Options for the future of the Gardiner Expressway will be revealed today, but Mayor Rob Ford has already said he wants the aging downtown highway to be maintained instead.
City staff and Waterfront Toronto are expected to announce their recommendations for a 2.4-kilometre, elevated stretch of the highway between Jarvis and Leslie Streets at a briefing Wednesday.
According to the Gardiner Expressway & Lake Shore Boulevard Reconfiguration Environmental Assessment & Urban Design Study website, four options are under consideration: "maintain, improve, replace or remove."
When he was asked to share his opinion after a briefing on the issue Tuesday, Mayor Ford said he and city staff "are on a different page.
"I think staff want to tear it down and I want to maintain it just like most Torontonians do," Ford said, noting that the highway moves, "4,500 people every hour, so that's a lot. We have to keep it."
It's estimated the city spends approximately $15 million to maintain the highway each year.
The cost of necessary improvements has been pegged at more than $630 million, while replacing it could carry a $1 billion price tag.
"The cost effective thing to do is to maintain it and I am not going to tear it down; it would cause traffic chaos," Ford told reporters on Tuesday.
According to a report commissioned by the city in 2012, the highway poses a "significant hazard to public safety."
Members of the public are invited to share their views on the future of the Gardiner Expressway at a meeting at the Toronto Reference Library, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Thursday evening.
