The Gardiner Expressway is the 18 km (11 mi) elevated and at-grade highway along Toronto’s lakefront, built in stages between the mid-1950s and 1966 and named for Frederick G. Gardiner, the first chair of Metropolitan Toronto. The City of Toronto says it was built to carry traffic that the downtown streets could no longer handle: by the late 1940s, up to 105,000 cars a day passed through the core.
The road was a product of the new regional government. It had been proposed and rejected several times before 1953, and it was only after the province created Metro that the money and the authority existed to build it. Sources disagree on when work began and when it ended, as the sections below show.
A highway proposed and dropped, 1947 to 1952
The earliest plan was a waterfront road from the Humber River to the Don River. A compilation of Metro and city records in the Wikipedia article on the expressway dates the proposal to May 1947, when the City Planning Board suggested a four-lane waterfront highway. Later that year the works committee approved the idea at an estimated cost of $6 million, subject to a plebiscite, but City Council voted it down after a long debate, and the Board of Control cited a steel shortage when it abandoned the plan in December. By 1952 the estimate had risen to about $30 million, and the Board of Control dropped the project again in July 1952 because the province would not pay.
The same source is the only one used here for these early steps, and it is secondary. The City of Toronto’s own page gives the background in a single line: the downtown streets, laid out for horses and streetcars, could not take the volume of postwar traffic.
The Metro decision
The change came with Metropolitan Toronto. The compilation says the Metro Executive Committee, chaired by Gardiner, ordered planning for a Lakeshore Expressway in July 1953, at an estimated $20 million. A route plan by Margison Babcock and Associates in April 1954 raised the estimate to $50 million, and a revised inland route in July 1954 added about $11 million. In 1955 Metro approved $33 million for the eastern and western sections.
The Canadian Encyclopedia describes Gardiner as a lawyer born in Toronto on January 21, 1895, who entered politics in 1936 as deputy reeve of Forest Hill. It says he was persuaded to take the first Metro chairmanship in 1953 and retired from it in 1961. His nickname was “Big Daddy.” The encyclopedia does not mention the expressway in his entry, so the link between the man and the road rests on the City of Toronto, which states that the highway is named for the first Metro chair, who strongly supported it.
Construction and the dates in dispute
The City of Toronto publishes two statements that do not match. Its general page on the expressway says: “The Gardiner was completed in 1966.” Its “About” page says construction began in 1956 and that the road was built in segments and completed in 1965 at a cost of about $103 million. The Wikipedia compilation gives 1955 as the start, with The Queensway and the Keating Avenue extension, and 1966 as the year the last section opened. The table shows the dates in that compilation, which are reported here as secondary evidence.
| Year | Event (secondary compilation) |
|---|---|
| 1955 | Construction begins on first sections |
| 1957 | Lakeshore Expressway renamed for Gardiner |
| August 8, 1958 | Humber River to Jameson Avenue section opens |
| August 1, 1962 | Jameson Avenue to Spadina Avenue section opens |
| 1964 | York Street to Don Valley Parkway section completed |
| July 1966 | Don Valley Parkway to Leslie Street opens |
The same source puts the total cost at about $110 million, against the City’s $103 million. The difference is not explained in either place.
Fort York and the exhibition grounds
The route ran through two historic sites. According to the compilation, the original inland plan would have carried a ramp from Bathurst Street directly over Fort York, and historical societies and the City objected. Gardiner dropped his objection in March 1958 after visiting the site, the ramp was cancelled, and the road passes over part of the fort property on a higher structure. North of the Exhibition grounds, the road used a Hydro right-of-way and took about four hectares (10 acres) of the grounds, so Metro filled in the lakeshore to the breakwater to make up the loss. The harbor side of the story is told in the article on the Toronto Harbour and waterfront, which covers the later fight over the elevated section.
What the road is today
The City describes the expressway as 18 km (11 mi) long, with an at-grade section of about 11 km (7 mi) and an elevated section of about 7 km (4 mi), running from Highway 427 in the west to Logan Avenue in the east. It says the road is at the end of its service life and under a long rehabilitation program. The portion from Highway 427 to the Humber River was added to the Gardiner by redesignation in 1997, according to the compilation, which is why the present length extends beyond the original 1950s road.
Frequently asked questions
When was the Gardiner Expressway built?
Construction ran from the mid-1950s to 1966. The City of Toronto gives both 1965 and 1966 as completion years on different pages, and gives 1956 as the start. A secondary compilation of Metro records gives 1955.
Who was the Gardiner named after?
Frederick Goldwin Gardiner, the first chair of Metropolitan Toronto, who held the post from 1953 to 1961 according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. He died in Toronto on August 22, 1983.
How long is the Gardiner Expressway?
The City of Toronto gives its length as about 18 km (11 mi), of which about 11 km (7 mi) is at grade and about 7 km (4 mi) is elevated.
Why was it built along the waterfront?
The City says downtown streets could not carry postwar traffic. Planners had suggested a waterfront highway as early as 1947, according to the compilation of city and Metro records.
Related reading
- Toronto Harbour and waterfront: history
- Fort York: history of the fort
- Canadian National Exhibition: history
- History of public transit in Toronto
- An overview of Toronto’s history
Last verified: October 2026
Sources
- City of Toronto, About the Gardiner Expressway
- City of Toronto, Gardiner Expressway
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, Fred Gardiner
- Wikipedia, “Gardiner Expressway” (secondary compilation of Metro and city records, used only for the early planning and opening dates and marked as such in the text)
Cite this page
APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 23). Gardiner Expressway: How Toronto Built It, 1947 to 1966. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/gardiner-expressway-history
MLA: “Gardiner Expressway: How Toronto Built It, 1947 to 1966.” History of Toronto, 23 Oct. 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/gardiner-expressway-history. Accessed .
Chicago: History of Toronto. “Gardiner Expressway: How Toronto Built It, 1947 to 1966.” Last modified October 23, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/gardiner-expressway-history.
The pages have no named author, so the site is given as the author. Add the date you read the page if your style asks for it.