{"id":10262,"date":"2010-04-01T11:09:43","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T15:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=10262"},"modified":"2010-04-01T11:09:43","modified_gmt":"2010-04-01T15:09:43","slug":"oh-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/04\/01\/oh-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner"},"content":{"rendered":"

[youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-7_a2wa2dd4[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

The following is a reprint of my recent Psychogeography<\/a> column in Eye Weekly.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Gardiner Expressway: eternal plague on Toronto\u2019s waterfront; killer of the civic soul; slayer of our beautiful dreams. The Gardiner is our most guilty piece of infrastructure, culpable for so much we think is wrong in this city; it\u2019s a wonder it can even stand up as it continues to do. Calls to tear it down are common and when the idea is floated politically, everybody starts talking. All of this is remarkable because the Gardiner doesn\u2019t really matter. At least not the way we think it matters.<\/p>\n

The hand-wringing by Torontonians around its existence reminds me of Pierre Elliot Trudeau\u2019s \u201cJust Watch Me\u201d conversation where, when asked about the reaction of people to his passing of the War Measures Act and soldiers on Canadian streets, he said: \u201cYes, well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don\u2019t like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed, but it is more important to keep law and order in the society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don\u2019t like the looks of….\u201d<\/p>\n

He was cut off by the reporter, but I like to imagine he went on to talk about the concrete pillars of the Gardiner. The weak-kneed<\/a> in Toronto are overly sensitive to it but ignore the real culprit in our \u201calienation\u201d from the waterfront (if, in fact, there is one): the railway corridor. But trains are good and cars are bad, so the Gardiner gets the blame. When you remove the ideological anti-car sentiment, the main reason the Gardiner sucks is because its underbelly \u2014 the part you and I get to see up close \u2014 is a neglected wasteland. It doesn\u2019t have to be this way.
\n
\nCities all around the world have gotten over the existence of big bulky infrastructure and done neat stuff underneath. In London, the Westway<\/a> is a big concrete expressway that leads into the city centre. It\u2019s a short walk from Paddington Station and Madame Tussauds, and people do walk to it because London has converted exactly the same kind of post-war Gardiner environment into a linear park that has a soccer pitch, basketball nets and a skate park \u2014 all protected from the English rain by a giant concrete umbrella.<\/p>\n

In other places in London and the rest of the UK, people inhabit the spaces underneath transportation infrastructure. Under Glasgow\u2019s Central Station, an arts centre\/theatre\/nightclub called The Arches<\/a> has existed for years. Of course, the comparison here is not completely fair as these most Dickensian of places (that word used to mean really bad and terrible) are now beloved, while modern concrete is treated like the new-Dickens no-go zone. In other cities around the UK, stores and other businesses are tucked in underneath these structures, filling in the space and continuing the urban fabric rather than leaving it empty. In Toronto, city engineers don\u2019t like that because it makes their jobs a bit harder. But they\u2019re smart and will get over it if we tell them to figure out how to accommodate new stuff underneath.<\/p>\n

Try walking along the underside of the Gardiner, from around the Distillery to the CNE, where it finally touches ground. While some parts are filled with Lake Shore Boulevard, most of it consists of empty, orphaned spaces. At times the Gardiner is lofty and cathedral-like while in other places, like by Cityplace, just west of Spadina, the lower deck is intimate and (when some forward-thinking imagination is employed) downright cozy.<\/p>\n

Though we\u2019ve been living with our freeway for a half-century now, we\u2019re only beginning to recognize the potential of the space underneath. Two weeks ago, Waterfront Toronto announced a plan to build \u201cUnderpass Park\u201d<\/a> in a Gardiner-like space where Eastern, Adelaide and Richmond meet just west of the Don River. Until recently, when the entire West Don Land area was razed for redevelopment, this was an industrial zone and the space under these roads was where film companies stored New York City cabs. The plans by Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg of Vancouver and Toronto\u2019s The Planning Partnership look like a cross between London\u2019s Westway and Canoe Landing Park<\/a>, the new \u201cred canoe\u201d park these two same firms (along with Douglas Coupland) designed for the City of Toronto between Bathurst and Spadina, adjacent to the Gardiner.<\/p>\n

When the park was announced, there were cries from weak-kneed types that went something along the lines of \u201cyou can\u2019t have a park near all those cars.\u201d There are some pollution issues certainly, but that\u2019s everywhere. All those new condo buyers who bought expensive perches along the Gardiner aren\u2019t stupid \u2014 if it were an awful place to be, they would buy elsewhere.
\nTo see the potential of these spaces, go stand underneath Watertable<\/a>, a public artwork installed by Toronto artists Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak that illuminates the underside of the Gardiner by Fort York with undulating waves of light that mark where the original shoreline of Lake Ontario was. It\u2019s about as calm and tranquil as urban Toronto gets. It\u2019s not silent, but neither is it loud. It\u2019s a useful urban space.<\/p>\n

More is happening by Fort York, where a new visitor\u2019s centre is about to be built on the north side of the roadway, parallel to the expressway. The approach out to Fort York Boulevard will be sheltered by the Gardiner overhead, creating an all-weather, safe-from-UV-rays, public space. Full disclosure: I\u2019m on the board of Fort York and have been excited about these two projects for what they mean for the Fort, but also what they do for Toronto\u2019s relationship with Gardiner.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, every time a proposal to tear down the expressway is floated, a huge amount of political capital is spent and wasted. Drivers feel under attack and post-Gardiner proposals always include an extremely wide and busy arterial road that nobody will be happy about (that is, it isn\u2019t going to be replaced with College Street). To stop all that Trudeau bleeding, we just need to make the underside nice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-7_a2wa2dd4[\/youtube] The following is a reprint of my recent Psychogeography column in Eye Weekly. The Gardiner Expressway: eternal plague on Toronto\u2019s waterfront; killer of the civic soul; slayer of our beautiful dreams. The Gardiner is our most guilty piece of infrastructure, culpable for so much we think is wrong in this city; it\u2019s a wonderContinue reading “Oh The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[662,14686,778,14690,2031,2052,423,1814,2668,570,2827,14687,8317,1182,572,8321,359,564,14688,10842,505,1682,19,4406,14689,464,54],"class_list":["post-10262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spacing","tag-adelaide","tag-big-bulky-infrastructure","tag-college-street","tag-don-land","tag-don-river","tag-douglas-coupland","tag-eye-weekly","tag-fort-york","tag-fort-york-boulevard","tag-gardiner-expressway","tag-glasgow","tag-ideological-anti-car-sentiment","tag-kim-tomczak","tag-lake-ontario","tag-lake-shore-boulevard","tag-lisa-steele","tag-london","tag-new-york-city","tag-paddington-station","tag-pierre-elliot-trudeau","tag-reporter","tag-richmond","tag-toronto","tag-transportation-infrastructure","tag-under-glasgows-central-station","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vancouver"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOh The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2010\/04\/01\/oh-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner-the-gardiner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oh The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner The Gardiner - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-7_a2wa2dd4[\/youtube] The following is a reprint of my recent Psychogeography column in Eye Weekly. 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