Transportation : Development News

Work started earlier this week on Eastern Avenue and Front Street.

The water main is being replaced on Eastern between Trinity and Sumach, as well as Front Street around Lower Jarvis.

In addition to the water main replacement, there will also be some resurfacing, and a combined sewer is being replaced on Eastern between Sherbourne and Sumach, as well as bits of sidewalk on Front Street, also around the Lower Jarvis area.

According to a source in the office of the manager of structures and expressways who cannot be named according to City Hall communication rules, the cost is expected to be $3 million. The work will be completed in the spring.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mike Laidlaw

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Toronto's bridgework continues to shut down or slow down roads across the city.

This past weekend, the westbound lanes of the Gardiner Expressway were closed from the Humber River to Spadina Avenue from 11pm on Saturday until 9am on Sunday.

"We're removing some of the overhang formwork and installing some conduits on the underside of the bridges," says Mike Laidlaw, acting manager of structures and expressways.

The overhang formwork he refers to is the superstructure erected to aid in the earlier work done of the bridge, which was demolished in April, and whose reconstruction was almost completed before the winter weather halted further substantial work until spring.

Part of a larger $14-million contract, the work that was conducted last weekend, and which will continue into next weekend during similar hours, cost between $250,000 and $300,000.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mike Laidlaw

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Highway 27 was shut down for the last three days, ending this morning, to allow six enormous vats destined for Molson Coors' Carlingview Drive brewery to be delivered from the Port of Hamilton.

At 40,000 kg, 8 metres high and 7 metres in diameter, the vats are meant to increase the brewery's production capacity, according to Gord Gilchrist, project manager for Mammoet, the heavy transportation company responsible for the transfer.

"This is probably one of the smallest things we'll move this year," Gilchrist says, explaining his company generally hauls transformers, generators and petrochemical equipment, often having to plot routes that avoid bridges when loads are too heavy for them to support.

No such measures had to be taken this time. "These things are really small," Gilchrist says with a chortle. But they did have a police escort, and in addition to Highway 27, Disco Road, Attwell Drive, Belfield Road, Farnboro Road and Dixon Road all had to be closed at various times during the last three nights.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Gord Gilchrist

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Starting Jan. 1, Toronto stopped using Michigan as its dumping ground, replacing it with the city-owned (and obviously named) Green Lane Landfill in Elgin County's Southwold Township, about 200km from downtown, just southwest of London.

There will now be between 45 and 66 trucks a day leaving from Toronto to the new landfill site, between 7am and 10am, and 2pm and 5pm, according to George South, the city's director of solid waste.

According to South, this will actually represent a decrease in the amount of traffic immediately surrounding the landfill. "There used to be other operations run from the landfill site," he says. "They used to have a large fleet of trucks which is no longer there."

The site is actually on the old route to the Michigan landfill, so the path the trucks and their waste are now taking is the same.

There were 905 trucks going from the city to the site in 2009, and in 2010, there were about 1,362 trucks, plus the traffic to Michigan. The total number for 2011 is expected to be between 11,700 and 17,600 trucks annually. Last year, the city estimates there were 15,294 trucks on the Michigan route.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: George South

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Dufferin is finally straight. After months of work to align the jog in the road that occurred around Queen, the newly orthogonal street will have it's official unveiling tomorrow at 3pm at the north end of the underpass between Queen and Peel.

"It's been a project the city has wanted to do for decades, almost a century in fact," says Councillor Gord Perks, in whose ward Dufferin once jogged. He lists one of the major benefits of the change a quicker running time of the Dufferin bus, which will, he says, allow fewer buses to transport more people in less time, which translates into financial savings.

He also foresees new development in response to the friendlier streetscape, which includes an amphitheatre on former scrubland and a bike path that leads from Dufferin to the future site of a railway bike path.

"Already the 2 Gladstone project is going in, and there will be opportunities for development along Dufferin north of the bridge that had been abandoned, empty warehouses," he says, adding that one such proposal, for a public health centre, has already been approved.

There will also be a major piece of public art, a mosaic, by Toronto artist Luis Jacob inside the underpass, a $300,000 installation whose cost is equivalent to 1 per cent of the project's total $30-million expense.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Gord Perks

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Roncesvalles still isn't finished. But it's getting there. Work on this second phase of road-munching began in July, and is expected to be finished by April or May.

The current $9.2-million phase of work, being carried out by Sanscon Construction, includes TTC track construction, transit platform construction, road reconstruction and resurfacing, sidewalk repair and streetscaping, including continuous soil trenches to give planted trees more root freedom.

The earlier work, carried out between July, 2009 and May of this year included water main and sewer replacement over the same 2km stretch of beleaguered road roughly between Queen and Dundas.

"More or less, all of the infrastructure was of an age that it needed significant repair or replacement," says John Kelly of the city's technical services division. "The surface works were the first to be identified as required, and we always try to co-ordinate any underground utility work with road reconstruction to maximize the life span of the road by minimizing the need to cut into it in the future."

So, stiff upper lips till May, then, to all those business owners behind the cheeky, door-mounted Construction Sucks posters.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: John Kelly

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Toronto got its third scramble last week, this one at the intersection of Bay and Bloor.

The scramble -- an intersection that includes an all-way pedestrian green in between the usual red-green traffic cycle -- was approved at the same time as its predecessors, at Yonge and Dundas and Yonge and Bloor, by city council in 2007.

The cost of transforming the intersection was $22,425, which Fiona Chapman, who is in charge of pedestrian projects for the city's transportation department, says included "on-site programming of the traffic controller, connection of the APS (Audible Pedestrian Signals) units, fabrication of all signs, installation of the 'No Right on Red' signs, installation of the pedestrian scramble phase signage, advance warning signs and the removal of existing prohibition signs, and installation of 12 diagonal zebra stripes."

"We had a set of criteria that identified the four that council approved," says Chapman. The fourth she refers to was meant for Bay and Dundas, an idea that's since been scrapped after deciding it would create streetcar delays. "Primarily, it was the number of pedestrians, and the number of vehicles that are trying to turn" that create conflicts between cars and people on foot.

The fourth now being considered would be at the corner of St George and Harbord/Hoskin.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Fiona Chapman

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Work continues on -- and over -- the Gardiner Expressway as the two sections of the Lakeshore Bridge are demolished just as the Jameson Bridge was last month.

Work on the two sections of the bridge, the 109-metre east bridge and the 59-metre west bridge, has been closing several lanes of the Gardiner since Oct. 25, and work on this phase of the project will continue until Friday at 5am, when the westbound lanes from Spadina to the Humber River will re-open after periodic closures that began yesterday.

"As a general rule, we inspect all our bridges periodically," says Mike Laidlaw, acting manager of structures and expressways for the city's technical services department, "and depending on condition, we slot them into particular times to rehab them before they get to the point of falling down or are hazardous. These are all being done [at the same time] because of their proximity and there's an economy of scale." Laidlaw mentioned traffic control as one major scalable expense.

Laidlaw hopes to have the bridges reconstructed by the end of the year, but says the timeline is dependent on weather. The city plans to have the entire $15-million contract finished by late spring or early summer of next year.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mike Laidlaw

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The Don Valley Parkway was closed from Lakeshore to Eglinton this past weekend for a $900,000 resurfacing.

The 2km stretch from Beechwod Drive to Taylor Massey Creek was ground and repaved, with cracks sealed, signs adjusted and camera casings fixed over the entire Lakeshore-Eglinton stretch.

"We've had a lot of cracks and potholes and stuff like that," says Susan Samuel, manager of surface maintenance for Toronto and East York. "We got some money from the federal government, so we thought it was a good time to do the maintenance."

The work was carried out by Furfari Paving.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Susan Samuel

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The first seven of a new generation of 20 highway service stations were unveiled last week, all built to LEED Silver environmental standards.

"We had an original idea and came up with a strong, consistent brand," says lead architect Les Klein, of Toronto's Quadrangle, "and we were able to follow through with that with no difficulties whatsoever."

Built by EllisDon and operated by Host Kilmer Service Centres Inc. along the 400 and 401, in addition to being aesthetically consistent, the stations were designed to overcome the anonymity and placelessness highway rest stops often have, incorporating various digital media to display and promote local images and events.

The station's bathrooms use 40% less water than average, and are built with air-tight envelopes to ensure their high-efficiency insulation is able to minimize both heating and cooling requirements.

The stations are also universally accessible, with signage designed by Toronto's Bruce Mau Design.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Les Klein

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Work has begun on the $2.2-million repair and upgrade of the railway underpass on Bloor just west of Islington.

According to Mike Laidlaw, the city's acting manager of structures and expressways, "We'll be replacing the sidewalks, making general repairs to the abutments, and putting in some stairways, tying the sidewalk into the TTC commuter parking area."

The work will continue through the winter, with an expected completion in February. At the moment, two lanes in each direction are closed, though Laidlaw expects that for the majority of the construction, only one lane each way will be shut down.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mike Laidlaw

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The last of three bridges over the Gardiner to be demolished -- this one on Jameson -- fell this past weekend, closing the expressway from Carlaw to the Humber.

But it's not the end to the closures.

"The work will continue right through till we're finished, says Mike Laidlaw, acting manager of structures and expressways, of the project whose completion date is set for next summer. "After this weekend's closures, there will be a number of night closures as well to erect portions of the other bridges. Right now, we're down to two lanes in each direction. Come the end of October, we'll restore it back to three lanes, and it will remain three lanes for the rest of the work."

Night closures will being on Sept. 28 and run 11pm to 5am until Oct. 7.

The bridges are being replaced, with minor changes, in the same dimensions as the demolished ones. The old bridges had gotten to the point at which demolition and rebuilding was more practical than further maintenance.

The contract to demolish and rebuild the three bridges, including traffic control and all other expenses, was worth $14 million.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Mike Laidlaw

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Bridges are meant to connect, but this one managed to cut a community in half for years, until one city worker got an idea.

"In conversation with community members, this bridge would come up. I'd keep hearing about this bridge," says Andrea Raymond, a cultural outreach officer with the city's cultural services. She said the 871-foot-long Kingston Galloway/Orton Park bridge along Lawrence Avenue in Scarborough, with its narrow sidewalks and six lanes of traffic, was seen as boring and uninviting to local residents, who mostly walked over it rather than drove.

"One day when I was driving over the bridge," Raymond says, "I thought it might be a really good place for an art intervention."

Which is exactly what happened. For a total of $115,000, work began in July on a  huge mural by Rob Matejka and more than 20 local youth. It was completed at the end of August, and last weekend, it was the centerpiece of a local arts and community festival, which also included planting 800 native wildflowers in the part of Morningside Park that runs under the bridge.

The work was co-ordinated by the Scarborough Arts Council, Mural Routes and Evergreen.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Andrea Raymond


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Starting yesterday, GO buses will be able to bypass rush hour traffic by driving on the shoulder lanes of the Don Valley Parkway between Lawrence and just north of York Mills Road in both directions.

"This initiative is aimed at improving transit reliability and making it more attractive than the car," says Nazzareno Capano, manager of operation planning and policy for the city's transportation services, "and for the go transit customers, it will provide faster, more reliable service to them."

At a cost of about $120,000, new signs and pavement painting were added to the stretch of the DVP, which will enable GO buses to zip over onto them when traffic is slow. They'll be allowed to go as much as 20km faster than the speed of traffic.

It doesn't impact the highway capacity of the DVP as it exists now," Capano says. "We're not taking away a lane from motorists, we're just trying to improve the efficiency for GO transit along this corridor.

Capano says there are plans in the works  to add two more sections of GO express lanes to the DVP, between Pottery Road and Don Mills, and then from Don Mills to Eglinton, though he says those projects, which are currently being studied, will be much more extensive and expensive, involving new lighting and widening shoulders and railway bridges.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Nazzareno Capano

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Work on the 2km stretch of Bloor Street from Keele to South Kingsway is half complete. The work, which will replace and repair water mains, sanitary sewers, storm sewers and combined sewers, is projected to cost $7.6 million.

"The water mains leak," says Gordon MacMillan, the city's director of design and construction for linear infrastructure. "The joints start to fall apart, there's concern about collapse, so they're all being replaced."

But October, when this work is slated for completion, will only mark a brief respite for area drivers.

"Next year, we are going to be reconstructing the road, so this is just getting the undergrounds done this year," MacMIllan says.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Gordon MacMillan

Do you know of a new building going up, a business expanding or being renovated, a park in the works or even a cool new house being built in the neighbourhood? Please send your development news tips to [email protected].