As Toronto furiously debates bike lanes and their role in the city’s notorious gridlock, mostly missing from the discussion is a culprit that at its peak occupied almost one-fifth of the city’s road network.
Construction — for provincially managed transit projects, condo and office buildings, and utility work to support Toronto’s booming growth — closes more kilometres of roadway than bike lanes, special events or anything else. City officials say construction closures are the biggest cause of the kind of traffic backups that are angering residents and the Ford government.
While nobody is debating Toronto’s urgent need for transit, housing and critical infrastructure, even some of the offenders acknowledge that the current crush of closures could have been avoided. The province says it is playing catch-up after “decades of inaction” on transit, and the city is unveiling new fees to spur developers, whose equipment can occupy roadways for years as extensions are routinely granted, to speed up their work.
An all-too-familiar sight in Toronto: construction closing the lane of a street to vehicles.
David Rider
Roger Browne, the city’s director of traffic management, said Toronto has about 5,600 kilometres of roadway that is not growing. “This summer we had points in time where as much as 18 per cent of road capacity was taken away by road construction … Really, that’s the issue today in terms of congestion.”
In peak construction season, that translated to approximately 1,012 kilometres of roadway closed by construction during one week this past July, according to estimates by city staff. During the month with the lowest construction activity, December, the city estimates that about two per cent of the total roadway is occupied for construction, or about 112 kilometres.
While Premier Doug Ford has focused his ire on Toronto’s bikeways, the total on-street cycling network covered 286.3 kilometres at the end of last year, including lanes on small side streets. The bike lanes that Ford has targeted for removal to combat gridlock — on University Avenue, Yonge Street and Bloor Street — total 20.2 kilometres, or two per cent of the peak summertime construction-related lane closures.
As, Jacquelyn Hayward, the city’s director of planning, design and management, told a legislative committee in November: “Construction-related road closures are a primary factor contributing to congestion across the city of Toronto today — not bike lanes.”
Pain points
The granddaddy of all construction closures is on Balmuto Street near Yonge and Bloor. A short stretch of one northbound lane here has been closed since 2017, the longest that city staff are aware of. If this road closure was a child, it would be old enough to play soccer, read and make itself cereal in the morning.
The closure is tied to the troubled luxury skyscraper at 1 Bloor St. W., also known as ”The One,” the Mizrahi Development Group project that went into receivership last year. If the lane closure lasts until the new expected finish date in 2027, it will be a decade old.
Pedestrians walk on Yonge Street in midtown in a makeshift sidewalk around construction that has closed a lane of the street.
David Rider
Another lengthy closure is the stretch of Queen Street downtown being torn up for work on the new Ontario Line, including closing the road between Yonge and Bay Streets for a scheduled four years. That closure has resulted in a years-long detour of the 501 Queen streetcar via Richmond and Adelaide Streets.
On a recent weekday afternoon, a large truck occupied half the lane while on the other half a parade of pedestrians threaded a makeshift sidewalk past the site. Construction trucks, temporarily parked, blocked a live traffic lane on the other side of Yonge and another around the corner on Soudan. Tribute Communities did not respond to the Star’s questions about the lane.
“The closure of lanes has one of the most significant impacts on traffic gridlock in Toronto, affecting drivers, bicyclists, transit riders and pedestrians alike,” Matlow told the Star in an email. “It’s time the city and the province restrict how often lanes are shut down for construction staging and return our roads back to commuters who are trying to get around the city.”
Currently, developers’ fees depend on what they are doing. Using a lane for a backhoe or tower crane, for example, costs $84.60 plus HST per day. To take up that lane for four years would cost just under $125,000 before tax. As part of its congestion management plan released in September, the city has proposed higher fees to try to incentivize developers to work faster; the new rates will be announced next year.
In contrast, Metrolinx does not pay fees for its closures since it has jurisdiction of the roadway, according to the city.
The public will soon be able to view more information about road closures, including who is responsible for each one, when the city unveils a “congestion management” dashboard, expected to go live soon and be updated in the New Year with more detailed data, Browne said.
Waiting for transit
The biggest culprit when it comes to occupying the most rights-of-way is city-led construction work, according to staff. Runner-up is utility work. These types of construction can last anywhere from days to months, but very rarely longer than a year.
Measured by how long each project occupies a lane in Toronto, the worst offender is transit expansion, like the yearslong building of the Ontario Line at Queen and Yonge.
Nick Lachance Toronto Star
But measured by how long each project occupies a lane, the worst offender is transit expansion, followed by private development. These projects can last many years.
Spokespeople for Metrolinx and for Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria both said they work closely with the city to minimize traffic disruption.
“After decades of inaction by the previous government, if we don’t start building the infrastructure needed to support our growing population, gridlock will continue to get worse in the years ahead,” said Dakota Brasier, a spokesperson for Sarkaria.
“We are building the largest transit expansion in North American history, and our investments in this much-needed rapid transit throughout the city will help relieve congestion on roads and the existing transit network.”
David Wilkes, the president and CEO of BILD, a lobby group for developers, argues that these disruptions are minimal as a proportion of total roadway closures, and that the juice is worth the squeeze.
“Since typical highrise developments occupy only a small portion of road surface for staging vs. entire road or lane closures for road work or transit projects, the overall impact on Toronto’s road network is very small, especially considering the urgent need for housing.”
Browne noted that Toronto is the busiest city in North America for construction projects, with 221 cranes in the air as of earlier this year — more than quadruple the city in distant second place, Los Angeles. In addition to the delays for housing, he noted many of the city-led construction projects are also necessary: “This is critical infrastructure work that needs to get done.”
However, critics say that while infrastructure work is necessary, we wouldn’t have so many overlapping projects if the city had co-ordinated better. The city, meanwhile, says many construction projects were delayed by the pandemic, contributing to the current crush.
Cost of catch-up
Giles Gherson, chief executive of the Toronto Region Board of Trade, has joined the Ford government’s calls for the city to stop building bike lanes on main streets, but, in an email to the Star, he acknowledged that construction lane closures are part of the problem.
“Unco-ordinated and highly concentrated construction projects are undeniably a major driver of congestion,” he said.
Critics point to the Gardiner rehabilitation taking place at the same time as water works block a parallel route on King Street as showing a lack of co-ordination contributing to congestion.
R.J. Johnston Toronto Star
“This is layered on top of an underdeveloped and under-resourced transit and transportation network that’s been stretched to its limits by our region’s unprecedented population growth. While disruptive, this construction is necessary as we play catch-up on decades of underinvestment in critical infrastructure.”
As an example of poor co-ordination, Gherson pointed to two side-by-side projects. Soon after the city began rehabilitating the section of the Gardiner Expressway that crosses Dufferin, it also began streetcar track and watermain replacement work on the section of King Street West that crosses Dufferin — “the logical parallel diversion route,” Gherson said.
The watermain that needed replacing was 146 years old. When local councillor Ausma Malik announced King Street would reopen 10 weeks earlier than expected, she also noted that the work had been long overdue.
“The timing of these necessary improvements was the unfortunate result of many years of neglect: a refusal to sufficiently invest in our city and its residents’ safety,” said Malik.
While reducing construction road occupation and removing bike lanes might speed up traffic a little, Browne says gridlock’s increasingly tight grip on Toronto commuters is a function of a booming population fighting for roughly the same amount of road space.
Toronto’s population surged by about 126,000 people just between July 2022 and July 2023, according to Toronto Metropolitan University research. Population growth was smaller but still significant in surrounding municipalities, from which some drivers commute into Toronto.
“That incredible growth, in terms of population and demand for transportation infrastructure when road infrastructure is so limited, that is our real big problem,” Browne said. “Traffic is sign of a growing, thriving city…
“Where cycling or walking is viable, you want to make sure those options exist for them,” as well as transit to encourage people to consider not driving and reduce the number of vehicles and therefore gridlock, he said.
“We need to provide options for everyone.”
