Half of Torontonians want all or part of the aging Gardiner Expressway torn down, a new Forum Research poll suggests, but a bigger spending priority for residents is fixing decrepit social housing.

The survey of 865 Torontonians conducted last Tuesday-Wednesday also suggests Mayor John Tory (open John Tory's policard) has his hands full, with voters split on which “mega-issues” — with massive price-tags — they expect him to tackle.

Some 34 per cent of respondents said the Gardiner is not safe to use, according to the poll which has a margin of error of 3 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Just over half, 52 per cent, said the elevated highway should be torn down. Of those, 27 per cent thought it should be replaced with a tunnelled roadway. A further 13 per cent want the Gardiner replaced with a surface roadway, while 12 per cent want parts torn down.

One-quarter want to keep repairing the Gardiner, and a sizeable 15 per cent said they don’t know what to do with it.

Mayor John Tory supports fixing the Gardiner, including an extra $433 million to speed up repairs, but has expressed concern over recent incidents of falling debris, including concrete smashing onto a minivan.

Asked if more than $400 million earmarked for Gardiner repairs is appropriate, 41 per cent said yes, 39 per cent said no and 21 per cent had no opinion.

Forum also listed urgent funding needs and asked respondents to rank them.

Leading in a statistical tie were: repairing Toronto Community Housing Corp. buildings (21 per cent); building a downtown relief subway line (19 per cent) and maintaining the TTC in a state of good repair (18 per cent).

Other priorities were: building the Scarborough subway (14 per cent); repairing the Gardiner (10 per cent); “something else” (8 per cent); and developing the waterfront (6 per cent).

“This is just saying we have so many problems in this city right now, so many mega-issues, that people can’t agree which is the ‘super problem,’” said Forum president Lorne Bozinoff in an interview.

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“So there are a lot of expectations that John Tory will deal with these things, and he seems to want to address them head-on, to own these issues.”

Tory recently called on the federal and provincial governments to chip in $1.7 billion for TCHC repairs. Without help, the city says, 90 per cent of its homes will be in “critical” or “poor” condition within a decade.

Asked if they think Toronto can afford to fix TCHC housing on its own, without financial help from senior governments, 72 per cent of respondents said no, 11 per cent said yes and another 17 per cent had no opinion.

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