[...] Running parallel to the now-unused Eastern Avenue Bridge is the peculiar grey covered structure in question. Spanning the river since 1930, this 133 foot structure isn’t actually a bridge—at least, not in the traditional sense. In its eighty years of existence, it has never been used for either pedestrian or vehicular traffic.
Once upon a time,
Consumers’ Gas (now
Enbridge) operated three
coal gas manufacturing facilities in Toronto. One of these plants was located on Eastern Avenue, near Booth Avenue. A second was at Parliament and Front streets, and the third was across town, at Front and Bathurst streets. From these locations, massive gas pipelines snaked under the city. Pipelines serving the Eastern Avenue Consumers’ Gas facility were (and continue to be) housed in the concrete structure spanning the Don River.
When initially constructed, technology was such that it was easier to run these particularly large gas mains over the river than it was to tunnel under the river. And while it might have seemed easier to suspend the mains from the underside of the original Eastern Avenue truss bridge rather than building a separate structure, this would have been untenable. Considering the weight and dimensions of the pipelines, engineers calculated that the truss bridge could not bear such a load.
Even though coal gas was replaced by the use of natural gas long ago, the pipelines transporting the fuel remain a vital part of Enbridge’s infrastructure; thus, the continued need for the grey bridge to nowhere.
