[URBAN NOTE] "‘Green’ Gardiner proposal includes a park over the eastern end of the highway"

[rfmcdonald]

I do hope Toronto City Council reconsiders and adopts this plan for an urban park like New York City's High Line, as described in an interview with the Toronto Star's David Rider.

It might be the best, and greenest, east Gardiner Expressway that Toronto never had. City staff recently reviewed five proposals including the “Green Gardiner,” an ambitious plan to reroute the eastern end of the highway in close alignment with the rail corridor, and cover that with a long narrow park. Architect and planner Cal Brook of Brook McIlroy Inc. gives us his pitch.

What, in a nutshell, is your proposal?

The Gardiner from Cherry to Jarvis St. would be rebuilt on top of the railway. You’re really taking two barriers between downtown and the water — the Gardiner and the railway — and consolidating it in one narrow strip. On top of the Gardiner would be a 1.1-kilometre linear park, like a vast green roof. That frees up Lake Shore Blvd. to become a normal, beautiful waterfront boulevard that everyone has always aspired to. It also frees up a whole swath of city-owned land on the north side for mixed-use development. East of that, the link to the DVP is the same as the city’s “hybrid number 3” option.

So the roadway above the rail tracks becomes like an above-ground tunnel. What happens in the park on top?

It would be entirely public space — bike lanes, walkways, all the same kinds of things we see in the High Line in New York. Landscaping, mature trees — a linear park connecting the St. Lawrence, Market District and Distillery neighbourhoods, and waterfront pedestrian and cycling connections. There would be multiple access points, ramps and urban stairs, for maximum north-south permeability.