More lane closures loom for Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway as the city looks to begin repairs on five bridges earlier than expected.
Beginning April 7, the westbound Gardiner Expressway will be reduced to three lanes from four between Park Lawn Road and Grand Avenue in Etobicoke until May 2026.
Meanwhile, the eastbound lanes in that stretch of expressway will be narrowed until December 2026. No lane reductions are expected on that side of the Gardiner.
The work makes up part of Section 3 of the six-phase Gardiner Expressway Strategic Rehabilitation Plan. While Section 3 won’t be officially underway until 2027, early work on five of the 16 bridges targeted in that phase will begin now after condition assessments highlighted the need for critical repair.
“Advancing this critical project is necessary to maintain the safety and reliability of the Gardiner Expressway and will be done while balancing the needs of road users with those of residents and businesses in the nearby area,” the city said in a news release Monday.
In addition to that work, Kipling Avenue and Islington Avenue will be reduced to two lanes from three in each direction where they pass over the Gardiner from April to November.
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There will be a full closure of the Park Lawn Road on-ramp to the westbound Gardiner starting in November so crews can replace the single-lane bridge that carries ramp traffic over Mimico Creek. That closure is expected to be in place until April 2026.
Finally, Park Lawn Road, where it passes under the Gardiner Expressway, will have single lane reductions, with three lanes always maintained.
“This work is estimated to last approximately four months with timing to be determined and communicated in advance,” the city said.
“These lane reductions will not occur at the same time as the closure of the Park Lawn Road on-ramp to the westbound Gardiner Expressway.”
An undated look at the Gardiner Expressway looking east from the Park Lawn Road overpass towards the Toronto City Core.
David Cooper/Toronto Star via Getty Images
The city added it will be implementing several measures to mitigate congestion, including deploying traffic agents at key intersections during busy periods to help keep traffic flowing.
The city said also the project will incorporate the same “acceleration measures” that were used during work on the Gardiner Expressway between Dufferin Street and Strachan Avenue. That includes completion incentives and enabling crews to work up to 24 hours a day, seven days a week to meet the planned construction schedule.
That construction, which began last spring, is anticipated to be completed a year ahead of schedule after the Ontario government chipped in $73 million to Toronto on the condition that work on the 60-year-old expressway be allowed to proceed on a round-the-clock basis.
The city said Monday the province will fund the replacement of the Gardiner overpasses at Park Lawn Road and Mimico Creek, and the westbound on-ramp from Park Lawn Road over Mimico Creek as part of the Ontario-Toronto New Deal.
Meanwhile, the city will fund repairs to the Kipling Avenue and Islington Avenue bridges.
Construction will be paused from May to July 2026 to accommodate the increased traffic anticipated during the FIFA World Cup, and overall, the work on the five bridges is expected to be completed by November 2026.
The remainder of the Section 3 work, which involves reconstructing 6.5 kilometres of at-grade expressway between Highway 427 and the Humber River, will begin in 2027 and continue to 2031.
The work that led to the six-phase rehabilitation plan began in 2013, and phase one was complete in 2021. Crews were tasked to repair parts of the expressway between Jarvis and Cherry streets.
However, part of that construction is now the subject of a lawsuit the city initiated against a consultant hired to do preliminary design. A report on that legal action is set to be presented at the general government committee on April 7.
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