In June, Toronto city council will make a 100-year decision about the future of the Gardiner Expressway east of Jarvis Street. This will be one of the most important debates during this term of council and in the life of our city. The stark choice is between rebuilding a crumbling elevated expressway along our waterfront essentially as we did in the 1960s or replacing it with an at-grade urban boulevard. A hard reality check of both options is instructive.

When council unanimously adopted the Central Waterfront Plan called “Making Waves” in April 2003, it embraced a fundamental core principle “to remove barriers and make connections” between the downtown and the waterfront. It was meant to stand the test of time and accommodate change over the 21st century. Now is the time for council to adhere to this core vision.

The city-building benefits of the remove option are clear. The elevated Gardiner doesn’t exist in isolation. A vast area to the north and south is directly affected by its presence. Removing this barrier would enable us to totally re-imagine the waterfront adjacent to the Keating Channel greatly enhancing public access and expediting the redevelopment of East Bayfront and re-naturalization of the Don River mouth. It would facilitate strong new north-south connections between the water’s edge and adjacent downtown neighbourhoods — St. Lawrence, the Distillery District and the West Donlands. Both options before council would equally stimulate the redevelopment of the Unilever lands as a major office employment centre.

The business case is equally compelling. The remove option costs much less and will generate more long-term revenue for the city. To rebuild and maintain the elevated expressway requires an estimated $919 million over a 100-year life cycle. By contrast, removal of the elevated structure and replacing it with a grand boulevard will cost $461 million and will generate an additional $150-plus million in public land sales on 12 acres of new land. This will lever substantial private sector investment that will transform the eastern waterfront and generate perpetual new tax revenue for the city.

It is important to understand the magnitude of this difference and the opportunity cost in an era of severe budgetary constraints. The $500-700 million saved by building the remove option could build the much needed waterfront Light Rapid Transit line, could make a significant advance on building Smart Track or could help to address half of the outstanding repair backlog at Toronto Community Housing.

From a transportation standpoint, building a new 1960s-style elevated expressway is a losing proposition. It has been long observed that when new roads are built to meet traffic demand, the very existence of the road attracts more traffic and the road quickly becomes congested. Conversely, when existing road access is removed and alternatives are provided many drivers transfer to other modes of travel or change to off-peak hours. This happens permanently as drivers don’t revert. Traffic actually does evaporate to adjust to the new reality.

In our case, only 3 per cent of all drivers accessing downtown use this portion of the expressway, which amounts to 5,200 in the peak hour. Only 20 per cent of vehicles use the Gardiner as a downtown bypass in both directions. This makes it feasible to replace it with a grand boulevard similar in scale to University Ave. with 8 lanes that would continue to accommodate a similar traffic demand. Peak-hour traffic volumes on University Ave. are in the order of 4,000 vehicles.

What we desperately need to do is start to provide alternatives to the car as we experience unprecedented growth, not continue to rely on outdated solutions. Our priority should be on advancing planned additional GO and TTC transit capacity in the corridor over the coming years that will provide alternative travel choices.

If Toronto council can demonstrate the foresight and political will to remove the Gardiner east of Jarvis it will send a positive signal around the world that Toronto now has the confidence to join others in embracing the future rather than the past. We would certainly not be alone. In such cities as New York and San Francisco that have removed elevated expressways, previous traffic volumes have actually decreased by up to 25 per cent along with similar experiences in a hundred other cities around the world. Fourteen other North American cities are currently debating expressway removal.

The complete removal of the elevated Gardiner east of Jarvis Street represents intelligent city building, responsible economics, and wise transportation planning. It is achievable, desirable and is a powerful city-building initiative whose time has come.

Paul Bedford is a former Chief Planner of Toronto. Ken Greenberg is Principal at Greenberg Consultants.

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