City crews went to work clearing loose concrete from beneath the Gardiner Expressway on Wednesday, one day after another chunk of debris fell from the raised downtown highway.
Traffic was reduced to one lane under the Gardiner at Lakeshore Boulevard and Lower Simcoe Street as road crews worked to secure the highway's concrete underbelly.
Police were called to the scene Tuesday afternoon after a concrete chunk dislodged and fell onto the sidewalk. No one was injured in the incident.
The falling concrete prompted the City of Toronto to launch its annual spring maintenance program one day early, in the hopes that it can stop any more dangerous objects from falling into traffic.
"We were going to start next week with the controlled chipping program, but we are starting today," John Bryson, manager of the City of Toronto's structures and expressways department, told CTV Toronto.
"The Gardiner is structurally sound. It is safe, but we are going to work on making it safer. It is a major component of the transportation system of the city and we need to keep it up to date."
The controlled chipping program will take about six weeks, with maintenance crews first focusing on clearing any loose concrete from above sidewalks.
Tuesday's incident was the third time this month that a piece of the Gardiner's concrete facade crumbled and fell to the ground.
Earlier in May, concrete chunks fell onto roadways at Lower Jarvis Street and Parkside Drive.
Extensive repairs are scheduled for the near 60-year-old Gardiner starting in July. The repairs are expected to last up to 10 years and will cost an estimated $150 million.
With files from CTV Toronto's Natalie Johnson
