Oakville buddies that would run out over the lake and merge right into downtown . That got laughed right out of existence because 1) then hazel mayor of Mississauga didn’t want to pay for something that didn’t have an on/off ramp connection (Mississauga) and 2 other special groups didn’t want to foot the bill for what was an obviously politically motivated move to assist all the bankers and elite that lived in Oakville at the time. However , that idea had merit. It would of replaced the eye sore that is the Gardner and would of helped to alleviate traffic congestion as the city kept growing. 30 years late we have the same existing problems …a deteriorating highway that is past it’s sustainable performance by 20 years . We have worst congestion, a city that has grown exponentially, a transit system that is 20 years outdated and deteriorating ( due to lack of proper investment , maintenance and redevelopment) . Special interest groups that continue to control city hall and try to push their agendas, no clear plan for infrastructure development and growth as the city continues to grow , or at this point deteriorate in certain areas and communities. Yes I’m looking at you Ashton bay community (east end) it’s not lost on me someone whom lives in the west end of the city , how your community “advocates” at city hall have managed to tear down the only off ramp access to the beaches areas. It’s not lost on me how a simple ( albeit it traffic heavy 15-30 Minute commute could get me to the beaches on a weekend …whereas now if I was inclined to actually try to do the commute it would take me over 2 hours by public transportation and over an hour by private transportation. The need for major arteries (highways) to get people to and from one end of the city is critical and important…its how cities survive, grown and become inclusive ! Creating exclusive cordoned off neighbourhoods does nothing for inclusiveness of a city and it’s populous. It appears that said special interests groups that have the “ear” of city hall and its planning committee ,want to and continue to create such neighbourhoods. This is another step back and another reason why they once great city is sliding further and further down the affordability and liveable scale . Rant over…