Full removal of the east Gardiner Expressway appears to be the best option for the health of Torontonians, says the city’s medical officer of health.

Dr. David McKeown makes the conclusion in a report released Monday, ahead of next week’s city council debate on the fate of the aging span.

The finding puts him at loggerheads with Mayor John Tory (open John Tory's policard), who is aggressively touting the partial-removal “hybrid” option, and comes only three days after the city’s chief planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, publicly repeated her opinion that full removal is best for the city.

McKeown applied a health “lens” to an environmental assessment, conducted by the city and Waterfront Toronto, of both the removal and partial removal options that would maintain the elevated link to the Don Valley Parkway.

Toronto Public Health’s “rapid health impact assessment” indicates “that the Remove alternative is expected to provide more health benefits overall and fewer adverse health impacts compared with the Hybrid alternative,” states the report’s summary.

The remove option is ranked best in eight of 11 health categories. Partial removal is best in only one, and they are tied in two categories.

McKeown concludes that full removal is best in terms of pedestrian movements; road safety; urban-design planning objectives; streetscape enhancements; better for mix of retail and other uses; social and health impacts of less air pollution; more and better opportunities to create a “new natural habitat”; and a greater number of new jobs, which overall increases heath.

Partial removal, he concludes, is best for global and regional competitiveness because removal may make downtown less appealing to employers and employees because of increased travel times. Both Gardiner options are deemed to have equal health benefits, the report states, in terms of transit availability and cycling infrastructure.

Whichever way council goes, a “health lens” must be applied to Phase II of the environmental assessment that will look at the preferred option, McKeown said.

Tory has said that replacing the Gardiner east of Jarvis St. with an eight-lane boulevard would slow traffic too much. Advocates for the removal option say it would slow only 3 per cent of traffic into the city — a minimal amount — and note removal is predicted to cost $461 million long-term compared to $919 million for the hybrid option.

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