first. With both ends built, the central section was inevitable. Gardiner used similar methods to push the Don Valley Parkway project along. Engineers were interested in studying alternate routes, which Gardiner prevented: "councillors could not afford to stop, look and listen. Either the project was started forthwith, or the whole east end of the city will be on our shoulders like three tons of bricks." Metro executive committee approved the preliminary plans one month later. When the plans were in draft, he secured section-by-section approval. The Parkway project went from proposal to approved policy in about two years, from January 1955 until February 1957. The routes of the Lakeshore Expressway and the Don Valley Parkway were mostly uncontentious, but the other parts of the expressway program went through developed areas and sure to be controversial. In 1954, Gardiner deferred the extension of the lakeshore expressway to the east, and the Crosstown expressway was deferred in 1955. The Spadina Expressway was similarly shelved in 1956. While all of the expressways were part of the official transportation plan in 1959, only the Spadina Expressway had been approved when he left office in 1961. The Spadina Expressway was formally approved at the final meeting Gardiner chaired, and the Cross-town deferred again. However, Gardiner also saw the value of public transit. At the 1956 inaugural meeting of Metro Council, Gardiner stated that "it is a snare and a delusion to spend millions on expressways in the belief that they alone will solve traffic problems." He also stated that "the irresistible fact is, you simply cannot provide sufficient highways and parking space to accommodate every person who desires to drive his car downtown." He also estimated that $1 in expenditure on transit was worth $5 spent on arterial highways and parking spaces. Metro Toronto greatly expanded the ability to finance capital works projects and Gardiner followed three principles in the allocation of money. Gardiner chose under his chairmanship to negotiate the amount of money to go to local municipalities but did not interfere in the actual ways that the local municipalities spent the money. He also pursued a policy of balance between the city and the suburbs. He pushed for the Bloor-Danforth subway, located mostly in the City, but he also pushed for a uniform water rate, a policy that favoured the suburbs. His third principle was to limit demand. In 1953, he claimed that