LILLEY: Onslaught of road closures for good causes snarl traffic

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Spring has sprung, the grass isn’t quite riz, but Torontonians better get ready for the annual onslaught of road closures.

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No, not maintenance road closures, the ones we feel guilty complaining about since they raise money for cancer research, dementia, or other worthy causes.

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Between the beginning of May and Canada Day, there are no fewer than seven major events featuring road and highway closures over that nine-week span. In between, and even before then, there are also the minor events that will at times only affect a single neighbourhood.

Let’s be clear, these are all fine events, supporting great causes, but we also have to come to terms with the fact that there are a lot of them and they can wreak havoc on the city.

Take for example the Bike for Brain Health event on Sunday, June 2. It bills itself as the ultimate one-day bike ride.

“Anyone with a bike can ride Toronto’s highways, traffic free, while supporting world-leading research, innovation, care and education at Baycrest for Alzheimer’s and other dementias,” the event’s website says.

To accomplish this event though, the Gardiner Expressway from the Humber River to the Don Valley Parkway, and the Don Valley Parkway from the Gardiner Expressway to York Mills Rd., will be closed from 2 a.m. until 4 p.m. on June 2.

Later in the summer, the Toronto Triathlon Festival will result in a partial closure of these same highways. On Sunday, July 14, from 2 a.m. to noon, eastbound lanes on the Gardiner Expressway from the Humber River to the Don Valley Parkway, and northbound lanes on the Don Valley Parkway from the Gardiner Expressway to Eglinton Ave. E. will be shut down.

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According to the city’s own statistics, the Don Valley Parkway was designed to accommodate 60,000 vehicles daily and regularly sees 135,000 on a weekday. Anyone who drives the DVP on a nice Toronto weekend knows that traffic is still horrendous.

Shutting down the DVP, and the busier still Gardiner, means a lot of displaced traffic onto neighbouring roads that aren’t designed to handle that kind of volume.

All of this, for these two events, is on top of the ongoing construction work on these highways, or their adjacent roadways that make getting around Toronto impossible.

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Add to that, the events closing down city streets over the next few weeks and you end up with a lot of frustrated residents.

Here’s a partial list of events, just the major ones, ahead of Canada Day:

May 5 – Toronto Marathon

May 12 – Sporting Life 10K

June 2 – Bike for Brain Health

June 8 – Run for women

June 15 – Under Armour 10K

June 16 – Journey to Conquer Cancer

June 29 – Pride and Remembrance Run

Each of these events will draw thousands of participants and add to the richness of our city fabric – all while snarling traffic.

It’s that last bit that the event organizers and planners at City Hall don’t seem to care about. They don’t consider the impact on driving around the city, primarily because the ethos at City Hall seems to be about making sure you don’t drive.

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Yet, driving is how visitors come to our city, and it is how many of us experience different neighbourhoods that aren’t as accessible by transit. Driving is simply a fact of life whether the powers that be at City Hall like it or not.

There needs to be better scheduling of these events and perhaps an attempt to look for new venues and routes that don’t shut down major highways or roads in the city every weekend. For example, the Toronto Women’s Half-Marathon takes place at Sunnybrook Park and is completed using only the city’s paved walkways in the park system.

Let’s have a vibrant city but let’s be smart about it and not stick it to the drivers each and every weekend.

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