The continuing demolition of the eastbound portion of the Gardiner Expressway on Nov 2, 2021.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
The Gardiner Expressway keeps coming up, and it needs to come down.
The fate of Toronto’s most controversial roadway has been under discussion for a decade. Yet the work of rebuilding it is far from complete. There is time for Toronto’s next mayor to change lanes.
As they should. A compromise decision is still possible, and it matters. Bringing one kilometre of the eastern Gardiner down to the ground would save huge amounts of money while generating a host of social benefits.
Two leading mayoral candidates have pledged to do so. Councillor Josh Matlow has been vocal about his plan to revisit the Gardiner East. And Olivia Chow, widely expected to win the mayoral by-election June 26, has pledged to do the same.
There has been much disinformation around the issue. But what’s at stake now is simple enough: The last section of the Gardiner, from Cherry Street east to the Don Valley Parkway, will be demolished and rebuilt in some form. This work is scheduled to start in 2026.
In May, Mr. Matlow brought up the project and tried to obtain basic information about it: What will it cost in today’s dollars? What work has been done so far? What would be the alternatives?
In a shocking display of willful ignorance, most councillors chose not to find out. Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie called it “irresponsible” to raise the question. Yet city staff acknowledged that the cost estimate of $650-million was in 2013 dollars. Inflation alone takes that number to $828-million in 2023. A billion dollars is plausible.
What are the other options? Some people, including former mayor John Tory, don’t want you to know. The official discussion at city hall has featured a straw man. Last year staff published a briefing note on just one alternative: returning to the 2016 plan, which meant demolishing a newly rebuilt section of highway. Obviously, that is stupid.
But there is another option: Ramp the last section of the Gardiner down to the ground and then ramp it back up to the Don Valley Parkway. Make this section a normal ground-level road. This would be hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper to construct, would be cheaper to maintain, and would pay other dividends.
Back in 2021, I explored those in a study with the urban-design firm Smart Density and real-estate brokerage Colliers.
Impact of Gardiner Expressway
realignment alternatives
Between 2015 and 2018, the City of Toronto approved the “Hybrid 3” plan to rebuild a portion of the Gardiner Expressway. The approved scheme would leave approximately 3 hectares of development land in the area. This year, mayoral candidates Olivia Chow and Councillor Josh Matlow have proposed a compromise scheme that would combine the Gardiner with Lake Shore Boulevard. This would create an additional 2 hectares of development land.
407
400
401
TORONTO
Detail
0
6.5
KM
Lake Ontario
Existing infrastructure
Potential change in infrastructure
Potential city-owned parcel gains
HYBRID (APPROVED)
0
200
MILL ST
m
CHERRY ST
VILLIERS ST
BOULEVARD
0
200
MILL ST
m
CHERRY ST
VILLIERS ST
MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:
CITY OF TORONTO
Impact of Gardiner Expressway
realignment alternatives
Between 2015 and 2018, the City of Toronto approved the “Hybrid 3” plan to rebuild a portion of the Gardiner Expressway. The approved scheme would leave approximately 3 hectares of development land in the area. This year, mayoral candidates Olivia Chow and Councillor Josh Matlow have proposed a compromise scheme that would combine the Gardiner with Lake Shore Boulevard. This would create an additional 2 hectares of development land.
407
400
401
TORONTO
Detail
0
6.5
Lake Ontario
KM
Existing infrastructure
Potential change in infrastructure
Potential city-owned parcel gains
HYBRID (APPROVED)
MILL ST
0
200
m
CHERRY ST
VILLIERS ST
BOULEVARD
0
200
MILL ST
m
CHERRY ST
VILLIERS ST
MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE:
CITY OF TORONTO
Impact of Gardiner Expressway realignment alternatives
Between 2015 and 2018, the City of Toronto approved the “Hybrid 3” plan to rebuild a portion of the Gardiner Expressway. The approved scheme would leave approximately 3 hectares of development land in the area. This year, mayoral candidates Olivia Chow and Councillor Josh Matlow have proposed a compromise scheme that would combine the Gardiner with Lake Shore Boulevard. This would create an additional 2 hectares of development land.
407
400
401
TORONTO
Detail
0
6.5
KM
Lake Ontario
Existing infrastructure
Potential change in infrastructure
Potential city-owned parcel gains
HYBRID (APPROVED)
MILL ST
0
200
m
CHERRY ST
LAKESHORE BLVD E
DON ROADWAY
VILLIERS ST
BOULEVARD
0
200
MILL ST
m
CHERRY ST
LAKESHORE BLVD E
DON ROADWAY
VILLIERS ST
MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: CITY OF TORONTO
If the highway and Lake Shore Boulevard are combined in this one section, 2.18 additional hectares become free for development. Smart Density found this land could house 8,000 apartments plus a mix of other uses. Broker Jeremiah Shamess estimated the land value then at nearly $500-million, and the resulting property taxes would be tens of millions a year. That’s enough to subsidize hundreds, if not thousands, of units of deeply affordable housing.
Think about this for a moment. The Gardiner East fills some of the most valuable land in the Toronto region. Waterfront Toronto is actively working on urban design for this zone, known as “Keating Channel East.” Next door is the high-profile, multibillion-dollar Quayside development. But the city, which owns all the Gardiner land, is choosing to squander part of that asset. Rather than take in half a billion dollars here, the city is planning to spend a billion, much of it unnecessary.
This is equivalent to building a giant bonfire of money. It’s Toronto’s offering to the gods of highway construction.
Yet changing course would be controversial. The right has made the Gardiner an article of faith. Somehow, they argue, this one piece of road – which brings 3 per cent of commuters into downtown Toronto – is critical. If traffic and freight encountered one or two stoplights here, the world would come to an end.
That’s nonsense, and it has always been nonsense. Back in 2015, city consultants recommended the entire Gardiner East be brought down to grade level, having considered traffic as part of the picture. Mr. Tory pushed through the reconstruction anyway. This decision was nakedly political and, to borrow a word, irresponsible.
The city can’t take all that back now. But it can get partway there. A mayor Chow or mayor Matlow will need to act quickly and decisively to fix the mess that Mr. Tory created. Those on the right will complain loudly, feeling no shame as they continue to shovel money onto the pyre that they have lit. With luck, Toronto’s next mayor will have enough strength to stand in the way.