Toronto highway will grind to a crawl for three years and people are already dreading it

Drivers who rely on the Gardiner Expressway may want to plan alternatives in their daily commute for the foreseeable future as the city moves on to the next step of the aging infrastructure's ongoing rehabilitation.

A key downtown portion of the east-west artery — from Strachan to Dufferin — will lose a lane in each direction starting in the spring, and will unfortunately be staying that way for a whopping three years as the stretch of the highway is slowly replaced.

Over the next 3 years, this section of the Gardiner Expressway will be replaced. pic.twitter.com/Lu0dw5UJM9

— Road and Bridge Guy (@RoadnBridgeGuy) February 9, 2024

According to the City's Gardiner Expressway Strategic Rehabilitation Plan, the work will be completed in a way that should ideally "optimize project delivery and minimize disruption" throughout the process, though it notes that "major traffic impacts are expected during construction."

Per the CBC, this particular closure is expected to start around the end of March. It is the second of six phases of the master plan for the roadway, which was supposed to be all wrapped up by 2030 — a deadline that a City spokesperson told the outlet is now "under review."

This is a critical transportation route. Workers need to be there 24x7. Road work sites need to be managed better and work needs to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

— CJF (@CJFromEtobicoke) February 13, 2024

The future of the elevated '50s-era expressway has been much debated in recent years, namely because of the bonkers price tag to maintain it.

Thanks to last year's "new deal" between Olivia Chow and Premier Doug Ford, it now falls under provincial jurisdiction like the rest of Ontario's highways do.