Bay Street is now open to traffic after falling glass prompted police to close down a section of the road earlier this morning.
At around 6 a.m., glass was seen falling from the fifth floor of the Sick Kids research centre, located in the area of Bay and Elm streets.
As a result, officers closed the busy downtown street between Elm and Walton streets and the area reopened to traffic a few hours later.
Speaking to CP24 Thursday, Mario Angelucci, the deputy chief building official with the City of Toronto, said falling glass poses very little risk to the public.
“These buildings comply with the building codes. The glass is temporary glass, also known as safety glass, so when there is a failure that occurs, the glass falls or fails in very small pieces and there isn’t a significant risk to the public,” he said.
The glass in the Sick Kids research centre was also designed to have two layers of glass so that if the outer layer fails, the inner layer stays intact, ensuring that there is no safety risk to the occupants inside the building, , Angelucci added.
The failures, he noted, are rare.
