2 major downtown streets remain closed after watermain breaks

The headache continues for drivers as repairs to two broken watermains in the city’s downtown core are not expected to be completed until the weekend.

It’s been almost a week since a watermain break forced the closure of lower Bayview Avenue near Dundas Street. Crews were quick to make the repair to the watermain, which dates back as far as the 1890s, but during the course of those repairs, a second break occurred on the same pipe.

City officials were hopeful the second break would be repaired by Tuesday but now say the section of Bayview, from River Street to Labatt Avenue, won’t reopen until Friday.

On Wednesday morning, a broken watermain flooded Parliament Street in the Distillery District, causing a river flowing south through Front Street, all the way down to the Gardiner Expressway.

Parliament Street has been closed in both directions from Mill Street to King Street East. As well, Front Street has also been closed from Berkley to Trinity.

William Shay, director of distribution and collection for Toronto Water, told Breakfast Television the break in the 12-inch watermain washed out the road underneath the intersection at King and Front, so crews had to dig out a large portion of the area.

“We’re cutting (the road) out and filling it up as we go so it doesn’t collapse,” he explained.

“(The repair) is slow going because we have to support it as we go. We can’t just dig it out and fix it and then fill it in, we have to fill it as we go.”

A third watermain also broke in midtown this week at Eglinton and Mt. Pleasant. That watermain was repaired within the day and traffic has returned to the area.

Shay said one of the reasons these watermain breaks happen is the age of the pipes.

“The watermains that you’ve seen breaking as of late are big and old, over 100 years old, one was 120 years old,” he explained.

“About 10 per cent of our watermains are over 100 years old and we have a 10-year plan, we’re spending $2-billion to replace and rehabilitate these watermains … that should take care of most of that older infrastructure.”