Liberty Village bridge left inaccessible for last 3 months after fire in elevator

The Liberty Village bridge has been plagued with issues of vandalism and loitering since it first opened less than a year ago, but for the last three months, it has also been inaccessible.

A fire in the elevator on the south side of the bridge stopped it from functioning. The City of Toronto still has not repaired it, rendering the bridge unavailable for many in the neighbourhood.

The bridge – approved in 2011 and opened a decade later, in April 2021 – connects King Street to Western Battery Road, providing a shortcut to transit for those in the heart of Liberty Village.

Vanda, a resident of the area who regularly uses the bridge, reached out to CityNews after multiple attempts to contact the city.

“I keep getting the same reply, ‘Someone will get back to you.’ No one ever does. And it’s been three months, and we’re in the dead of winter,” Vanda said. “It’s a multimillion-dollar accessible bridge, and half of it is not actually accessible.

“There are lots of families with strollers, little children. There are people who have mobility issues and have been counting on at least the elevator parts because they built a bridge with stairs and elevators against the public’s opinion,” she said.

Vanda was directly affected by the inaccessibility of the bridge when she herniated a disc in her back.

“I was not able to move around freely. I needed to do grocery shopping, and this would have been helpful for me to be able to cross over to do my daily tasks that I need, but I wasn’t able to do so,” said Vanda.

“Even if you have a cart, you can’t take it up all these stairs. These stairs are massive. So I mean, it’s a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, but I’m not the only person.”

The City of Toronto tells CityNews that Transportation Services and Engineering and Construction Services are both working to repair the elevators at the King-Liberty Pedestrian/Cyclist Bridge to “bring them back to working condition as soon as possible.”

“We will follow up with a more precise timeline for completion of that work early next week,” read their statement to CityNews.

She said she lives directly across from the bridge and has seen a lot fewer families with strollers and elderly people using this bridge in the last couple of months.

Many of the issues residents have seen with the bridge were brought up in public consultations. “We were very vocal years ago about the issues that we thought that we knew was going to happen, and everything that we said in the public consultations has come to pass,” said Vanda.

Vanda said many people had preferred a ramp, similar to the bridge that connects CityPlace to Front Street.

The city councillor for the area, Joe Cressy, told CityNews previously they were forced to use an enclosed bridge and elevators to make it accessible due to the slope of the ground around the rail corridor in that spot, they couldn’t build a ramp.

Vanda added the issues residents told CityNews about last November continue to be a problem. “There are a lot of issues with vandalism, squatting here, unfortunately, drug use. If you go up into the at the top, you’ll see all kinds of drug paraphernalia.”

At the time, Cressy said he was aware of the safety concerns from residents and had elevated the issue to the City’s corporate security team.