[jeromegv]

The city amalgamated with near inner-suburbs, which gave a lot of power to city councillors that are living in more car-centric neighborhood. So while people downtown couldn't give two shit about the highway and would like it destroyed, suburbans councillors voted to keep it because of course, that's the highway they use to drive to city hall. There was a decent plan to transform it into an urban boulevard (still large, but less ugly than elevated highway) and that lost.

And before anyone mentions people going to work that need the highway, majority of commuting to downtown business is not cars, but a combo of transit + cycling + walking.