When was the gardiner expressway built

Huge pillars support a roof-like car deck. Traffic roars by above. But creative minds are starting to see this dead zone not as an eyesore but an asset. A quirky park, the Bentway, opened under a part of the Gardiner in It was an immediate success, drawing throngs to its skating trail, splash pad and landscaped paths. There are plans to extend it to the east and west. One part of the vision calls for a whimsical pedestrian bridge suspended under the expressway and held up by cables.

A park to be created close by is to include an interactive waterfall and an artificial hill with views to the lake. The parks are only a start. A handsome government liquor store has opened under one section of the expressway, as if that were the most natural place in the world for a liquor store to be. In the same area, near a newly opened supermarket, developers are hoping to build a shopping complex with underground floors. All of this is part of a wider movement to find new uses for aging industrial buildings and bits of urban infrastructure.

Instead of tearing them down or leaving them to rot, cities are turning them into lively public spaces. It draws throngs to the innovative park built on an abandoned elevated railway line. Across the East River, Brooklyn is planning to enliven the spaces underneath an elevated highway, Bentway style. Miami, too, wants to create a linear park and public-art destination under its Metrorail commuter line.

The effort to transform the Gardiner is the most ambitious of these projects. He envisioned a vented glass-covered tube that would run the seven kilometres from end to end of the elevated section from Dufferin Street to east of the Don Valley Parkway.

Tolls would fund the construction costs and beneath the roadway would be new green space and pedestrian walkways. Waterfront Toronto, due to release the final recommendations for its environmental assessment of replacing the section east of Jarvis Street by early , was open to considering new ideas for the expressway. Regardless of whichever plan for the Gardiner's future is ultimately adopted, the elevated section is gradually coming down.

An environmental assessment of this project looking at four options:. Waterfront Toronto prefers the last option of replacing the elevated expressway with a boulevard, but the environmental assessment must look at all options. The assessment is due to report in with the project estimated to be completed by Cost and Federal and Provincial investment are important factors to be considered.

The door is open for the rest of the elevated expressway to eventually be demolished if the section east of Jarvis Street is removed. A City staff report showed that the removal option would increase traffic congestion, so a study had to be initiated to see how the congestion could be mitigated with this option.

Metro Chairman Frederick G. Gardiner pointing at plans for the expressway in The route to the north of the CNE followed a Hydro right-of-way beside the railway tracks to the north of the Exhibition, using approximately 10 acres 40, m2 of CNE land, and requiring the removal of the original Dufferin Gate. A balanced and workable new transportation plan for the City of Toronto. The completed elevated Gardiner Expressway looking west from the Don Valley Parkway across downtown Toronto From completion to the present By , the first rooftop billboards along the Expressway were built, targeting the daily 40, to 60, motorists.

Today, there are dozens of neon signs, billboards and video boards in the proximity of the Expressway, mostly in the sections between Roncesvalles Avenue to Spadina Avenue and east of Jarvis Street.

By , rush hour traffic and accidents in the Jameson area meant that the Jameson westbound on-ramp was closed permanently during rush hours. That same year, after criticism of the safety of the expressway by Toronto coroner Morton Shulman , Metro started installing guardrails on the full length of the Gardiner and Don Valley expressways.

The expressway was already experiencing congestion at the time, and journalists openly questioned whether anyone could reach that top speed with the "horrendous volume of traffic" during peak rush times.

In , a transportation study recommended against construction of the proposed eastern extension across Scarborough, however the city held on to lands acquired for it.

By , it was decided that this extension was not going to be revived, so the plan was dropped. In , the unmaintained grassy hillside in the Sunnyside area on the north side of the Gardiner from Roncesvalles Avenue to Wilson Park Avenue was cleaned up and planted with floral logos, with 26 tonnes 26 long tons of garbage removed in the process. The advertising, which pays for the maintenance and cleaning of the hillside, permits no slogans and no alcohol or tobacco logos.

The logos are planted yew bushes and are maintained by an independent company on the land, which is owned by the Canadian National Railway. In the late s, Metro Toronto proposed to widen the Gardiner to eight lanes from Strachan Avenue to the Humber, and extendFront Street from Bathurst Street west to connect with the highway. The widening proposal was never implemented as it depended on provincial funding which never materialized.

Metro had planned the Front Street extension as part of allowing the Bay-Adelaide office complex and other development downtown to proceed. The Front Street extension proposal was later resurrected as part of proposals to redevelop or dismantle the central section of the Gardiner. The old Gardiner and Lake Shore Boulevard bridges over the Humber River, which had been in service since the s, were removed and replaced by new structures in and The old bridge pillars, which were resting on soil, not on bedrock, had sunk by a metre, giving the eastbound Gardiner a roller-coaster ride or "Humber hump".

Fatal collisions had occurred at the location, including a incident where an eastbound Corvette became airborne and collided with vehicles in the westbound lanes. In the s, after 30 years of usage, the City found that the central elevated section needed extensive repairs, and the ongoing maintenance was expensive.

Proposals started to be floated for the demolition of the Expressway. In the end, city council voted to have the elevated section extensively rehabilitated and the elevated section in downtown Toronto was closed down for extensive repairs. The 's conventional illumination, originally fluorescent, later remodelled into low pressure sodium in the late 's, has been replaced by a combination of shaded high pressure sodium high-mast lighting and conventional high pressure sodium lighting since the early 's.

The highway was never expanded since its initial construction. Today, commuting traffic into and out of the downtown core moves very slowly during the rush hours, leading to growth in commuting by other modes. The former eastern terminus of the Gardiner Expressway near Carlaw Avenue which existed from to High pressure sodium lamps had been installed by The eastern dead end of the Gardiner Expressway at Leslie Street, intended to continue east, Easternmost section of the elevated Gardiner Expressway from the Don River to Leslie Street demolished in and replaced with a landscaped Lake Shore Boulevard with a parallel bicycle path.

Frederick Gardiner on the ramps to the Gardiner Expressway from the Don Valley Parkway just before the opening of this section in Some views of the elevated section of the Gardiner Expressway under construction in The downtown elevated section of the Gardiner Expressway under construction at York Street in looking east. Hybrid Option Wins On June 11, , after heated debate, City Council voted separately on each option for the eastern elevated Gardiner.

Maintaining it as it was was outrightly rejected by a margin of with Councillor and former Mayor Rob Ford casting the lone vote in favour of this option. Tearing down the section east of Jarvis Street and replacing it with a surface boulevard was rejected by a vote. The hybrid plan was narrowly approved by a vote.

Design work and a further environmental assessment of the hybrid plan would begin with construction work to start in This vote signalled a change in City policy to one of improving traffic flow to ease gridlock. Though it was agreed to study options such as a tunnel and transferring the expressway to the Province or to a private company.

Meanwhile, rehabilitation work would continue on the western sections of the elevated Gardiner, including deck replacement. In November , tunnelling options for any section of the Gardiner were dismissed by Council as too expensive. Three options for the eastern Gardiner hybrid plan were considered by the public works committee: New realigned eastbound off-ramp connecting to Lake Shore Blvd. Land implications: Opens about Reconstruct elevated link between Cherry St.

The Bentway, formerly known as Project: Under Gardiner, is a unique and innovative public space that will transform the vacant and forgotten area underneath Toronto's Gardiner Expressway into a new gathering place for today's Toronto, creating 1.

The initial idea to transform the underside of the Gardiner Expressway into a public space came from Judy Matthews, a local Toronto urban planner, activist, and granddaughter of E.

The donation represented one of the most significant gifts in Toronto's history, and it was hoped that it would inspire other Torontonians to make similar philanthropic contributions to city-building initiatives.

Waterfront Toronto, a revitalization agency representing the governments of Toronto, Ontario and Canada, was brought on board to collaborate with the city, along with Ken Greenberg Consultants Incorporated and Public Work to manage project planning and design. The conceptual vision of The Bentway will consist of a 1. It will also consist of 55 outdoor separate civic areas referred to as "rooms," which will host activities such as farmer's markets, gardens, performance theatres and exhibition halls, spanning three main sections.

Tolls Tolls on the Gardiner Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway, considered when City Council voted to approve the hybrid option for the east Gardiner, came one step closer to reality after City Council issued a request for proposals RFP late on March 11, which asked for advice on how to impose charges on drivers who use the highways.

The RFP also expected the successful bidder to outline what options should be used for commuters to pay the tolls and to determine who should pay Toronto residents vs.

The proposal call indicated that tolls would be applied to the entire Don Valley Parkway from Highway to the Gardiner Expressway and the length of the Gardiner Expressway from just east of Highway to the Don Valley Parkway. Only the Allen Expressway would remain free due to its short length. This was approved by City Council on December 13, by a vote. It would have to go to the Province for final approval since the City does not have the authority to charge tolls on its highways.

This was denied by the Provincial Government. With all Provincial political parties now opposed to the tolls, the issue was now dead. Gardiner, ordered the planning of the Lakeshore Expressway as a four-lane or six-lane expressway from the Humber in the west to Woodbine Avenue in the east due to heavy traffic congestion on Lake Shore Boulevard east of the terminus of the Queen Elizabeth Way at the Humber River.

Route planning was given to the engineering firm Margison Babcock and Associates, with the proviso that an American firm expert in expressway building would be involved. Margison's plan was delivered in April In the CNE area, the route would be on lands created from infilling of the shoreline to the breakwaters and an interchange was proposed in front of the Prince's Gate.

The highway proceeded at grade from that point eastward, ending at Coxwell Avenue and Queen Street East. The newly-opened first section of the Gardiner Expressway looking east near Jameson Avenue in At Park Lawn Road looking east. The downtown elevated section of the Gardiner Expressway under construction at Jarvis Street in looking south. Option 3 was the most favoured by City officials as it received the highest scores in an evaluation.

It was also the most favoured in public meetings. This option moved the expressway closer to the parallel railway lines and opened up the Don River mouth. It also opened up the most amount of land for development, but it was the most expensive option. City Council would decide on the preferred option in March It would then go for a detailed design study with construction starting in and concluding by The issue of the eastern Gardiner Expressway would then be concluded.

On March 31, , the preferred Option 3 design was approved in a near unanimous vote of since it moved the expressway away form the waterfront and opened up more space for waterfront development. The issue was now settled and construction would now begin in The final agreed upon design would look like this. Highway to the Humber River This segment, built as part of the Queen Elizabeth Way by the Province of Ontario, was transferred to Metropolitan Toronto now the City of Toronto in , and was subsequently redesignated as part of the Gardiner Expressway, thus extending the Gardiner west from the Humber River to Highway Until then, the Gardiner Expressway had also been part of Highway 2.

It was the only one of the three municipal expressways in Toronto to also have a highway number the others being the Don Valley and Allen Expressways which do not have a number. After the transfer of the former QEW section, the Highway 2 designation was switched back to Lake Shore Boulevard, where it had been before the Gardiner was built.

The lengthened Gardiner containing the former QEW section east of Highway would no longer have a highway number as well. Views of the former Queen Elizabeth Way in Etobicoke in the 's. Since then, there have been more than a few calls to demolish the highway, replace it with a tunnel, or to turn it into a park.

Aerial view, This was the final nail in the coffin for Sunnyside Amusement Park, which was demolished to make room for the expressway. Join the conversation Load comments. People are protesting Ontario's proposed Highway but Ford insists it will be built.