If you're planning on heading in or out of the city this weekend, keep in mind that the Don Valley Parkway will be completely closed for annual maintenance and improvements.
This weekend, from Friday, August 14 starting at 11 pm until Monday, August 17 at 5 am, the City will perform its annual maintenance and improvement activities on the Don Valley Parkway (DVP). The closure will extend the entire expressway from Highway 401 to the F.G. Gardiner Expressway.
The City says if it rains this weekend, the closure will be re-planned for Friday, August 21 to Monday, August 24.
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This year’s annual closure, which is typically planned for the spring or fall, has been moved to August to take advantage of the warmer weather as well as lower than normal traffic volumes in the city. City staff estimate that it would take approximately 30 separate days with lane closures to complete the same amount of highly coordinated work performed in just 54 hours over a single weekend.
Motorists can use Kingston Road, Victoria Park Avenue, Leslie Street, Bayview Avenue, and Avenue Road as alternative routes into the city during the weekend closure.
To ensure the closure is smooth for everyone, traffic-signal timing changes will be made to enhance traffic flow on nearby routes to help manage traffic congestion associated with the closure.
According to the City, these are some specific activities that are expected to be undertaken during the closure, all numbers are approximate:
• 10 lane kilometres of roadway milling and paving
• 3,600 tonnes of asphalt will be used
• Inspection and controlled chipping on bridges
• Construction and repair of roadside ditches
• Cleaning of bridge joints and catch basins
• Debris removal and sweeping
• Graffiti removal
• Guiderail repairs and replacement
• Inspection and repair of 'crash' barriers
• Roadside and overhead sign maintenance
• Inspection of maintenance of RESCU cameras and equipment cabinets
• Repair of traffic detection equipment
• Pothole repairs
• Other work related to expressway lights and utilities may be done by Toronto Hydro.
This weekend’s DVP maintenance closure has also been coordinated with important overnight work related to the renewal of the Gardiner Expressway between Jarvis and Cherry Streets.
To facilitate this work and minimize disruption to the travelling public, the westbound lanes of the Gardiner Expressway, from the DVP to the Yonge-Bay-York ramp and the on-ramp to westbound Gardiner Expressway from Lake Shore Boulevard East at Logan Avenue will be fully closed.
The first opportunity for motorists to enter westbound Gardiner Expressway is the on-ramp at Jarvis Street. These closures will take place on:
