Gardiner Could Be Open For Morning Rush
Posted March 5, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It was a decision they made reluctantly, knowing what it would mean.
But as police watched huge pieces of ice fall off the outside of the CN Tower for a fourth straight day, they knew they didn’t have any choice.
They wound up closing a section of the Gardiner Expressway from Yonge to Spadina just after 8am Monday morning. And it stayed that way right through the afternoon rush.
Will history repeat itself on Tuesday?
It might not.
Cops are watching the forecast and say if the winds die down, they could re-open the roadway in time for the morning rush.
The expected chaos followed the closing, with drivers jamming onto the Lake Shore to try and finish their journeys. GO buses that depend on the route were also delayed and detoured, causing further problems for those who took public transit. (For more info on the GO problems, click here.)
But authorities felt it was in the best interest of drivers to take no chances with safety.
“We’ve had several pieces about the size of baseballs land on the Gardiner Expressway,” relates Sgt. Peter Troup. “So you can imagine falling from 1,800 feet. It will kill people.”
Troup recalls one chunk as especially frightening.
“We had a piece approximately four feet by four feet … fly over top of the Gardiner.”
He calls it the size of a kitchen tabletop. It shattered into pieces after falling onto the pavement.
But it wasn’t just the Gardiner that became a no-go zone.
A falling chunk of frozen water screamed down from a perilous height on Monday on King St. West, smashing the back of a taxi cab’s rear window. Although the splintered glass was everywhere, no one was hurt.
But that incident spurred the closure of that major street as well, from York to Bay.
All of which didn’t sit well with drivers, who didn’t sit well in long lines of traffic.
“I’ve come off the midnight shift and it’s going to take me hours to get home,” groaned one woman as she contemplated the jam in front of her.
“I think it’s overly cautious to tell you the truth,” adds another.
But those who witnessed the big fall on King St. West weren’t so sure.
“I saw a big chunk of ice come down and hit the back window of this cab and it broke the window, and hit another car too,” a man remembers.
Cops are also convinced they did the right thing.
“When the ice hits the ground, it fractures into several shards and it’s like shrapnel,” warns Supt. Hugh Ferguson.
It’s not a war wound they think those fighting the traffic wars should get to display.
- The CN Tower has had ice problems before but this is the worst in its 30 year history. Management says there’s not much they can do except wait for warmer weather.
