Item - 2015.EX8.13

The Executive Committee recommends that:

1.  City Council receive the report (September 4, 2015) from the Deputy City Manager, Cluster B for information.

This report responds to a request from City Council for an analysis of the feasibility of tunnelling the F.G. Gardiner Expressway. Council made the request during consideration of "Gardiner Expressway and Lake Shore Boulevard East Reconfiguration Environmental Assessment (EA) and Integrated Urban Design Study – Updated Evaluation of Alternatives" (Gardiner East EA) on June 10-12, 2015. See PW4.1 at: http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewPublishedReport.dofunction=getCouncilMinutes

Report&meetingId=9692

This report does not recommend further analysis of the option of tunnelling the Gardiner – either for the eastern deck or the full elevated expressway. The Gardiner East Environmental Assessment should be completed, with Council's approval of a preferred alternative design in early 2016, so that the preferred alternative design can be implemented immediately following Provincial approval of the Environmental Assessment.

Any delay in implementing the Gardiner East Environmental Assessment for the purpose of pursuing a Gardiner tunnel option would have serious implications, including delay in the implementation of the F.G. Gardiner Expressway Strategic Rehabilitation Plan and risks to the safety of users of the expressway's deteriorating elevated decks (considered to be unserviceable beyond 2020). Pursuing a tunnel option while also rehabilitating the elevated structure would result in considerable throwaway costs: up to $230 million for the Gardiner East; and up to $2.6 billion for the full Strategic Rehabilitation Plan study area. Further, adjacent neighbourhoods and planned developments, including those in the East Bayfront, Port Lands and South of Eastern precincts, would be subject to ongoing uncertainty and paralysis from continued indecision about the Gardiner.

The idea of tunnelling the Gardiner Expressway is a persistent one. Constructed in sections between 1955 and 1966, the elevated Gardiner has been perceived as a fundamental barrier to the city’s waterfront. Retention of the Gardiner has been seen as contrary to revitalization of the waterfront and adjacent precincts. Boston, Seattle and other cities have pursued expressway tunnelling, despite the considerable cost and construction impact.

Proposals to tunnel all or portions of the Gardiner have been around for more than 60 years. In the 1950s, plans for tunnelling the Gardiner in the vicinity of Parkdale and Exhibition Place were examined. The idea re-emerged in the late 1980s, with enough public interest to inspire serious tunnelling proposals in 1987, 1991, 1999 and 2000. These proposals are described in detail in this report.

While the idea of tunnelling the entire length of the Gardiner (as opposed to the Gardiner East) is attractive it is also impractical. It would take between 10 and 15 years to gain the necessary City and Provincial permits and approvals that would be required to start construction. Federal involvement would generate additional permits and approvals. Construction would require up to 10 years.

Any proposal to tunnel the entire length of the Gardiner would be a different problem or undertaking from that described in the current Gardiner East Environmental Assessment. A new Individual Environmental Assessment process would have to be started. A new Terms of Reference would have to be developed for approval by City Council and the Ontario Minister of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC). Based on past experience, such an Environmental Assessment would require close to 10 years to initiate and complete. Provincial Environmental Assessment approvals would follow, as would detailed design and procurement; combined, these steps would require two to four years.

Given the scale and complexity of any undertaking to tunnel the Gardiner, City Council approvals at both ends of the pre-construction phase of the project would take a number of years, especially if reports are deferred or referred back to staff for further analysis. If the project were to be funded from tolling revenues, and/or if it were to involve the use of P3/AFP procurement, City Council approvals would take even longer.

Tunnelling between Jarvis Street and the Don River was considered as a "Replace" option early in the Gardiner East Environmental Assessment study process, during the development of alternative solutions. However, tunnelling was abandoned as a feasible option due to cost, risk and a number of technical issues. Specifically the tunnel Replace option would have involved:

-           Capital costs of up to $2.5 billion ($2013) plus lifecycle costs.

-           Lengthy transition areas with steep grades that would occupy more than half of the available 2.3-kilometre study area and act as an additional barrier to the waterfront.

-           No connectivity for tunnel traffic to the area's north-south streets.

The opportunity to pursue tunnelling as a feasible option for the Gardiner has been passed over on numerous occasions since the 1950s, including in the 1990s when Metro Council twice chose to retain and ameliorate the existing expressway rather than tunnel. Considerable time and energy have been spent evaluating the many proposals over the years in attempts to see if a tunnelling option could work. Despite the many inspired proposals from many sources – Four Guys off the Wall, the Royal Commission on the Future of the Toronto Waterfront, Canadian Highways International Corporation and Waterfront Toronto – cost, risk, construction impact and the challenge of connecting east-west traffic to north-south streets have kept the tunnelling concept from emerging as a viable solution for the Gardiner Expressway. The lack of vacant land/property for implementation, a result of intensification, has recently emerged as a further constraint. For example, it would be very difficult to find the room for temporary detour routes that would be necessary during the construction of a tunnel. In addition, less than one-quarter of the traffic on the Gardiner uses it as a through-route; from commercial to recreational and business commuters, the majority of Gardiner travel demand is generated within and to destinations in the downtown core.

The City must get on with rehabilitating the Gardiner, inclusive of developing and implementing the recommended "Hybrid" design for the Gardiner East Environmental Assessment. Notwithstanding the allure of Gardiner tunnelling proposals over the years, this report concludes that the opportunity to undertake a tunnel for all or portions of the Gardiner Expressway has passed. Regardless of cost constraints, which could be in excess of $10 billion for a corridor-wide tunnel, the condition of the eastern deck demands immediate and measured action through completion of the Gardiner East Environmental Assessment.