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The City is fixing all the wrong roads

E

EFSF Jaburo

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My commute, from North York to Downtown, is done in the form of biking at times. I take Bayview Ave from 401 down to Davisville where I change to Mount Pleasant Rd then bike all the way down to Sherbourne.

Bayview is one of the WORST roads in GTA, especially the section between 401 and Eglinton. There are so many cracks at the sides that I have to ride in the middle of the lane at times. It's a big mystery to me since this area is lined with million dollar homes but has roads right from some 2nd-3rd world country while other parts of the city which are less privileged have much better roads (I'm thinking Kennedy Rd at Agincourt). The high rollers with their sports cars (stiff suspension no doubt) should be the ones to be complaining the most (or maybe their luxury sedans smooth out the bumps too well?).

Today was pretty warm and I decided to get the bike out. When I reached Mt Pleasant, I noticed they re-paved half of it (sometime last week maybe?) ! It was perfectly fine before YET the city's road department decided to pave it for some reason. why Toronto... WHY?!
 
Finch is also pretty bad, but I think the city is holding it off, because the LRT is going on it.
 
YES! Finally something I can answer on this forum. The reason you see many patch jobs on Bayview Ave. is because of all the utility cuts. Road restoration is a two step process (temp. + final), meaning that it's not one single dept. that handles all of it. You're partially correct regarding Finch Ave :p.
 
please expand on what you mean by utility cuts , is it like budget constraints?

and if so, why was Mt pleasant re-done in just a week while Bayview is taking years
 
EFSF Jaburo said:
please expand on what you mean by utility cuts , is it like budget constraints?
Click to expand...

When a utility company (water, gas, hydro, phones) opens ('cuts") the road or sidewalk they need a permit and must make a temporary repair and give the City $$ to repair the hole permanently. It is best to let these temporary patches settle so the City seldom fixes them until the next year when they do all (or most) in an area/street as this is less disruptive and cheaper. On some roads they intentionally do not do the final repairs because they plan to do a far more major repair. I think Finch is on the "major repair" list for 2010 so they probably did not fix the utility cuts there in 2009.
 
Utility cuts are done by contractors usually working for Enbridge, Hydro, Rogers or Bell. Cuts require a permit from the City that the contractor must request prior to doing anything. Locates must also be obtained by the contractor. Finch is on the list of repairs for 2010. Final restoration is usually a year later after the temporary restoration because you have to allow for settlement, or related works in the area in the near future.

The Finch "sinkhole" has been fixed. I don't remember exactly when Finch Ave. W. was opened but it was after my vacation so around the beginning of November.
 
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I am curious about the Finch repaving in 2010. Is that for Finch west or east? I hope they repave from Yonge to Leslie. The section from Bathurst to Yonge is also bad
 
All those uneven cuts made for the new townhouses. If I recall, this section from Bathurst was repaved around 2000.
 
This is all last-minute stimulus money that has to be spent. In the case of Mount Pleasant, I was, well, pleasantly surprised to see the resurfacing south of the CPR, and, most crucially, the intersection with St. Clair. It had gotten so bad there that the old streetcar tracks had almost completely come up to the surface. I don't know if they actually excavated them out, or just resurfaced the road, but it's *much* better now.

And I agree, Bayview is a disaster. Now that Yonge has been rebuilt from Wilson to Eglinton (and the parallel stretch of Avenue Road has been rebuilt over the past few years as well), I suspect we'll start seeing work on Bayview, especially now that they've completed rebuilding the bridge at Lawrence.
 
I (insert username here) agree completely with this topic. The City is fixing all the roads that I (insert username here) don't use! :p
 
lol

Seriously though, it does seem like 2009 was a year where the city didn't really do any major routes, just small patches of roads here and there. I thought they are trying to work at the backlog of roads and try to spend more money on repaving.
 
fiendishlibrarian said:
This is all last-minute stimulus money that has to be spent. In the case of Mount Pleasant, I was, well, pleasantly surprised to see the resurfacing south of the CPR, and, most crucially, the intersection with St. Clair. It had gotten so bad there that the old streetcar tracks had almost completely come up to the surface. I don't know if they actually excavated them out, or just resurfaced the road, but it's *much* better now.
Click to expand...
When they repaved some sections of Danforth a year or two ago, they just paved over the tracks again.
 
lead82 said:
lol

Seriously though, it does seem like 2009 was a year where the city didn't really do any major routes, just small patches of roads here and there. I thought they are trying to work at the backlog of roads and try to spend more money on repaving.
Click to expand...

The repaving of Annette was finished this spring, and it is lurrrvly and flat :D:D:D The bike lanes are great and heavily used all summer - no thanks to our councilor who tried to axe them!

First utility cut on our stretch was done last friday though - and I suspect that the poor crew's hair shinged with all the glares they got from passers-by, poor chaps! ;)
AmJ
 
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