Olivia Chow, like Karen Stintz, is interested in reconfiguring the eastern Gardiner Expressway. John Tory wants to do something other than tear the expressway down.

Mayoral candidates Chow and Tory offered up outlines of their positions on the expressway on Wednesday and Thursday, though neither was definitive.

Tory told a “telephone town hall” conference call Wednesday night that he is unhappy with all of the Gardiner options currently on the table.

“Not to foreclose a particular kind of solution, but it is a bottom line for me, a bottom line that I’m not going to vary from: I will not support any solution that extends people’s commute times,” Tory said on the call. “And every single one of the solutions presented so far, every one — including tearing down the Gardiner in particular — extend or make longer people’s commute times. I am not supporting any solution that does that. So I think people should go back to the drawing board, as I hope they’ve done.”

Asked to clarify his position later, Tory said via a spokesman, “The Gardiner will stay up.” He would not say whether he wants to simply repair the eastern section, as incumbent Rob Ford prefers, or pursue some sort of new alternative.

City officials and Waterfront Toronto have recommended that city remove the 2.4-kilometre stretch east of Jarvis St. and replace it with a ground-level boulevard. By the city’s analysis, that option is best for transit, pedestrians and cyclists, the environment, and urban planning goals — but worst for drivers, whose commutes would be slowed.

Tory alleged on the call that Chow would tear down the expressway “as the first order of business,” but Chow has not said so. Her spokesman, Jamey Heath, suggested that she is favourable to the “hybrid” realignment proposal put forward by developer First Gulf, which wants to build 15 million square feet of office space on nearby land.

The proposal, first advocated by Stintz, would free city-owned property for lucrative development by straightening the looping section of the Gardiner east of Jarvis. The Gardiner connection to the Don Valley Parkway would be preserved, while the section that currently stands east of Cherry St. would be torn down.

“Her position is there’s an interesting proposal that would retain the DVP-Gardiner link, and she’s looking forward to reading the report about it,” Heath said.

Candidate David Soknacki said on the website Reddit in March: “I would suggest keeping the east Gardiner until funded transit is available in the area – say LRT in the Port Lands. I'm also willing to consider the (First Gulf) proposal.”

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