Burying The Gardiner Expressway

Hey All,

Welcome back to Middle Ground; this is the seventh newsletter of our 28 policies in the 28-day series ahead of the 2025 Ontario provincial election.

Today’s issue will be discussing burying the Gardiner Expressway to help reclaim Toronto’s waterfront.

What is the Gardiner Expressway?
The Gardiner is a municipal expressway cutting through Toronto from Sherway Gardens in the west to the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) in the East. It cuts through downtown from Dufferin to the Don River, using an elevated bridge which is unofficially the longest bridge in Ontario.

What is the problem with the Gardiner Expressway?
The Gardiner faces numerous problems:

• It divides the city from the waterfront. As famous developer Bill Teron put it, “Right now, we don’t have a city on the waterfront; we have a city on the Gardiner.” By removing any above ground portion of the Gardiner Expressway we can reconnect Toronto to the waterfront. 

• It is expensive and difficult to maintain. Elevated roads are the most costly and challenging to maintain, as seen by the multi-year renovation projects which are only expected to expand the lifetime of the Gardiner by a few years. This is especially true in a city like Toronto which faces extreme weather conditions in both winter and summer, causing the pavement to expand and contract resulting in cracks in the expressway’s infrastructure. 

• A highway through the city reduces air quality and creates significant noise pollution. For those of us that have lived near the Gardiner, we can attest to both the decline in air quality from pollution and the nuisance of the noise coming from the expressway. It materially diminished the quality of life for those living downtown - living within 0.5km of the expressway has been shown to reduce life expectancy. 

What is the solution?
Burying the Gardiner Expressway underground would be a costly endeavour ($50B+) but would provide numerous benefits and open opportunities to recuperate costs. 

Here are some of the benefits:

• Additional Traffic Lanes - Throughout the most restricted parts of the highway in the downtown core, lanes could be added if the Expressway was buried. If we look at a snapshot of the Gardiner at Spadina there are 3 westbound lanes on the Gardiner, 3 eastbound lanes on the Gardiner, 3 westbound lanes on Lake Shore Blvd, 3 eastbound lanes on Lake Shore Blvd, 1 exit lane westbound for the Gardiner, 1 exit lane eastbound for the Gardiner. This means that without any vertical overlap, 14 traffic lanes are running concurrently. If the Gardiner was buried at Spadina, it could have six lanes in each direction, doubling its capacity without taking up any additional space above ground.  

  

  Here, we can see that the Gardiner in its current form, does not maximize the amount of available space like an underground version could.

• LRT - If a project was undertaken to bury the Gardiner Expressway, an alterative to doubling the traffic lanes would be to expand the Expressway  to 5 lanes (instead of 6) and instead add an LRT in each direction. This new LRT could connect the streetcars in Mimico to those at the Beaches, effectively connecting Mississauga to Scarborough along the waterfront. 

• Park Space - Once the Gardiner Expressway is buried, the ground level can become a park connecting the Humber River in the west to the Don River in the east. This greenspace would also provide a new way for pedestrians and cyclists living in Etobicoke or Scarborough to commute downtown. 

  

  Here, we can see Boston before (top) and after (bottom) the Big Dig, which was a similar project to bury a highway that cut through the center of the city, separating it from its waterfront.

• Air Purification - By having cars underground, the city can filter the polluted air within the tunnel before it is released into the city. This will significantly improve air quality in downtown Toronto. 

• Noise Pollution - Burying the Gardiner will create a natural barrier to the noise of the cars below, allowing those downtown to live without the constant sound of traffic in their homes. 

Here is how to recuperate costs:

• Private/Public Partnership - Adding additional lanes will not result in a lack of traffic; induced demand will mean that the Gardiner will still experience traffic during rush hour. A private-public partnership could allow for the new tunnel to be two layers with two highways stacked on top of each other, one being free for the public and maintained by the city, the other being privately owned and tolled. This would allow businesses and those willing to pay to move quicker through the downtown core and help the government to subsidize the costs of building the toll-free expressway.

• Selling Land - While the vast majority of land should become parks, with a protected and uninterrupted strip of land for pedestrians and cyclists from the Don River to the Humber River, small parcels of land for mid-rise buildings could be sold to help fund the construction. Specifically, the land near Fort York would have significant value as there are already numerous high-rise buildings in the area, meaning that similar types of buildings with high returns can be built. There is also the possibility of tunnelling under Lakeshore around the CNE instead of under the Gardiner Expressway, which would open the land north of the CNE for sale without disrupting existing neighbourhoods.

Onwards and Upwards,

Liam Gill

P.S. - Please share this with as many people as possible to help grow our community and help us hold our elected officials responsible for implementing these policy initiatives.