It’s become the impasse on Cherry Street: the bridge over Keating Channel that was raised nearly a month ago and never came back down.
Now stuck in in the lifted position, the 51-year-old bridge suffered a mechanical failure on Aug.1 and the City of Toronto has been working to safely lower it ever since.
“It turned out the fixing of the bridge was a very complicated matter,” Mayor John Tory told CTV News Toronto on Tuesday.
The faulty bridge is owned by the city but Ports Toronto lifts and lowers it to allow marine traffic to cross the Keating Channel.
The city has sought the help of specialized bridge engineers who decided they need to remove the malfunctioning parts before they can lower the bridge safely.
The bridge has been stuck in the up position for nearly a month. (CTV News Toronto)
Officials estimated that the work could take as long as a month, and hope it can reopen to traffic shortly after the Labour Day weekend.
“When they have these kinds of repairs on old structures with old mechanisms that were not in the best of shape, sometimes these things can get delayed a bit longer,” Tory said.
But the broken bridge has caused headaches for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists who use it. The bridge is one of the only access points the Port Lands.
Traffic is being rerouted along Lakeshore to the Don Roadway, Carlaw Avenue, and Leslie Street. The TTC’s 72 Pape and 121 Fort-York-Esplande buses are also being diverted.
Cyclists who had hoped to avoid the busy Lake Shore stretch told CTV Toronto on Tuesday they were surprised the repair was taking so long.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” one cyclist said. “A lot of people are a little ticked off.”
