Toronto's Gardiner Expressway: Green Light for Removal This Week?

Toronto City Council votes on June 10 whether to remove or rebuild the Gardiner Expressway East.

1 minute read

June 10, 2015, 5:00 AM PDT

By Scott Doyon


"The hottest urbanism topic in Toronto this week is whether to remove the Gardiner Expressway East, and free a significant portion of downtown from automobile domination to capture significant long-term economic, social and environmental value. Urbanists are unanimous in their opinion to remove, including the Council for Canadian Urbanism, Richard Florida, the economic case by Leo DelZotto, Mitchell Cohen, and Alfredo Romano, Sean Marshall‘s Gardiner history lesson, and Edward Keenan‘s video summary. City Council decides on June 10 whether to go join the highways to boulevards movement and make a major Canadian urbanism success story. You can sign the petition to Toronto City Council on change.org, although CBC says the vote is deadlocked, despite the fact that 'Every living city planner has publicly endorsed this option as being more pedestrian friendly and allowing for better development of the waterfront.'”

Hazel Borys says, "Some of these battle lines are best drawn in pictures, and are often fought because of not having clear agreement about the appropriate range of character for each block within a neighbourhood, both in terms of the buildings and of the street." She goes on to walk through the Toronto transect.

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