Gardiner Expressway

Gardiner Expressway
Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway
Gardiner Expressway highlighted in red
Route information
Maintained by City of Toronto
Length	18 km[1] (11 mi)
History	Proposed 1947 and originally named as Lakeshore Expressway until August 1957 when it took its current name. Opened August 8, 1958 – April 1, 1997
Major junctions
West end	Highway 427 / Queen Elizabeth Way
East end	Don Valley Parkway
Location
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
Major cities	Toronto
Highway system
Roads in Toronto North–South East–West Diagonal
Ontario Municipal Expressways ← Kingston Road (1936) Gardiner Expressway (1958) Don Valley Parkway (1961) →

The Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway, commonly known as the Gardiner Expressway or simply the Gardiner, is a partially at grade and elevated municipal expressway in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Running close to the shore of Lake Ontario, it extends from the foot of the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) in the east, just past the mouth of the Don River, to the junction of Highway 427 and the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) in the west, for a total length of 18.0 kilometres (11.2 mi). East of Dufferin Street to just east of the Don River, the roadway is elevated for a length of 6.8 kilometres (4.2 mi), unofficially making it the longest bridge in Ontario, as it runs above Lake Shore Boulevard east of Spadina Avenue. The Gardiner Expressway is wholly owned and operated by the Province of Ontario.

The Gardiner is named after the first chair of the now-defunct Metro Council, Frederick G. Gardiner.^[2] The six-lane section east of the Humber River was built in segments from 1955 until 1964 by the Metropolitan Toronto government with provincial highway funds, and upon completion the Gardiner also received the Highway 2 provincial route numbering until 1998. The ten-lane section west of the Humber was formerly the eastern-most section of the QEW until it was transferred to Metro Toronto in 1997.

The Gardiner has been described as "an out-of-date, crumbling and frequently traffic-jammed freeway".^[3] Particularly for the elevated section whose condition has deteriorated over the years, extensive repairs have been carried out since the mid-1990s. Due to its limited capacity and high maintenance, the Gardiner has been the subject of several proposals to demolish it or move it underground as part of downtown waterfront revitalization efforts. A section east of the Don River was demolished in 2001, while in 2018 the off-ramp to York/Bay/Yonge Streets was replaced by an off-ramp to Lower Simcoe Street, and the segment east of Jarvis Street to the Don River was designated to be realigned in 2021. The eastern terminus to Lake Shore Boulevard was demolished the following year.

In November 2023, the municipal and provincial governments announced a tentative deal which will see responsibility for the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway transferred to the provincial government, with the two highways to be maintained as provincial highways.^[4][5]